The month of September has eternally been etched into memories of medical marijuana patients in San Diego. 

Image by D.A. Mantis

September 9th, marks the second anniversary of District Attorney (DA) Bonnie Dumanis’ Operation Green Rx raids; the largest one day swat style assault against medical marijuana access in San Diego County’s history.

In the early hours of Wednesday, September 9, 2009, Dumanis’ underlings, in collaboration with local DEA agents all part of the County’s cross-jurisdictional Narcotic Task Force (NTF), were set loose on the San Diego patient community.

Under the guise of “cracking down on illegal drug dealers,” that morning, federal and local law enforcement descended on over twenty dispensaries in the County. NTF agents seized medicine, money, patient records, and anything else they could get their hands on.

When the dust settled, it was discovered that only fourteen of the twenty plus locations raided had signed search warrants issued against them. The rest were intimidated into letting the NTF teams in without any paperwork. The operation was designed to instill fear and chaos into the patient community and to achieve a single goal; outright eradication of access to medical marijuana in the County.

It was also later discovered that detectives involved in the raids possessed medical marijuana cards themselves. All were obtained under aliases and by falsifying medical conditions by which they duped local doctors into issuing recommendations.

Detectives joined dispensaries as members and began regularly purchasing medicine from them prior to the raids. This allowed them to identify key management personnel as well as to understand the layout of the facilities in preparation for the day of raids.

Although dozens of sick and dying patients were arrested on 9/9/9, Dumanis’ office ended up filing charges against only small handful. Jovan Jackson, the director of Answerdam was among the few charged in State court. James Stacy director of Movement in Action, along with a few others were tossed over to the US Attorney’s office for federal prosecution.

In Stacy’s case, the federal charges carried with them a threat of life in prison. After a year of fighting to be allowed to bring up the words “medical marijuana” at trial, Stacy succeeded.

With the community’s full support and great legal representation by federal public defenders, the Federal Judge agreed Stacy was in full compliance with state law. Although an official medical marijuana defense was not the Judge agreed there was no way to keep the mention of medical marijuana and Stacy’s compliance with state law out of trial which potentially could have resulted in a federal acquittal, mistrial, or outright jury nullification.

In order to avoid further embarrassment the day before trial was to start, the US Attorney’s office made Stacy an unprecedented offer. They guaranteed no jail time and agreed to drop all charges if Stacy pled guilty to one count of cultivation.

Overnight, Stacy went from facing the possibility of life in federal prison, to three years probation with no jail time. Such an unprecedented offer was impossible to refuse and was a clear sign of the US Attorney acknowledging the sheer failure of the raids on legitimate patients.

Although the US Attorney technically got a conviction in that case, their offer paved the way for all dispensary operators in compliance with state laws who are charged in Federal court to either take their case to trial or demand the ‘Stacy Deal’.

In Jackson’s case, the raid on September 9th was the second time his facility had been hit in less than a year by Dumanis’ office. The day before the second raid, on September 8, while attending a routine court hearing for charges related to the first raid, Jackson was suddenly and without explanation taken into custody.

With Jackson in solitary confinement, Answerdam was raided for a second time on September 9th and a new case with a second set of identical charges was filed by Dumanis’ office.

When Jackson’s first case went to trial, it lasted almost three weeks. Having been assigned a fair Judge, twelve jurors examined all the facts of the case and carefully considered them against the State’s complete medical marijuana law. As a result, they quickly and unanimously found Jackson in compliance and not guilty of all the marijuana related charges.

In Jackson’s second trial however, Dumanis managed to hand pick Judge Howard Shore, a former prosecutor and traditional prohibitionist who blocked Jackson from using the medical marijuana defense in state court. This time, the jury only saw a redacted version of the laws which specifically excluded the language about collectives and cooperatives, the very language which jurors from the first case relied on in finding Jackson not guilty.

Having been denied knowledge of the previous trial and unable to apply the medical marijuana defense, jurors in the second trial were forced to convict him. Jackson’s second case is currently under appeal by Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s largest medical marijuana advocacy group.

Two years later and without question, Operation Green Rx has been an utter failure and colossal waste of taxpayers’ dollars. Aside from Stacy and Jackson, the vast majority of the patients raided on 9/9/9 have not been charged, prosecuted, or even summoned for a court appearance. All the money, cannabis, and other personal property seized that day has not been returned, and those patients who attempted to get their property back through the courts, were told by Dumanis’ office that felony charges would be filed if they tried.

After realizing that her eradication campaign failed, instead of working with patients to find common ground, Dumanis renamed the operation from ‘Green Rx’ to ‘Green Dope’ to better match her rhetoric of “going after drug dealers” and in the meantime, instructed the NTF Raid Teams to keep their focus on individual patients cultivating medicine rather than mass raids, and target especially those contributing their excess to the dispensaries.

Stemming from raids and investigations conducted by Dumanis’ office post Green Rx and in connection with the ‘new and improved ‘Operation Green Dope’, several cases are already making their way to trial.

Dumanis recently announced her candidacy for the City of San Diego’s 2012 Mayoral race. If elected she would become Mayor of the largest jurisdiction in the County and a City which over 180 dispensaries as well as over 50,000 medical marijuana patients call home.

In recent statements in response to media inquiries about her attacks on patients, Dumanis continues to dupe voters, still publicly claiming to support medical marijuana and justifying her incessant attacks on access as fighting “nothing but illegal drug dealers”.

Patients, caregivers, advocates and concerned citizens, are committed to fight Dumanis’ bias driven war and will not rest until the she is held accountable and the public is made aware of her track record on this issue.

As a direct result of Dumanis’ actions, September 9^th, will always be remembered as a dark day in San Diego’s medical marijuana history and one that will continue to serve as a clear example of the failed war on medical marijuana patients.

Contact Eugene Davidovich at eugene.davidovich@gmail.com

After previously giving us a false sense of security, the Obama administration now continues to ignore state laws and raid medical cannabis patients and facilities, while creating new ways to marginalize our community, including issues related to patient privacy, access, banking, taxation, and threats of filing suit against state employees who participate in upholding state law.

In addition, Bonnie Dumanis the San Diego District Attorney and Mayoral Candidate continues to wage her fierce fight against Proposition 215 and medical marijuana patients through vindictive prosecutions and continued swat style raids on patient homes and dispensing centers in collaboration with the DEA.
This community is still under attack!

Just this week, our community saw raids in Washington State and right here in San Diego County and on Monday, our community will lose two more of our brothers and sisters to the failed war on drugs. Dale Shafer and Dr. Mollie fry will turn themselves over to federal agents to serve five-year mandatory minimum sentences for legally participating in state sanctioned medical cannabis programs.

Enough is enough and Monday, May 2, 2011 is our time to take stand against federal interference, join activists in San Diego and cities across the country. Locations include, but are not limited to, the following areas: Washington State, Oregon, Rhode Island, Colorado, Montana, Michigan, Maine, New Jersey, Washington, DC, California, Arizona, Nevada, and Maryland. To find out what is going on in your area, email action@safeaccessnow.org, or print out theCease and Desist Order and take it to a local DEA Office or Federal Building near you on Monday!! 

Remember: if you don’t stand up for safe access, who will?

Special Patients’ Rights Rallies will be occurring in both Washington, DC outside of the Department of Justice at 12pm EST (event flyer) and outside of the Federal Courthouse in Sacramento, CA at 12pm PST for Dale Schafer and Dr. Mollie Fry (event flyer).

It’s thanks to the support from our members that ASA is able to hold Days of Action like this one. Please consider making a donation to ASA today, so we can continue to strengthen our fight for safe access.

San Diego Americans for Safe Access – www.safeaccesssd.org

“if you do not ease these unconstitutional restrictions[...]we will explore our options for doing so in court.” - ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford

Today, Americans For Safe Access (ASA), the largest grassroots organization in the country devoted to protecting the rights of medical marijuana patients and their physicians, announced they will indeed bring legal action against the City of San Diego for it’s overly restrictive ordinance if ‘unconstitutional restrictions‘ are not eased.  Despite the efforts of San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ office to control the regulation process with the County Board of Supervisors.

The demand letter, sent by the nations leading medical marijuana advocates, aims to take on the second-largest city in California and eighth-largest in the U.S., is a welcome turn of events for local Prop. 215 patients who have gone without official implementation of the voter backed initiative for nearly 15 years.

For Immediate Release: April 28th, 2011 - REPOST from ASA

Medical Marijuana Advocates Threaten to Sue if San Diego Fails to Amend Flawed Ordinance

San Diego, CA – Medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) threatened to file suit against the City of San Diego today if it doesn’t amend a recent ordinance that patient advocates are calling a de facto ban on local distribution facilities. ASA argued in a letter sent to City Attorney Jan Goldsmith that the ordinance violates due process rights of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives by forcing them to shut down in 30 days, leaving virtually no options for relocation.

Unless the city can “ease the restrictions on medical marijuana collectives, so that qualified patients can obtain the medicine they need,” the letter authored by ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford said that the organization and its patient base would be compelled to seek such remedies in court. The letter suggested that the San Diego City Council amend its ordinance to allow “medical marijuana collectives to operate in most commercial and all industrial zones” and increase “the period to obtain a conditional use permit to one year.”

The city council passed its ordinance on April 12th after months of feedback from hundreds of patients and experts. Virtually all of the requests for changes, including many from its own city-commissioned medical marijuana task force, were ignored. Advocates launched one of the largest letter-writing campaigns in the city’s history, resulting in thousands of letters being sent to city council members and the mayor. The ordinance recently became law without the signature of Mayor Jerry Sanders.

San Diego has a long history of hostility toward medical marijuana. In 2006, the county sued the state over having to implement the ID Card program, mandatory under the Medical Marijuana Program Act passed in 2003. The county, which took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost, now provides ID cards to thousands of qualified patients. Each year since 2005, San Diego medical marijuana providers have endured numerous aggressive federal raids carried out in conjunction with local law enforcement.

After a series of DEA-led raids in September 2009, one month prior to the now-famous Justice Department memo, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis prosecuted two patients, both of whom were acquitted by juries. One of those patients, Jovan Jackson, was tried a second time and convicted as a result of being denied a medical defense. ASA, which argued against the denial of Jackson’s defense at trial, is currently appealing his conviction.

Further information:
ASA threatens to sue City of San Diego:http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/San_Diego_Demand_Letter.pdf
San Diego medical marijuana ordinance:http://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/City_of_San_Diego_Ordinance.pdf

This morning, the local chapter of Americans for Safe Access confirmed that San Diego’s Most Powerful Politician is actually brave enough to be placed under San Diego’s political microscope.  The article is reposted below…

This campaign should be a lot of fun for virtually everyone except, Bonnie.  It’s going to be a rough ride for the ‘fierce fighter‘ as we too will be working as “Hard as Ever” on the Dumanis for Mayor campaign!

Bonnie Dumanis San Diego County District Attorney

Bonnie Dumanis Clings to Mayoral Race Vows to Run “Hard as Ever”

By: Eugene Davidovich, San Diego Americans for Safe Access

Dumanis scrambles to explain why official ‘Dumanis for Mayor’ Facebook page was shut down after move raises questions of her dropping out of the Mayoral race.

SAN DIEGO – On March 31, Bonnie Dumanis shut down her official Dumanis for San Diego Mayor Campaign Facebook page, a move that raised questions about her intent on staying in the San Diego Mayoral race.

That same day San Diego Americans for Safe Access brought this occurrence to light with a story published on the local ASA website stating: “This week, the Dumanis campaign shut down the official Dumanis for Mayor Facebook campaign page and removed any mention of Bonnie Dumanis running for mayor from her personal Facebook page. Could this be the sign of Bonnie Dumanis dropping out of the mayoral race?”

On April 1, Ms. Dumanis quickly responded announcing on twitter around 10am that “I am STILL running for mayor–as hard as ever! Press reports I might be quitting because I took down one of my FB pages are wrong!”

That same day, LGBT Weekly reached out to the Dumanis Campaign to confirm the rumor, and found that in fact Bonnie Dumanis did shut down her mayoral Facebook page but was not dropping out of the race. Dumanis’ camp claimed they were ‘consolidating’ pages.

One thing Dumanis’ camp failed to realize is that Facebook does not provide its users with the ability to ‘consolidate’ pages. In fact Facebook gives you only two options, either delete the page permanently or ‘un-publish’ the page.

When Dumanis’ campaign realized they were failing on Facebook while the NOT Dumanis page flourished, they decided to shut down their one month old campaign page in an attempt to save face in the media who likely would have soon reported that only 70 people had become her fans while the NOT DUMANIS page had gained over 200 fans all in less than half the time.

