Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Confusion Surrounds State’s Medical Marijuana Laws

The former owner of a Los Angeles County marijuana dispensary will learn of his sentence in the coming month in a case (LACBA368181-01, Los Angeles County Superior Court) that brings to light the confusion still surrounding California’s medical marijuana laws more than 15 years after the passage of Proposition 215, say Southern California criminal defense attorneys Jeremy Lessem and Joshua Newstat.

Under California state law, marijuana dispensaries must be operated on a non-profit basis. In many cases, however, authorities have raided dispensaries and charged them with operating on a “for profit” basis.
According to the Culver City Patch, prosecutors alleged that the Organica Collective dispensary near the Culver City-Los Angeles border had earned an average of $400,000 per month.

The news outlet reports that the former owner of the dispensary, which was raided three times, pleaded no contest to two counts each of marijuana possession and money laundering and will receive a sentence on September 2.

“We can’t comment on this case, because we don’t know all of the facts, but what we can say is that, in Southern California, we are increasingly seeing police raid medical marijuana dispensaries despite the fact that they are, indeed, in compliance with state law,” says Lessem, an experienced Los Angeles criminal defense attorney.

“We’re finding that local police agencies and prosecutors are either ignoring the law or giving it an overly narrow interpretation that basically ignores the will of the state’s voters,” says Lessem, co-founder of the Southern California criminal defense law firm of Lessem & Newstat, LLP, which regularly represents California drug crime defendants.

“This is creating confusion for patients and caregivers – especially the issue of whether the dispensary is non-profit or for-profit – and at some point, that confusion is going to need to end,” he says.
Voters approved Proposition 215, or the California Compassionate Use Act, in 1996. It led to Senate Bill 420, or the Medical Marijuana Program Act, which established laws now found in sections 11362.7 through 11362.83 of the state’s Health and Safety Code.

Those laws do not legalize marijuana – it is still a banned controlled substance under state and federal law – but instead provide immunity to qualified patients and caregivers who go through the procedural steps to receive “identification cards.”

The law allows those qualified patients and caregivers to “collectively or cooperatively” cultivate marijuana as long as it is for medical purposes and reasonably related to each patient’s medical needs. The law strictly prohibits “for-profit” dispensaries. The federal government still has the power to prosecute federal marijuana offenses.

“In addition to the conflict between state and federal law, the issue that seems to arise most often is whether the medical marijuana dispensary was operating in a non-profit or for-profit capacity, and that’s where the assistance of an experienced and qualified lawyer is needed,” says Newstat, a Ventura County drug crimes defense attorney and Lessem & Newstat, LLP, co-founder. “It’s crucial to look through all business records, accounts and other forms of evidence in order to establish that the collective was, in fact, operating in perfect compliance with the letter and the spirit of California’s medical marijuana laws,” Newstat says.

“At Lessem & Newstat, we have years of experience defending those who have been charged with drug crimes in Southern California, including medical marijuana-related charges,” he says. “We work hard to protect our clients’ rights and mount the strongest defense possible.”

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