Oakland Joins the World's Biggest Pot Shop to Battle the Feds—The End of the War on Weed?
Oakland Joins the World's Biggest Pot Shop to Battle the Feds—The End of the War on Weed?
Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California, is the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the world, serving nearly 200,000 patients and distributing $25 million in cannabis per year. It does so out in the open, under the auspices of California law and Oakland’s regulatory regime. Federal prosecutors, however, maintain an unfriendly stance on state-legal medical marijuana: it’s still illegal under federal law, and must be stopped.
Since 2009, the Department of Justice has repeatedly directed its U.S. attorneys not to bring legal action against cannabusinesses operating in clear compliance with state law. But in 2011, the federal prosecutors in California announced a crackdown on dispensaries, shutting down hundreds through civil forfeiture actions. The prosecutor for the northern district that covers Oakland, Melinda Haag, has been particularly persistent.
“In July of 2012, a civil forfeiture notice was taped to our front door, and we were shocked,” says Harborside founder Steve DeAngelo, “because our model has always been about legal compliance and responsibility.”
DeAngelo opened Harborside in 2006 to be the first of a new breed of dispensary that was safe, transparent, and beneficial to both patients and the surrounding community. “For many years, I’ve dreamed of creating an environment that was really worthy of this magnificent, almost magic plant,” says DeAngelo.
Harborside offers a litany of medical support structures, including free substance abuse counseling, holistic care, and services tailored to the needs of both elderly patients and children. After all the commercial labs in the Bay Area refused DeAngelo’s request to test his cannabis due to federal law, he simply started his own facility, Steep Hill Labs, which went on to pioneer testing methodologies and treatments. Harborside became the first dispensary in the world to lab test all of its medicine.
“Nobody, including U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, has ever made any allegation that Harborside has violated California laws regarding cannabis—nobody,” states DeAngelo plainly. In direct contrast with the factors listed by Haag as justification for the crackdown, DeAngelo stresses that Harborside is far from being a profiteer that attracts a nasty criminal element. In fact, its neighborhood has seen a significant reduction in crime since its opening, it has no weapons or barbed wire on the premises, it is certified yearly as a non-profit, and it is more than 1,000 feet away from any sensitive sites, like playgrounds or schools.
For Melinda Haag, it’s size that matters. “Somehow, she argued, simply because we had so many patients, that it would be more likely that people would be breaking the law,” says DeAngelo. “She never really explained that theory.”
With the crackdown extending to other reputable cannabusinesses such as Oaksterdam University, the city of Oakland became worried about the crisis that could ensue if the responsible distribution mechanisms were shut down. So the city decided to join Harborside’s case and sue the Department of Justice to seek relief for injuries to its regulatory regime, tax revenue, and citizens’ health and safety.
Attorney Cedric Chao took the case pro bono on behalf of Oakland’s city attorney. “When Oakland issued its permits, the black market in Oakland for marijuana dropped,” says Chao. “These patients are not going to just stop and say, ‘OK, that’s great. I’m gonna go back to my pain.’ They’re going to go on the streets.”
The fundamental issue now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is whether or not Oakland is able to join Harborside in its underlying civil forfeiture case. But if you thought Haag might sing a different tune after a major U.S. city sided with a pot shop against the federal government, think again.
Even after Congress twice passed bills barring the DOJ from using federal funds on cases such as Harborside’s, after all other U.S. attorneys in California dropped their remaining civil forfeiture cases, and after further guidance from the DOJ that prosecutors should look the other way on recreational marijuana where it is now legal, Melinda Haag soldiers on in her crusade against Harborside. “The federal government is—whether you want to call them hypocritical or schizophrenic—it’s confused,” says Chao.
For the full story on how this weed civil war is unfolding, watch the video above. Go to http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/07/06/end-of-war-on-weed-worlds-biggest-pot for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV’s YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.
6:50 minutes.
Produced, Written and Edited by Justin Monticello. Shot by Zach Weissmueller.
Music by Phemale, Gablé, Battle of Wood, & Elettroliti.
HOW FUCKING HORRIBLE IF SOMEONE MAKES A PROFIT IN EXCHANGE FOR DOING SOMETHING OTHER PEOPLE WANT!