Clearly this was not a ‘consolidation’ of pages, rather an attempt to correct a failed campaign social networking strategy.

As the San Diego District Attorney, instead of inventing new terms and functionality on Facebook such as ‘consolidate’ when such functionality does not exist, and trying to claim that ASA was incorrect in seeing that her page was shut down, Dumanis should focus on her job of protecting the citizens of San Diego.

Dumanis’ support of anti-gay candidates like Steve Cooley, her fierce fight against medical marijuana, and her failed leadership and monarchical style reign as the San Diego District Attorney has guaranteed Dumanis the biggest opposition campaign that any candidate running for San Diego Mayor has ever seen.

Further Information:

Not Dumanis Facebook Page

LGBT Weekly Coverage

This weekend, the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access helped in hosted the National Activist Boot Camp. The San Diego training was held at the KNB Wine Cellars on Saturday and Sunday and was hosted by Vey Linville and Eugene Davidovich while at the same time, similar trainings were being held at over a dozen other cities throughout the nation.

This weekend at the San Diego training we covered Civics 101, Media Relations, Public Speaking, Lobbying Officials, Know Your Rights training, starting an ASA Chapter or Affiliate, as well as practiced public speaking by having all the participants prepare speeches for the second day of the training and each attendee presented their speech on Sunday morning to the group.

A special thank you to Maureen Orey, CPLP, from Workplace Learning and Performance Group for helping facilitate the training and conducting the active listening exercise and a special thank you to our guest speaker Terrie Best who did an amazing job with the Court Support portion of today’s training!

All attendees received The Medical Cannabis Advocates Hanbook 2011, a thorough 300 page guide for medical marijuana advocates, as well as will receive the videos seen during the training as a DVD in the weeks to come.

If you missed this training, the San Diego Chapter is already gearing up for the next San Diego Activist Boot Camp which will be held on March 19 & 20, 2011 at the Legal Cannabis Institute located at 10459 Roselle Street, Suite A, San Diego, CA 92121

Learn how to be an effective medical marijuana advocate! Stay tuned to the San Diego ASA website – www.safeaccesssd.org for registration, cost, and more information on the March training event.

Eugene Davidovich, Chapter Coordinator
San Diego Americans for Safe Access
http://www.safeaccesssd.org/

Get Involved, Get Active, Make a Difference!
Join ASA Today, visit http://www.safeaccessnow.org/

First, they think-a-like, Cooley is a staunch right-winger who is anti-medical marijuana and anti-marriage equality, Dumanis is an anti-medical marijuana, gay-married/anti-marriage equality right-winger.  

Second, they are both clearly confused about many of the same issues they agree on.

Third, they have made themselves enemies of Americans for Safe Access. 

And finally, they are both paying for it dearly!

As of today, San Diego Americans for Safe Access reports…

A Cooley defeat & Harris victory likely to improve patients’ civil rights & access to medical marijuana

Oakland, CA – Medical marijuana patient advocates breathed a collective sigh of relief today as Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley acknowledged defeat in his bid for California Attorney General. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country’s leading medical marijuana advocacy organization, partnered with the American Cannabis Research Institute (ACRI) and others to strongly oppose Cooley’s campaign using a web site, www.NotCooley.com, as well as video clips indicating how Cooley was bad for medical marijuana, the environment, and marriage equality, and other materials which were produced and disseminated to thousands of grassroots volunteers across the state.

“A defeat for Steve Cooley is a tremendous victory for patients,” said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. “Not only will we have an ally in Kamala Harris to be able to advance civil rights protections for patients, but we have also shown that medical marijuana advocates are a powerful political force.” Cooley’s Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, is California’s first female Attorney General. “This race shows that medical marijuana patients cannot be marginalized without a political consequence,” continued Sherer.

Advocates considered the Attorney General’s race to be the most important race for patients in California. Cooley has waged a  long-fought battle against patient advocates on the issue of medical marijuana. As Los Angeles District Attorney, Cooley condoned dozens of SWAT-style raids on local dispensaries, aggressively prosecuted patients and their providers, and tried to criminalize the “sale” of medical marijuana. Cooley is also a long-time ally of the California Narcotics Officers Association, a staunch anti-medical marijuana group calling for the “eradication” of dispensaries. By contrast, as San Francisco District Attorney, Harris has shown consistent support for the state’s medical marijuana laws and oversaw one of the first local dispensary regulatory ordinances in the country.

