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San Diego NBC7 News
San Diego County Sheriffs and CHP shut down Camino Paz on Tuesday to search for the suspected getaway driver in a Spring Valley pot shop robbery


Nearly a century ago, between 1920 – 1933, the United States undertook what some called “the noble experiment”; the nationwide prohibition of alcohol.
In reality, it was a horrifically stupid experiment and a miserable failure that led to increased alcohol consumption, an overall increase in crime, the rise of organized crime, the court systems were flooded with trivial cases, public officials and politicians succumbed to atrocious levels of greed and corruption, and untold amounts of taxpayer dollars were forfeited to a thriving black market.
Sound familiar?

San Diego Police Department
Evidence photo from an October 15th raid on Market Greens marijuana dispensary in San Diego, CA


Another week means another horrible round of cannabis-related headlines coming out of sunny San Diego, California. In an attempt to turn America’s Finest City into the nation’s Ground Zero in the War on Weed, San Diego city officials, backed by a militant branch of the DEA and weed-hating local law enforcement, have almost totally shut down any idea of safe access to medical marijuana.
San Diego’s scene has been slashed from over 300 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011, to less than 40 in operation today – and not one of those 40 is operating with the consent of the city.

“People in the state of California unfortunately have to be aware of the inherent risk that the feds may come in and shut you down.” – Nathan Shaman, CA-based Attorney


Earlier this year, 25-year old Zack Curcie was at work as a gardener on a 10-acre parcel of land being used to cultivate medical marijuana in the foothills of southern California.
Though the grow site was legal under California state law, and the people behind it went to great lengths to follow the state’s 18-year old pot laws as best they could, on September 24th Curcie, an Iraq War vet, found out what it is like to be on the other side of a military-style raid as aggressive San Diego-based Narcotics Task Force (NTF) agents stormed the property with weapons raised.


Earlier this week, a reader passed along the following note and video to us. It’s a frustrating tale that unfortunately is all too common, even in states that allow for medical cannabis use and cultivation.
“Deborah and Dennis are elderly patients living in San Diego that decided to grow a small amount of cannabis for personal use and soon after were raided by the San Diego Narcotics Task Force. Deborah Little has been HIV positive for over 20 years and her husband suffers from nerve damage – there is no reason they should have been raided and dragged through the judicial system. Thankfully, they were both found NOT GUILTY in the end, but not before the public officials made their life a living hell for nearly 2 years. It is a true injustice that patients are still having to deal with this in 2014.”

Facebook
The local news blurred out the “Fuck the Growers…Marijuana is still illegal” part of this narc’s lame shirt


There is no shortage of headlines in the news these days about police officers abusing their power and denying citizens of even their most basic rights.
From Ferguson, Missouri, to your town or one nearby, cops are getting caught – many times on camera – showing little or no respect for due process, and all too often are using their own personal ideologies as a sliding scale of sorts to decide when and how to enforce the law.
They typically do not wear that ideology printed on their uniforms, however, but one law enforcement officer involved in a raid earlier this week in San Diego has some explaining to do regarding his blunt sense of style.

Bobby Earle
Deborah & Dennis Little had their home raided in 2012, now they’re fighting back


Two years ago, in September of 2012, a law enforcement helicopter buzzed over the top of Dennis Little’s land in the quiet country town of Ramona, California. One month later, a joint task force comprised of local law enforcement officers and DEA agents kicked down Mr. Little’s door and arrested him and his wife on suspicion of cultivating illegal amounts of marijuana.
In March of 2013, San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis took them to court on the charges, and one full year later, in March of this year, they beat her at her own game and were fully acquitted of all charges by a jury of their peers.
With two years of their lives turned upside down, thousands of dollars lost to lawyers and courts, and a hard reputation to shake in a small town, one might think that the Little’s would be happy to put it all behind them. But they have some justice of their own to attend to first.

FlickrCommons


Many people in the cannabis community heard the news via social media apps like Facebook and Instagram way before the San Diego Division of the DEA put out a press release and the local news media caught on.
On Wednesday of last week, the DEA announced that on September 16th, 2014, they arrested nine San Diego area residents after successful raids on multiple locations in the takedown stage of a yearlong investigation they oh-so-cleverly dubbed Operation: Shattered Dreams.

KeoniCabral/FlickrCommons


In February of this year, local pro-cannabis activists in Kern County in Southern California concocted a defense of pot dispensaries that you have to be toking on some top shelf herbs to come up with.
Their argument was that by forcing the closure or re-location of the vast majority of local medical marijuana storefronts, they would be violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by making the region’s cannabis consumers drive their pollution-spewing cars even further to get their medication.
Half-baked or not, the defense stood up in court and the de facto ban on medical marijuana in Kern County was delayed. As we reported at the time, the court’s decision set a potential landmark precedent for other counties or cities on the verge on instituting their own crackdowns on the chron. The example we used was San Diego, and sure enough, America’s Finest City has become the new proving ground.

www.weedmaps.com


Leading up to the statewide California election this past Tuesday, it is probably safe to say that a majority of voters in San Diego did not realize that they were casting ballots either for, or against, safe access to medical marijuana in the city.
There were no particular referendums for reefer, no specific ballot measures for medical marijuana, but the disappointing results in the city’s District Attorney race, and a rightward-shift in the too-powerful City Council, are reportedly the result of low voter turnout.
It was a tough day at the polls for pro-cannabis activists in America’s Finest City. Another in a disheartening string of crushing blows against any legitimacy for medical marijuana in San Diego.


As we predicted when we reported on San Diego’s restrictive new medical marijuana ordinance that was passed back in February of this year, pro-cannabis advocates in the city filed a lawsuit late last week to attempt to stop the new proposal in its tracks.
Earlier in the month of February, Toke of the Town reported that a California judge in Kern County had ruled in favor of cannabis activists who argued that a recently approved and highly restrictive ordinance had created a de facto ban on storefront medical marijuana dispensaries in the region.
Those activists then took it a step further, citing the California Environmental Quality Act, arguing that the new ordinance was literally making people drive too far to get their weed, in turn creating undue amounts of air pollution. Lo and behold, the judge bought it and the ban was lifted.

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