I’ve gotten several email alerts about a raid against a dispensary in Spokane. The CDC was doing their “how to prepare for a raid” training today in Spokane, so a number of people left to witness what was going on. I’ll update this post as I learn more.
UPDATE: Here’s a news report. Listening to some live audio from someone traveling to the scene of one raid with Steph Sherer from Americans for Safe Access. He’s reporting that there’s already a crowd gathered and some local news present. There are reports of some other raids, but no confirmation on which dispensaries are targeted.
UPDATE 2: Three dispensaries have been raided so far. Follow the #spokaneraid hashtag on Twitter for the latest updates.
Sad news, Lee. Thanks for the updates. Maybe one of these days we’ll stop this insanity.
Interesting take on this
Blue John,
Is there a link we can go to to read more?
I wonder what special rights state employees have that the governor feels don’t extend to private citizens running a business that provides a legitimate service. The people out there with their immature/irrational attitudes toward cannabis are emboldening the feds to double-down on their idiocy, have to waste out tax dollars somehow…
That was in the comments from the link Lee posted
From the ST:
“Under the new licensing scheme, dispensaries, growers and processors of cannabis-infused foods would pay sales and business taxes, producing an estimated $920,000 in state and local revenues in 2012, and $6 million by 2017…
….A fiscal analysis of the bill by the Department of Revenue estimates that 8,660 medical-marijuana users currently spend $87 million on cannabis. But if the number of patients rises as it did in Colorado after dispensaries were legalized, the medical-marijuana market in Washington is potentially worth $1.2 billion — second only to apples as an agricultural product.”1
1.2 motherfucking dollars.
Trying to make sense of this is making my head hurt.
What feels like a million years ago, Eric Holder said the feds wouldn’t raid dispensaries complying with state law.
The bill licenses “providers” (dispensaries), but Gregoire says the feds would go after “state employees” who issue the licenses (which state employees by the way? A county clerk? The pogue in Olympia mailing out the licenses? The Secretary of Health? The Director of the Agriculture Department?).
BUT,
SB 5073 has language that “providers” can’t provide medical marijuana to more than one patient every 15 days, nor can they maintain more than 15 plants and 24 ounces of “usable” cannabis, which would essentially shut down the dispensary system.
If someone wants to tell me how I’m getting it wrong about this, please, flame-on.
So I’m in it for the “something’s better than nothing” argument, but DO the merits outweigh the negative consequences, re: Dispensaries?
Hardy-har-har! I to watch unemployed stoner Lee and his fellow potheads squirm. LMFAO. Move to Canada asshole, you’ll like it much better up there aye! Time to grow up already. Good luck!
Good evening all.
Why doesn’t Chrissie just let the Feds run her office and go home to Auburn?
Some Governor, eh?
These actions of course are in direct contradiction to Obama’s campaign promises and Holder coming out in a press conference and stating: “it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana.”
Our current president appears to be a liar..
I agree with Ezra Klein, who says Obama is nothing more than a moderate Republican..
@9 There’s no state law licensing dispensaries, and the governor tacitly agreeing with the what the two US Attorneys said on this point definitely didn’t help. I’m presuming that’s the reason they felt they could go after the places in Washington.
Break a deal, spin the wheel.