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Medical Marijuana Community on Edge After Raids
Posted by CN Staff on March 23, 2011 at 14:05:55 PT
By Molly Priddy
Source: Flathead Beacon
MT -- Montana Cannabis Company, a medical marijuana dispensary in Evergreen, was oddly empty last Wednesday. The glass cases that usually display owner Matthew Wymer’s products stood void, housing only tie-dyed shelf liners and a piece of paper listing marijuana strains. Wymer, who said he has been a caregiver for a couple years and opened his storefront last month, said he usually sees 10 to 15 patients a day. “Yesterday and today I’ve seen zero,” he said.
The medical marijuana community in the Flathead is spooked, he said, after federal agents executed 26 search warrants on several medical marijuana facilities throughout the state on March 14. “It’s sketchy right now; there’s a whole lot of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” Wymer said. Several warrants were issued for the Flathead, including on businesses in Kalispell, Olney, Whitefish and Columbia Falls. Michael Cotter, U.S. attorney for the District of Montana, said in a prepared statement that the raids were the culmination of a specific, 18-month investigation into drug trafficking and criminal enterprises operating in the Big Sky state.The warrants were served where “there is probable cause that the premises were involved in illegal and large-scale trafficking of marijuana,” Cotter said.Cotter added that individuals with illnesses who are in “clear and unambiguous compliance with state law” were not the focus of the investigation. Still, for some members of the medical marijuana community in the Flathead, the raids caused confusion and raised fears about running a state-sanctioned but federally illegal business.“I think there’s some definite unrest,” said Brad McMillan of Four Seasons Gardening near Columbia Falls. “People are afraid of becoming criminals doing what they were told they could do.”Montana voters approved the Medical Marijuana Act in 2004, but the federal government still considers marijuana an illegal substance. The state law faced repeal in the Legislature this month, but the effort stalled. It remains unclear whether other legislation aimed at tightening marijuana rules will be successful. McMillan said the lack of clear medical marijuana regulations from the state allows for ambiguity, and it is an issue he hopes lawmakers will address. “This whole community has been screaming for guidance for some time and not getting it,” McMillan said. Mike Lee, owner of the dispensary Westside Medical, LLC, said last week’s raid made him nervous about running a medical marijuana business. “Everyone was really scared,” Lee said, standing in his shop located near Columbia Falls on U.S. Highway 2. The raids coincided with a failed 6-6 vote in the state Legislature’s Senate Judiciary Committee to repeal Montana’s Medical Marijuana Act, prompting suspicion among dispensary owners that the raids were politically motivated. Although that feeling began to wane somewhat as more information about the investigation was released. Good Medicine Providers and Northern Lights Medical, two different businesses located in the same building near Columbia Falls, were served warrants on March 16. Employees there, who spoke with the Beacon on the condition that their names are not used due to pending legal uncertainties, said the federal agents forced patients from their waiting rooms. “They scared the crap out of our patients,” one employee said. The employees said the federal agents took pounds of marijuana from the facility. One employee said they expected to have their computer back on the evening of March 16 and that they were confident Good Medicine Providers would reopen eventually. Pot plants, computers, files and paraphernalia were seized from many of the locations around the state during the raids, according to reports from The Associated Press. The search warrants remain sealed. One of the biggest raids was at a large greenhouse in Helena owned by Montana Cannabis. Good Medicine Providers is not affiliated with Montana Cannabis, the employees said. As of press time, no criminal charges had been filed as a result of the raids. However, Ryan Wells, owner of Advanced Farming of Montana, said that it could benefit the medical cannabis community if illegal activities are prosecuted. “A lot of people do work this properly and stay within the legal limits,” Wells said. The mention of alleged money laundering in the search warrants raised red flags for some in the community, including Wells, who said the larger marijuana businesses are likely to get more attention from federal authorities than small- to mid-level operations. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, civil seizure warrants for financial institutions in Bozeman, Helena and Kalispell sought to freeze up to $4 million in assets. Since the warrants were part of a specific federal investigation, Wells said he is less nervous that federal agents will show up at his door. “I don’t think you’ll see blatant raids,” he said. Wells is a member of the Montana Medical Growers Association, which formed about a year ago as a way to present a unified voice for the community. The Flathead chapter of the MMGA meets the first Thursday of every month at the Red Lion Hotel in Kalispell. Discussions include the lack of specific rules and clarity in state law, he said. Harsher regulations would help legitimize medical marijuana and illegally run businesses would have to tighten up their processes to remain viable. “I think we just need hardcore regulations to weed all the bad people out,” he said. “I want regulations because it would stiffen up the competition.”MMGA Executive Director Jim Gingery said every profession has a few bad seeds that it needs to deal with, but the alleged mistakes of a few are not a reflection on the entire industry. “That doesn’t mean they’re all bad; it doesn’t mean you don’t have to have some rules in place, which is what we’ve been asking for,” Gingery said. “We didn’t ask for prohibition, we asked for reasonable rules in place.”Some of the gray areas in medical marijuana law include caregiver-to-caregiver transactions, he said, which is something he hoped the Legislature would help clear up. MMGA has been working with lawmakers to help craft new industry regulations, he said. Gingery, however, considers the recent raids a federal intrusion into Montana law that could have negative effects on the patients the dispensaries served. “The result of these raids means that the patients served by those storefronts may not be able to legally obtain medicine for more than two months due to the backlog of processing at (the state health department),” Gingery said. At his Evergreen store, Wymer said he expects the medical marijuana community to remain wary for some time after the raids, and is uncertain what it could mean for the future of his store.“Everybody’s just kind of on red alert right now,” he said. “It’s enough to scare the hell out of everybody.” Source: Flathead Beacon, The (Kalispell, MT)Author: Molly PriddyPublished: March 23, 2011Copyright: 2011 Flathead BeaconContact: editor flatheadbeacon.comWebsite: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/ZFWvtOwwCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #11 posted by weedoflife on March 28, 2011 at 08:33:55 PT:
The Patients and caregivers need to fight back
The state has passed statues saying that marijuana has medical use even if they are trying to repeal them they are still state laws.The patients and caregivers needs to sue there state for not protecting from federal law by not changing there states controlled substance law to comply with medical marijuana statues and filing a rescheduling petition with federal goverment so the goverment knows they have made this change.This is what medical marijuana states need to start doing if they ever want to see the federal goverment leave there medicine alone.Its up to the states to tell the federal goverment what they consider is medicine until they do all dispenceries are up for grabs by the DEA.So sue your state for not protecting you from such injustice.
