Closure of Cannabis Club Ordered

A federal judge has authorized U.S. marshals to close the state’s largest still-functioning cannabis club Friday evening. Club operators said they will appeal the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer rejected the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative’s argument that for some people, marijuana is an irreplaceable drug that relieves their pain and even saves their lives.

In a ruling issued Tuesday evening, Breyer found the club in contempt of his May ruling that six Northern California clubs must close because their sale of marijuana violates federal drug laws.

The Oakland cooperative and another, much smaller club in Marin County had defied Breyer’s ruling and continued to sell marijuana. The judge spared the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana on Tuesday from immediate closure. Instead, he said he will allow a jury trial on the narrow question of whether the Marin club actually distributed marijuana on the day that it was under a federal agent’s surveillance.

But the judge offered no such reprieve to the Oakland club, despite its strong backing from the Oakland City Council.

In August, the council tried to protect the Cannabis Buyers Cooperative by naming the club’s operators “officers” of the city. The move made Oakland the first city in the nation to become directly involved in distributing medical marijuana. In an earlier ruling, Breyer rejected the city’s reasoning.

The club, which has 2,000 members, was open for business Wednesday in downtown Oakland. Jeff Jones, the executive director, held a news conference on the steps of City Hall to denounce Breyer’s ruling.

“We’ve gotten a lot of frantic patients calling us and a lot coming in from great distances to get their medicine because they know we might not be open by the weekend,” Jones said in a telephone interview. “Patients are very scared that they are going to have to go back on the streets.”

The club was allowing patients to stock up Wednesday, according to Jones. “We have a normal limit of one-quarter ounce per day, but we are allowing people with a statement of need from a physician to alter that today to an ounce a day,” he said.

The Justice Department’s reaction to Breyer’s ruling was subdued Wednesday.

“I can’t say much, except that we were gratified that the judge ruled as he did,” said spokesman Gregory King. “We expect to enforce the court’s order. We have said in the past that the federal government was taking a measured approach to ensure that federal law continued to be enforced. We feel that that is what we tried to do and that is what is being done.”

Cannabis clubs sprang up across the state after California voters approved Proposition 215, the November 1996 initiative allowing patients with a doctor’s recommendation to grow and use marijuana for a variety of illnesses, including AIDs and cancer. At one point, as many as 28 clubs were functioning openly, selling marijuana to thousands of people.

Most of the clubs have since closed. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren won a ruling from a state appellate court that Proposition 215 did not legalize medical marijuana clubs. Lungren closed the largest club, Denis Peron’s San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, earlier this year. The club said it was serving 8,000 people.

Other clubs--including ones in San Jose and in Orange County--closed after their operators were arrested on suspicion of illegally selling or possessing marijuana.

If the Oakland cooperative is closed Friday, the largest remaining club in the state will be the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center in West Hollywood, with 521 members. The center was not a target of the federal action against the Northern California clubs.

“I hate that idea that we are the biggest one in the state now,” said Scott Imler, director of the West Hollywood club.

“I feel sad for the whole medical marijuana movement,” he said. “It is going to be two years ago this election day that Proposition 215 passed. One year ago, there were 28 community-based groups that had small to large medical marijuana programs. Now, there are three of us left. The movement is in chaos.”

In a friend-of-the-court brief to Breyer on behalf of the club this summer, the city of Oakland argued that under the federal Controlled Substances Act, city officers enforcing local drug ordinances are immune from prosecution for possessing, buying and selling illegal drugs in the course of their work.

Breyer rejected that argument in an Aug. 31 hearing, describing the city’s argument as “creative, but not persuasive.” However, at the time he refused the Justice Department’s demand that the clubs be immediately found in contempt of court and closed. Instead, Breyer took under submission the clubs’ request for a jury trial on the question of whether they could operate under a “medical necessity” finding.

Defense attorney James Brosnahan, representing the Oakland club, argued at the hearing that medicinal marijuana is an irreplaceable drug for some patients.

In his latest order, Breyer rejected that defense. The judge ruled that there was no evidence that imminent harm would befall patients denied medical marijuana.

“Even though our members testified that medical cannabis has actually saved their lives, they didn’t say they would die tomorrow without medical cannabis,” said Robert Raich, attorney for the Oakland club. “As a result, over 2,000 patients may lose their access to a necessary and lifesaving medicine.”