Some of Cooley’s positions caused environmental and marriage equality advocates to ally themselves with ASA and the hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients throughout California. Cooley’s stance on Proposition 8, the 2008 anti-gay marriage initiative, and his weak record on environmental justice and enforcement created a groundswell of opposition in a race Cooley was expected to win. This loose coalition worked diligently in the final hours to show how Cooley’s position on a variety of issues made him “Not Cool” for California.

Notably, Cooley was defeated in Los Angeles County by 14.5 percent, more than 250,000 votes, despite local residents electing him three times as District Attorney. And, despite last-minute attack ads against Harris, paid for by a contribution of at least $1 million from the Virginia-based Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), a corporate front group funded by tobacco, insurance and gambling interests, and coordinated by Karl Rove, Cooley was ultimately unable to win the election.

While the race for Attorney General was the most important for California patients, a number of local ballot measures were decided on November 2nd that will have a significant impact on the patient community. For example, two measures banning dispensaries in Santa Barbara and Morro Bay were handily defeated. Also, in what appears to be a local taxation trend, measures were adopted in ten California cities (Albany, Berkeley, La Puente, Long Beach, Morro Bay, Oakland, Rancho Cordova, Richmond, Sacramento, San Jose, and Stockton), heavily increasing the cost of patients’ medicine, especially in La Puente and San Jose which will both now impose a 10 percent tax on top of the state’s existing sales tax.

Further information:
Campaign website used to defeat Steve Cooley: http://www.NotCooley.com
NotCooley video on medical marijuana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5ydI3ZZpzo
NotCooley video on the environment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM4QzC5alNM
NotCooley video on marriage equality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGPWDgQ7tik
NotCooley poster: http://safeaccessnow.org/downloads/not_cooley_final_proof_2.jpg

Under the shadow of a venomous San Diego District Attorney and a cliff-hanger Attorney General election between a fanatical D.A. from Los Angeles and a sympathetic D.A. from the Bay Area, medical marijuana patients, providers and activists met near Mission Bay under the banner of “putting patients first.”

The November 14th, all-day gathering, at the Marina Village Conference Center reflected both the radiance of altruism in the medical marijuana movement, its ancient heritage, and the potential to humanize the medical-care-giving industry, as well as the dangers members and patients face from reactionary forces still fighting the obsolete cultural wars of the 1960’s.

About 50 persons turned out to participate in San Diego’s first symposium on “Training for Medical Marijuana Professionals,” sponsored by Americans for Safe Access. The core curriculum, almost half the day, centered on introductory preparation for those working with medical marijuana patients – including the bio-psycho-social model of health. The emphasis was on treating the whole patient with a greater understanding of how illness is not just an isolated condition but how physical, psychological and emotional factors interact to affect patients’ functioning. Dr. Amanda Reiman, Chairwoman of the Medical Cannabis Commission for the city of Berkeley and a lecturer at UC Berkeley, led the training session.

Don Duncan, co-founder of Americans for Safe Access (along with San Diego’s own Steph Shearer) gave an hour-long history of the movement in California and reported on present efforts in Sacramento to guarantee and expand patients’ rights.

Going way beyond the scheduled departure time, a panel of attorneys gave an over-view of current law and recent court decisions, sharing concrete knowledge about what is legal and what is not for both patients and care givers, including cooperatives and collectives. Led by Lauren Payne, Americans for Safe Access’ Legal Services Coordinator, the lawyers conducted “know your rights” training sessions on encounters with law enforcement officials.

As I sat there, looking out the window at the bobbing sailboats moored near the conference center, I thought back to my days as a VISTA Volunteer in the Appalachian Mountains. The Voting Rights Act had been passed, yet the black folks in Skunk Hollow, near Corbin, Kentucky, we were working with, lacked safe access to the polls. Roaming gangs of armed “redneck” mountain men threatened any who exercised their “right” to vote. How so like San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, whose ideological zeal and personal ambition, threatens another group of people who are struggling for access to their rights. In this case, their entitlement to medical marijuana as guaranteed by the citizens of California.

Jeremy Joseph, an attorney from Los Angeles, urged the participants to continue to struggle for their rights. He noted that 11 states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana provisions and another 9 states are in the process of working through those rights.

