Pubdate: Thu, 27 Oct 2011
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Robert Galia

FEDERAL ENTRAPMENT

If the federal government, for whatever reasons, wants to eliminate 
cannabis from our diets, they should have filed suit in a court of 
law when Proposition 215 first passed. For them to wait 15 years for 
the industry to thrive to the point where there were more than 2,000 
legal dispensaries operating, and then to pull the rug out from under 
them, is unconscionable.

When you take into consideration President Obama's campaign promise 
to not devote the Justice Department's resources to bothering states 
that have medical-cannabis programs, and the Odgen memo saying 
basically the same thing, what you have is pure entrapment. This 
whole situation is totally unfair to all of the thousands of 
collectives that have poured their hearts and souls and finances into 
these establishments.

Medical-cannabis patients, who are no different from you or me, are 
tired of being treated like second-class citizens simply because they 
have discovered, and are taking advantage of, this plant's wonderful 
therapeutic power. By destroying dispensaries in California, law 
enforcement is in effect forcing them to become criminals as they hit 
the streets trying to supply themselves.

In the meantime, these federal agents have done absolutely nothing to 
curb the supply or demand. They've only succeeded in strengthening 
the cartels, eliminating jobs and costing the state millions of 
dollars in lost tax revenue.

Our government has failed us by not taking the time to think this through.

Robert Galia

Chico

Editor's note: Mr. Galia ran North Valley Holistic Health, Chico's 
sole surviving medical-cannabis dispensary until it announced it was 
closing last week.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom