| Village Voice Media |
A federal judge has rejected the request of medical marijuana providers to stop U.S. Attorneys from filing charges against them or seizing their property.
U.S. District Judge Sandra Brown Armstrong ruled in her Oakland courtroom that the medical marijuana collectives hadn’t shown they would suffer “immediate, irreparable harm” without the court order, reports Henry K. Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The court is sensitive to the desires of individuals to use medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation, as permitted by California law,” Armstrong wrote in her 27-page ruling, filed this week. “Nevertheless, marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and in Congress’ view, it has no medicinal value.”
The judge also said she doubted that the collectives would win lawsuits trying to stop the Obama Administration’s crackdown on dispensaries.
Marijuana distributors, patients and dispensary landlords filed lawsuits in all four of California’s federal districts in October, accusing the Department of Justice of violating an agreement to not go after them if they complied with state law.
| TalkLeft |
| DOJ = L I E |
The DOJ had claimed “those who possess, grow and distribute medical marijuana in compliance with state law will not be prosecuted nor their property seized,” lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
The lawyers argued that the federal government had made a “binding commitment” to follow that policy when it settled a suit last year by a dispensary in Santa Cruz. They said the government is violating that settlement — and breaking the law — with its crackdown on dispensaries by threatening to prosecute landlords.
The DOJ announced the crackdown at an October news conference with all four of California’s U.S. Attorneys in attendance.
It denies that it broke any legal commitments to the court or promises to the public — as if we couldn’t easily look up their dishonest words on the Internet. (Can you say, “Ogden Memo“? I thought you could!)
| Rose Law Group |
| So much for that, eh? Don’t make promises you can’t keep. |