Sexism and Medical Marijuana Prohibition in the Middle-Ages

Medical Marijuana prevention is not a new phenomenon. Whenever those in power, religious or secular, have sought to increase or maintain that dominance, one of their first acts is to prohibit knowledge (just ask the Chinese government and Google). For thousands of years, the elderly women, usually widows, without a bread-winning male, made their way as the village healer. There were no doctors for the common people. They passed the knowledge of natural healing, the herbs and grasses of the forests, down from daughter to daughter, aunt to niece.

When I lived in a small Toltec village in the state of Morelos, Mexico as part of a cross-cultural educational experience in the early 1970’s, there was no doctor around. When I developed an eye malady, the family I was staying with presented me to a wrinkled, ancient woman – the village’s healer – who fanned the smoke of marijuana into my eye and also used a tincture from the plant to cure the infection.

It wasn’t until the 12th and 13th Centuries in Europe, when a series of devastating plagues broke out that the Church lashed out against naturalist healers in general and women in particular. From the Pope down to the lowliest Friar, the official spin on the plagues was theological rather than medical; it was God’s vengeance for sin and only more devotion, more donations to the Church, would save you.

Fearful mothers and fathers were bringing their ill children to the old women of the community, not the wine sodden priest. Some were saved; word and hope spread. The absolutism of the Catholic Church was threatened. The inquisition was formed to root out these “witches” and prohibit reliance on “medicine” in favor of prayer and confession. One of the charges brought against St. Joan of Arc was that she used marijuana.

Not only was the giving of medicinal preparations, including cannabis, by herbalists and chemists to ease suffering declared illegal but just possessing the expertise, called “witch’s knowledge” was punishable by burning at the stake.

By 1484, marijuana had become so well know among the common people for treating the pain and suffering of the plague that a fearful Pope Innocent VIII specifically labeled it “an unholy sacrament of the second and third types of the Satanic mass.” Stupid statements like this, flying in the face of reality, pushed more ordinary folk and their common sense further away from the church and laid the seeds of the Reformation.

Did Jesus Use Marijuana? Would it Have Saved George Washington’s Life?

I suspect that prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession [I must have given a hundred thousand dollars worth of it away before I knew it was worth anything] but rather healing. From the time we climbed out of the trees anyone could mate but those with the insight and knowledge to restore health and salvage lives; they were the indispensable ones.

Over 5,000 years ago physician farmers were growing and dispensing marijuana, called cannabis Tai-Ma, in China. Down to 1,000 B.C. the migration of the Aryan tribes, spread cannabis medicine from India to Europe. It had hundreds of medical applications, including a wound healer, muscle relaxant, tonic for pain, fever easer and helped with childbirths. It was considered a “sacred herb” and used by the priests of many early religions as their badge to the “divine.”

From the priests of Shintoism in Japan who used marijuana to unite couples in marriage and drive away evil spirits to the earliest Jews where “as part of their holy Friday night services in the Temple of Solomon, 60-80,000 men ritually passed around and inhaled 20,000 incense burners filled with kanabosom (cannabis), before returning home for the largest meal of the week,” as recorded by Jack Herer in his book, The Sociology Of Cannabis And World History. The Jewish Essene communities, south of Jerusalem, where Jesus is thought to have studied in his youth, are known to have used marijuana as a medicine.

But from independent, self-governing, communal associations, the Christian faith, seized by popes and emperors, became a process of tyranny and oppression. Not only medical marijuana, but an entire cornucopia of healing herbs and substances, tragically, criminally, were systematically denied whole generations of ill people. Right down to the 18th Century, bleeding patients of whole pints of blood was the primary treatment used by doctors. George Washington, who woke up one morning with the flu, was literally bled to death by his doctors. One wonders if he had just smoked some hearty Dutch Passion Feminized Cannabis and gone back to bed, would he have lived well into the 19th Century?

It is indeed ironic that Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego’s District Attorney and a member of the Log Cabin Republican Club, in her vicious pursuit of medical marijuana users, is at odds with Abraham Lincoln who refused to approve a proposed prohibition on the use of cannabis. Every American president until the 1930’s used medical marijuana and according to Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon, close friends of John F. Kennedy, who used cannabis for his back pain, he was going to legalize it during his second term.

