Feds Close San Francisco Medical Marijuana Club, Arrest 4: Are They Also After the District Attorney?

by Preston Peet for Drugwar.com

Feb. 14, 2002

Federal agents swooped down in San Francisco and Oakland, California on Tuesday, (Feb. 12, 2002), arresting marijuana trafficking and growing suspects and closing one medical marijuana club. DEA agents allegedly made inquiries of club workers during the raid as to possible criminal connections between the club and San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, an outspoken defender of California’s medical marijuana clubs and patients.

The Raids

DEA agents arrested Richard Watts, Executive Director of the Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center during the early morning raids. Arrested in Oakland for growing was Ed Rosenthal, the infamous author of numerous marijuana grow books and a long time columnist for High Times Magazine, and Cannabis Culture, and Kenneth Hayes of Petaluma, who helped run the club and was arrested in Canada. In a separate case, agents arrested a 4th man, James Halloran, also of Oakland for growing in excess of 1,000 marijuana plants. All face prison sentences ranging from 40 years to life.

"Interesting timing for this raid -- the day of the most firm terrorist threat warning since 9/11; the day Asa Hutchison is in the Bay Area for a speech…; and the day of the release of the National Drug Control Strategy," noted Kevin Zeese, Director of Common Sense for Drug Policy in the popular online Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp newsletter. "The DEA came to Ed's home at 6:30 this morning and Ed greeted them in the nude. I know the DEA got what they deserved."

Probing the DA‘s Office?

City leaders had declared San Francisco a safe-zone for medical marijuana in November, 2001 in response to federal raids in Los Angeles and Northern California aimed at doctors and medical marijuana clubs. Hallinan told federal officials in a press conference in November to "lay off our marijuana clubs," that the local police were "living happily with our law." Hallinan was speaking of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, better known as Prop. 215, voted into State law by California residents just over 5 years ago.

"They asked us if he [Hallinan] was receiving monies from us or drugs," David Witty, the marijuana club's chief of security, said in an Associated Press article, (Feb. 13, 2002), by Margie Mason. "This is insane. What kind of city do you think we’re operating here, to think that we’re smugglers or involved in some other criminal activity?"

"Marijuana is still Schedule 1, so according to the Schedule, if a substance is placed in schedule 1 it has no medicinal value and has a high potential for abuse," San Francisco DEA spokesman Richard Meyer told Drugwar.com. "Everybody knows that federal law takes precedence over any state or local law." Meyer said that US Customs and the Internal Revenue Service had assisted in the investigation, but said he’d heard nothing about an investigation of Hallinan.

Hallinan spokesman Fred Gardner told Drugwar.com that this news "would interest my boss." Gardner expressed surprise as neither he nor his boss had read the quote nor heard from the DEA on any subject related to an investigation of Hallinan or his office. The entire operation was conducted without any input from State or local police officials or investigators.

"Hayes skipped town a couple weeks ago for good reason," Dale Geringer, President of California NORML, told Drugwar.com. "I think there were DEA informants operating within the club." Geringer explained that after finding a large amount of cash at the home of a recently deceased suspect pot trafficker last year, "the DEA started investigating, and they found this one guy, and he worked at the club. I believe they may have had a couple of other informants. They really worked this one hard."

Pissed Off City Leaders

Some city officials joined with protestors outside the Commonweath Club of California Tuesday evening, where inside DEA director Hutchison gave a speech and faced an overwhelmingly hostile crowd venting their anger over the raids and arrests. Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano called the DEA an "obnoxious, grandstanding agency," and Chris Daley, one of 4 city supervisors who showed up, told the crowd, "We will protest until this kind of nonsense from Washington, D.C. stops."

"This is a decision to be made by the voters of California and the people of the city and county of San Francisco," Hallinan himself shouted through a bullhorn to the crowd outside the Commonwealth.

Is There Any Room for Optimism?

There is the possibility that the DEA was not actually targeting the club simply because it was a medical marijuana club, although the timing of the raids might lead one to wonder. Meyer at DEA stressed that the DEA had been targeting "large scale traffickers," and Geringer is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"I was fearing that there was going to be a big DEA sweep of all the clubs. I now don’t believe that is going to happen. There may be a couple of parallel investigations that are going on, elsewhere of other clubs, but again, I think it will be individual investigations. The thing that I was always scared of was they might get an agent to go around with a medical club card and buy pot at all the clubs, then get an injunction and shut all the clubs down. I don’t see that happening at the moment."