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on March 23, 2011 at 17:34:39 PT
This is What Made Me Happy!
Excerpt: The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct ANTI-TUMOR effect.URL: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on March 23, 2011 at 17:29:57 PT
National Cancer Institute Cannabis & Cannabinoids
OverviewThis complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) information summary provides an overview of the use of Cannabis and its components as a treatment for people with cancer -related symptoms caused by the disease itself or its treatment.This summary contains the following key information:Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years prior to its current status as an illegal substance.Chemical components of Cannabis, called cannabinoids, activate specific receptors found throughout the body to produce pharmacologic effects, particularly in the central nervous system and the immune system.Cannabinoids may have benefits in the treatment of cancer-related side effects.Many of the medical and scientific terms used in this summary are hypertext linked (at first use in each section) to the NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms, which is oriented toward nonexperts. When a linked term is clicked, a definition will appear in a separate window. All linked terms and their corresponding definitions will appear in a glossary in the printable version of the summary.Reference citations in some PDQ CAM information summaries may include links to external Web sites that are operated by individuals or organizations for the purpose of marketing or advocating the use of specific treatments or products. These reference citations are included for informational purposes only. Their inclusion should not be viewed as an endorsement of the content of the Web sites, or of any treatment or product, by the PDQ Cancer CAM Editorial Board or the National Cancer Institute.General InformationCannabis, also known as marijuana, originated in Central Asia but is grown worldwide today. In the United States, it is a controlled substance and is classified as a Schedule I agent (a drug with increased potential for abuse and no known medical use). The Cannabis plant produces a resin containing psychoactive compounds called cannabinoids. The highest concentration of cannabinoids is found in the female flowers of the plant. As a botanical, Cannabis is difficult to study because of the lack of standardization of the botanical product due to the many climates and environments in which it is grown. Clinical trials conducted on medicinal Cannabis are limited.The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.Cannabinoids are a group of terpenophenolic compounds found in Cannabis species (Cannabis sativa L. and Cannabis indica Lam.). This summary will review the role of Cannabis and the cannabinoids in the treatment of people with cancer and disease-related or treatment-related side effects.ReferencesAdams IB, Martin BR: Cannabis: pharmacology and toxicology in animals and humans. Addiction 91 (11): 1585-614, 1996. [PUBMED Abstract]URL: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page1
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Comment #8 posted by HempWorld on March 23, 2011 at 16:46:08 PT
Thank you too Hope!
I am so glad you made it through. I hope you will live long, I always really enjoy your comments.
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on March 23, 2011 at 16:29:34 PT
That is so sad.
"MT -- Montana Cannabis Company, a medical marijuana dispensary in Evergreen, was oddly empty last Wednesday. The glass cases that usually display owner Matthew Wymer’s products stood void, housing only tie-dyed shelf liners and a piece of paper listing marijuana strains."And such a sad waste and loss.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on March 23, 2011 at 16:27:32 PT
HempWorld
It's good to see you.
[ Post Comment ]
Comment #5 posted by FoM on March 23, 2011 at 16:10:41 PT
HempWorld
Thank you too!
[ Post Comment ]
Comment #4 posted by HempWorld on March 23, 2011 at 16:08:47 PT
Thank you FoM!
You are the everburning candle of hope with your site CannabisNews.com and your all your comments, thank you so much!
[ Post Comment ]
Comment #3 posted by FoM on March 23, 2011 at 15:58:22 PT
HempWorld
It's wonderful to see you and I hope all is well.
[ Post Comment ]
Comment #2 posted by HempWorld on March 23, 2011 at 15:56:11 PT
Hey Eddie, hi FoM, all,
I share your feelings. In this great country of the United States reefer madness rules! Courtesy of 70+ years of heavy propaganda have saturated up to 3 generations with reefer madness of which we see the outcome on a daily basis.This started and was put into overdrive right after the approval of prop. 215 in 1996 in California. Since then marijuana has created tons of jobs especially in the legislature of every state that had its citizens vote in the healing herb. Knee-jerk reactions abound, too many to mention here, Montana is the latest where intolerant a-retentive republicans try to turn the clock back and violate the democratic process while doing it.The feds won't budge on reclassification because that would be against their masters advice and THC has been medicalized for big pharma. Game over, I'm afraid.But we still have to fight this all tooth and nail, we need to stand up for our rights but undoing 70+, and counting, of propaganda against science, reason, compassion and tolerance is not an easy task. We should never give up as BGreen's friend said, fight the good fight but were are up against all these m*r*ns.
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Comment #1 posted by eddie236 on March 23, 2011 at 15:37:33 PT
They need to clear this up!
Everywhere I've read about this, it says they were operating illegally. I feel that if the law is stretched enough to where you can legally have a dispensary, why screw that up by operating illegally? I'm supposed to be moving to Montana this July, and if this is still being debated, then I'm not going. I would like to be able to use my medicine legally without the fear of having to go to jail but apparently that's WAY too much to ask for.
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