Even though California voters approved the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, patients and providers have been under attack by reactionary forces and their contempt for voters and police state mentality right up to our present day. As San Diego attorney Lance Rogers pointed out to participants, from the July 2008 joint local and federal narcotics task force raid on the Amsterdam Collective (in opposition to President Obama’s promises to leave patients alone) through the clearly illegal entrapment and forgeries of the SDPD in its Operation Green RX busts in 2009 to October of this year when a North Park medical marijuana collective was harassed; patients continue to have their rights assaulted.

As I sat in the conference room, I realized these people, always looking over their shoulder, aware of their vulnerability and still putting the patients first, are living proof that heroism is alive and well. They are the ethical descendents of that poor woman from the dark ages who was tortured and burned alive for saving a child’s life with her herbal medicine bag, they are in the tradition of the old woman in the thatched hut which saved my eye so many years ago and they keep the possibility open that I may need to self-medicate in the future, if that good Cuban rum I smuggle into this country can no longer ease the pain of my osteoarthritis.

There are those among us, I call sufferers from “Pleasure Disapproval Syndrome.” A vast populace, unhappy with their lives, trapped in dead-end jobs, bored with corporate entertainment, happy-hour devotees and pharmaceutical addicts; who are fearful not of criminals or terrorists…..but that somewhere, someone is having a good time, enjoying life. They voted against Prop. 19, are afraid that Lesbians and Gays might find enjoyment in marriage and, God forbid, are terrified that a person might actually get pleasure from taking their medicine.

The culture war continues; however, the participants at the San Diego patient rights conference seemed to agree to keep their powder (ah, buds) dry and continue to work toward unhindered access to this ancient, safe, and effective medicine for all who need it.

Waking up Wednesday morning however, was quite another story.  As of 2:00am Harris took the lead and as of 6:30am with 96.9% reporting, is holding less than one half percentage point margin over the highly endorsed Cooley. 

BLOG UPDATE! As of 12:39pm the Secretary of State reports Harris leads with less than .02% of the vote and 100% of precints reported!

As reported by The Huffington Post, last week ASA launched the www.NotCooley.com website against the favored candidate labeling him anti-medical marijuana, bad for the environment and far right regarding marriage equality.  It appears the advocates campaign worked. 

ASA is the nation’s largest organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research. 

And now Cooley knows it! 

Cooley and Dumanis beware, ASA is there. 
www.SafeAccessNow.org

UPDATE: San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access has released the local election results.
http://www.safeaccesssd.org/2010/11/2010-election-results-california-and.html

From the makers of ‘Chapter 24′ and ‘Forgotten Ones’, NOSUCHPRODUCTIONS brings to you their latest documentary shot in a cinéma vérité style. 

Titled Green Screen: Operation Green RX vs. Eugene Davidovich, the documentary follows the story of Eugene Davidovich, a former highly decorated Navy sailor turned medical marijuana patient/activist, as he defends himself in court as one of Dumanis’ high profile cases, for using and providing medicinal cannabis to other patients.

Photo Mosaic - Scenes from the documentary

Scene from Green Screen: Operation Green RX vs. Eugene Davidovich

Caught in a crossfire between Federal and State regulations, Green Screen offers an inside look at the lives of these ordinary American citizens wanting room to breathe.

Davidovich, who is the coordinator for the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access, defeated Dumanis using nothing more than simple truth in his trial in order to be acquitted of all charges against him. 

Nevertheless Dumanis, who lies often and as a result has suffered several punishing defeats in her own personally shaped San Diego courts, continued to “play fast and loose with the truth” in Davidovich’s case as stated and proven by Davidovich’s attorney Michael McCabe, during his arguments to Davidovich’s jury.

This very well shot cinéma vérité style documentary is yet another clear indication that Bonnie Dumanis is not stable and should not be a district attorney or be allowed to continue to operate under the guise of a trusted public official.

Saying “Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley” is the same as saying “San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis” except, Steve Cooley is running for California Attorney General.

Yes!  That means a Dumanis think-a-like is running for the position that is in complete control of the medical marijuana laws in California.  Cooley has vowed to reverse the AG’s MMJ Guideline. 

The AG’s guideline is exactly what allows storefronts to operate statewide today.

NOT COOLEY
ON
NOV 2nd

Click for Cooley Videos