Agents Raid Medical Marijuana Club

State narcotics agents raided the Cannabis Buyers’ Club on Sunday, shutting down the group that sells marijuana to terminally ill patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and other diseases.

Armed with a search warrant, agents burst into the club’s headquarters and spent four hours hauling away computers, a cabinet full of client records and an unspecified amount of marijuana.

In addition, volunteers involved with Proposition 215--a statewide ballot initiative to legalize medicinal marijuana--said some of their records were seized.

No arrests were reported.

State Justice Department spokesman Steve Telliano said agents had been investigating the Cannabis Buyers’ Club for at least two years, and that Sunday’s raid was designed to seek evidence of “illegal marijuana use, particularly by people who were not using it for medical reasons.”

Officials said later at a news conference that they suspected the club was being used as a focal point for the distribution of large quantities of marijuana under the guise of medical treatment.

The state’s probe included several undercover buys in which agents purchased several pounds of the drug, Telliano said. On other occasions, people bought the drug after presenting “doctor’s notes” scribbled on napkins or scrap paper and complaining of ailments as minor as lower back pain or yeast infections, he said.

“Essentially, what we had is a large-scale marijuana distribution ring for the entire [San Francisco] Bay Area,” he said.

Telliano acknowledged that some Proposition 215 materials may have been seized in the raid, but added: “We’ve taken precautions that those [campaign] materials will not be disturbed.” State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who heads the state Justice Department, is an opponent of the initiative, and Gov. Pete Wilson has, since 1994, vetoed two bills that would have allowed AIDS and cancer patients to grow and smoke the drug.

Gilbert Baker, an AIDS activist and volunteer for the Yes on 215 campaign, was visibly outraged by the raid. On the club’s fourth floor, he opened a refrigerator that once contained a shelf full of marijuana brownies that sold for $5 each.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! They’ve gone through everything,” he said. “They even took the [marijuana] menu off the wall.”

The Cannabis Buyers’ Club has operated for at least four years, and its organizers made no secret of the fact they sold the illegal drug.

Organizers maintain that marijuana is sold only to members who have to furnish a photo identification and a doctor’s letter certifying a condition that could be alleviated by pot.