Irony always has a bit of truth in it. Conservative prosecutors and judges, always find a way to justify why they support judicial activism when it complies with their beliefs. This is absurd, given that our courts are now closed a day a month due to our county's extreme poverty. Something tells me that this may have a little bit to do with the assets that the cops are going to seize as well as the marijuana. Despite the 9th circuit opinion that the LAPD cannot use a medicinal marijuana dispensary as an ATM, it appears that the D.A. and C.A. are about to use them as 2,000 ATMs.
The suspicion comes from knowing that the District Attorney and City Attorney's offices are politically motivated, not by the law, or they'd be doing something about our rape kit epidemic, which is truly disturbing. In fact Human Rights Watch did a piece on it, available here.
The case makes the primary caregiver designation under which dispensaries have been exempt from prosecution, and interprets it incredibly narrowly.
They are interpreting California Health and Safety Code 11362.5 in an incredibly narrow manner, when its intent was obviously to make the scope of a person's 'caregiver' as large as possible, including hospitals and clinics.
Instead, the Supreme Court ruled defendant asserting primary caregiver status "must prove at a minimum that he or she (1) consistently provided caregiving, (2) independent of any assistance in taking medical marijuana, (3) at or before the time he or she assumed responsibility for assisting with medical marijuana." Full Case Here. The statute even states its intention is to provide for the easy access to marijuana by patients. Full Code Here.
Hopefully, this can be corrected by the legislature or the voters, but right now they've got pretty good ammo, even though I'd say the reasoning of the Court in People v. Mench is definitely questionable, given that their duty is to give effect to the statue's intended effect.
The way they defined 'primary caregiver' would only apply to individuals who sold marijuana to the same people consistently, as if that were anything that they could control.
Comments
I'm confused by your article. I think you are making a fatal error or equating a "caregiver" to a "dispensary".
The Mentch decision has NOTHING to do with "dispensaries", "cash", or "storefront" locations. Mentch was a man growing cannabis in his home, he was providing it to a handful of people (some of which didn't have doctor's recommendations). Mentch claimed to be their "caregivers" but he didn't consistantly provide for their "health", "housing" or "safety".
He onlyprovide them with cannabis and occassionally took them to doctor's appointments.
Collective/cooperatives show not be trying to claim to be patients caregivers unless they consistantly provide for 1 of those 3 things.
Collectives/cooperatives are protected under different laws.
Don Duncan's blog covers some of this:
about medical marijuana . com
No, they aren't it's the same law. Caregiver is very broadly defined, and I have no idea why it would make it 'worse' that he's growing his own. If you read the opinion, you'll notice that they seized $253, and more importantly, that their suspicion was raised due to about $10,000 in deposits over a few months, which were never linked to a profit motive.
A dispensary is a caregiver. There's nothing in law about dispensaries...but it's easier to explain than to have to go into legal jargon that 'caregiver' has a different definition under the law.
The statute was clear; the legislative intent was clear, and the Supreme Court overstepped its boundaries by intervening and basically rewriting the legislation to find that a caregiver must possess absurd qualities, which have nothing to do with the statute. Did you read my links?
Specifically, in Mentch notice the huge footnote, basically disregarded by the court, on pages 6 to 7. And that there's a specific legislative purpose: to allow patients and caregivers to use and cultivate marijuana free from prosecution.
The Court's analysis just disregards this statement.
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