Damn, Kevin Spacey really let himself go…
Why does it matter that they make a profit??
they dont use bulletproof glass? where that place located at?
Fuck Melissa Haag
Cheers and tokes for sure
ROHRABACHER the REPUBLICAN is FOR medical marijuana.
HAAG the DEMOCRAT used armed FEDS AGAINST medical marijuana.
And she tried to use CIVIL FORFEITURE to steal all HHC’s assets for federal use.
That means the dispensary would loose all it’s money & assets without even being charged, let alone convicted of a crime.
??? & wake up people!
One statist douche bag dislikes this video.
WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT CARE FOR….
THEIR RECEIVING ALL THAT TAX MONEY FROM THE PROCEEDS OF MEDICINAL MARY JANE!
OH, I GET IT…THEY JUST DONT WANT REGULAR FOLK BECOMING MILLIONAIRES.
As usual Obama is a fucking lair.
stack that 💰 billionair status. fuck. the police
You go, City of Oakland and Harborside Health Center!
The "war on drugs" was & is such a farce. Sounds like possibly the DOJ is losing profits to legal establishments, the funding source of Black Ops warfare.
Here’s to former California hippies & yuppies!
I used to be one.
Now, I am a golden raisin in the Arizona desert.
2:12 this bitch needs to STFU.. she is a dumb ass… And i saw this guy on Netflix.. he rocks.
3:34 the speaker talks about how the black market shrunk when the city issued permits. It follows that when the Feds shut down these permitted dispensaries, the black market will rebound. THIS is why the feds are doing this. The feds NEED the black market to flourish so they will have a job to do. Without crime, they have no reason to exist … which means it is their duty to themselves to guarantee crime persists, even if that means creating an environment for it to flourish themselves.
200 Mr. Hero
So are other pharmaceutical companies non-profit too?
outlaw the government
How can DEA agents get free sex parties from the drug cartels if we legalize drugs?!?
Money grubbing morons, just like the anti-cure-for-smoking (vaping) crew.
It ain’t broke, but they still want to fix it.
Idiot nannies need to lose their jobs, or just get lost.
Alcohol is about 100 times more deadly than marijuana, so prohibitionist control freaks need to stop being hypocrites and ban alcohol again. Think of the children!
200,000 patients? There must be a lot of sick people in Oakland!
The feds raided Ares Arms in City of Industry California because they were LEGALLY selling 80% AR-15 lower receiver kits with instructions to help firearms enthusiasts LEGALLY build their own AR-15 rifles and pistols. When the federal government is this blatantly lawless, We the People have a duty to respond appropriately for a restoration of a federal government that respects state laws, individual rights, and state and individual sovereignty.
Why do we see this federal tyranny disproportionately in California? I think it’s because places like Oakland are filled with people who are conditioned to prefer big government, and big government will subsume all of the power that it can. In a way, the federal DoJ is there because Oakland invited their tyranny. Or, phrased a bit differently, if the federal government attempted tyranny like this in many other states they’d be met with armed resistance, and as we saw at the Bundy Ranch, they’re not ready for that fight yet.
When the day comes that we see a politician like Melinda Haag get locked up in jail for her crimes against Medical Marijuana shops, it will be a great day for AMERICAINS !!
Will the Peoples vote ever matter on any subject? It is suppose to, but Melinda thinks shes above the law. Personally, I think she’s just plain crazy.
Patients, medicine, blah blah bullshit. Pot may have some use in alleviating symptoms and other things, but it does not cure AIDS, cancer, baldness, or make your dick bigger. 99% of these "patients" are potheads, the end. The bottom line is that no human or group of humans(government) has the right to tell any other human what they may or may not put in their body. Pot, coke, cheeseburger, draino, cat shit, it doesn’t matter, it is no ones business, period.
Melinda Haag is kind of cute for an old prohibitionist control freak.
i wanna move to Oakland haha
I am reminded of a line from Hot Fuzz. Fascist? Haag
free the herb!!legalize everywhere!!
Get that woman in front of congress and into a prison.
We can die for our country, drink alcohol until it literally destroys our livers, but we can’t use Cannabis to ease our pain, anxiety , depression, etc. Plus it saves lives, therefore it is beneficial to the medical community.