Mr. President?

Our president has disappointed me on several fronts. Nothing terminal yet but I think he has mishandled a few things. Continuing Bush era policies on civil liberties, including warrantless wiretapping. Backtracking on some environmental issues. Not repealing "Don't ask, don't tell." Several other matters that I don't need to broach.

He's still my guy and I support him, but I think he has kowtowed to an opposition that means to dismember him and he is playing their game.  Guess he won't get one republican house vote on health care.

Anyway, I salute him for trying to institute change in our inertial society. Can't be easy. But he does seem to be a bit of a pussy at times.

I have taken this president at his word on several issues.  I want to believe that he will treat Israel and the Palestinians in an even handed fashion. I hope that he will protect the sanctity of our environment and National Parks. One thing that the president stated early on was that the federal government would respect the state's marijuana laws including Proposition 215 in California.

Unfortunately there appears to be a disconnect between word and deed. The head of the DEA, in a turf guarding statement last week, said that law enforcement must be a player in any drug policy scenario or shift. Last week, James Dean Stacy, a marijuana cooperative owner in Vista, was federally indicted after conducting his business in a way that was precisely outlined in state's propositions 215 and 420.  Donna Lambert, Eugene Davidovich and many other innocent victims are facing draconian penalties while seemingly following state law in a letter perfect way.

Now Steve Cooley, District Attorney of Los Angeles, has joined the San Diego D.A., Bonnie Dumanis, in trying to outlaw cooperatives. The city of Fresno is also undertaking similar actions. The law says that cooperative owners can reasonably charge to recoup their costs. The D.A.'s say that any money exchanged is illegal. They are trying to zone  dispensaries out of existence. Dumanis says that patients need to grow their own. Who can take them at their word?

Now as a proud marijuana user who has been helped through kidney cancer, bladder cancer, ureter cancer, open heart surgery, etc. by the evil weed, which allowed me not to use any narcotics post surgery, I have to cry foul. I can't believe their intention is merely to lower the price of grass, which I agree is too high. Somehow, I don't think they care.

I smoked pot prior to being sick and I am honest enough to admit it. If Obama wants to do something positive and get his constituency engaged again, he will push for legalization now and stop this silly drug war. There was an article in the New York Times this week about how Mexican cartels are suffering financially because domestic marijuana growers are cutting into their turf. Time to BUY AMERICAN! If the president does not call off his dogs and turns out to be prevaricating on his intentions to respect state's rights on this issue, he will lose me. He needs to have the balls to set policy and to see it followed through by the ranks.

Californians need to draft a new proposition that these troglodytes can't dismember.  And they need to take names and remember during the next elections.  These tin horn sheriffs care about one thing and that is their own power. Time they start looking for new jobs.

San Diego's Finest.

San Diego police pull medical marijuana patient Paul Cody out of his wheelchair and into the squad car.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has been getting a lot of negative publicity lately. Liberals and lesbians were upset when she failed to upbraid the deputy who forced himself into a gay couple's home during the Francine Busby fundraiser and manhandled one of the residents. The Sheriff's Association is p.o.'d because she failed to charge the woman.


There have been a string of very iffy officer involved shootings during her tenure, not surprisingly, none of the law enforcement officers were ever charged with any malfeasance. 


The D.A.'s office has been under fire for their  recent very publicized raids against medical marijuana patients and their care providers. The fellow in the video is a wheelchair bound practicing buddhist. Now I didn't title the video and I am not sure that it rises to the level of brutality.  But I wonder if the cops knew the nature of his malady before they yanked him out of the wheelchair.  If you had a spinal injury, it could be very damaging to get treated like that.


The District Attorney just can't deal with the fact that Proposition 215 has been the law in California for the last 13 years, can't shake her opposition to the evil weed, can't accept the will of the people.


After a flood of negative commentary, she has even shut her Facebook page off to comments.


This week she may have made a calculated move to repair her image.  In football mad San Diego, she may have found her constituency, Charger fans. She has decided not to bring charges against linebacker Shawn Merriman.  The guy who has had his share of trouble and allegedly abused his girlfriend, one Tila Tequila.  Now I don't know what really happened between them, all I know is that Daddy told me never to date a girl named after a cocktail, and I have tried to live my life like that.


Football fans probably have more juice than a bunch of sick potheads. Very smart.


Yesterday, D.A. spokesman Paul Levikow was asked in what way law enforcement had tried to educate dispensaries as to what would constitute proper compliance with the law and his smarmy reaction was telling. 


"I don't think that (law enforcement) sat down and said "This is how you sell dope." "I don't think that conversation was had." 


Levikow's reaction is at least honest and more indicative of the true attitude of the DA's office than the prevaricating, mealy mouth Dumanis.  They hate marijuana, have fought it for years and aren't about to let the people of California, the action of the rest of the county governments in California, or anyone else for that matter stand in their way. (even if you are in a wheelchair.)


The DA is trying to do damage control on the political front.  They are on a new media blitz talking about supposed rampant crime and lawlessness around dispensaries.  I have visited 5 or 6 in the county and saw none of that.  Well groomed, innocuous establishments, with no loitering.  Much less attendant hassles than your average local liquor store.  But they are trying to ratchet up their case by exploiting the fears of seeing dark men in trench coats selling weed to the children down at the elementary school.


I thought Mike Aguirre was the worst District Attorney San Diego County ever had.  Dumanis is determined to give him a run for his money.

Marijuana Chronicles

Donna Lambert




"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
William F. Buckley, Jr.

San Diego seems to be the site of Custer's last stand for the individuals in county government who object to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Even though the law, Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana was passed way back in 1996. Even though the federal government says that it will respect the law passed by a majority of California voters.

The San Diego County District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis and her underlings like DDA Walters, are doing everything thing they can to obstruct the law and put up any available roadblock they can to thwart its rational implementation. They lost at the SCOTUS but want to keep fighting until the last pain sufferer is left unstanding.

Two unfortunate souls, are caught in their devious web, Donna Lambert and Eugene Davidovich. Lambert goes to trial this afternoon. They both sold marijuana, in legal accordance with the state law, to undercover operatives, who had duly issued medical cards and were feigning illness. The San Diego County DA is in the process of ruining these poor people's lives as collateral damage in their never ending war on pot. They are trying to not allow the submission of any medical defense presentation in court. Both of the aforementioned are medical marijuana patients, Eugene a decorated veteran.

The DA seems to be using the argument that any sales of grass for money are illegal even though Proposition 215 clearly states that legitimate costs for production and distribution can be recouped by collectives and cooperatives. Chris Conrad, an expert who helped draft Proposition 215, has testified that the initiative was followed properly in the defendant's actions in the San Diego cases going to trial. And never mind that every other county in California seems to be having no problem with following the intent and will of the statute.

So they are settling on a piddly subjective matter of minor bookkeeping to keep their draconian drug war alive. I guess it all comes down to what "reasonable" means in the statute. But Dumanis is surely taking the most prohibitive view possible, in my view quite unnecessarily.
Now, as a person who has a medical prescription and has been helped by it through several cancer bouts and heart surgery, I have to ask myself, how the pain suffering little old lady is supposed to procure the drug if not for dispensaries? Who doesn't have access to an illegal source. An elderly person, like a family member of mine with severe M.S. and is paraplegic and can't grow her own? They seem to have little regards for such people. Or would they prefer that drugs get sold by cartels to keep the criminal machine working and their own jobs buzzing along?

I pray that the judge sees their obfuscation and bullying for what it is and spanks the DA. Dumanis is just another lousy politician playing with people's lives. The will of the people is clear. Do our public servants choose to uphold the law only when it suits their own purposes? They need to get on board and create a format for the dispensaries to function legally and responsibly and not answer "that's their problem" like one of the DA's did several months ago when queried how their narrow and deluded take on the law would square with reality. The people have spoken. Is anyone listening?


First postscript: I have been thinking about how unfair the Davidovich and Lambert cases really are. These poor people are in the process of being criminalized when they were only following the guidelines and statutes of a thirteen year old law that had been accepted on its face by every other county in the state. These two victims of an overzealous DA are facing felony jail time after doing everything in a way that they believed to the best of their ability, was dictated by Proposition 215. It's wrong that they are now sacrificial lambs, after being ensnared in this deluded drug war.

Second Postscript: Today, 9/10/09, a day after the county and DEA went on another dispensary raid, Bonnie Dumanis had the audacity to say that she wasn't anti medical marijuana and that people should just grow it. Interesting.  Like everyone is capable or has the land to grow pot, or no fear of having it stolen.  Like people trust the county not to come swooping down in their helicopters during the next purge.  My mother in law in the wheelchair can't grow it - you want to start your own garden, Bonnie, and provide for the folks with M.S.?


You have managed to ensnare so many good people already Ms. D.A., because you disagree with the state law that explicitly states that reasonable costs can be recouped.  I don't trust you and I don't believe you.