Comment & Debate
Steph Sherer, medical marijuana patient and executive director of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the nation’s largest medical cannabis advocacy organization: “There has been a lot of collateral damage in the federal campaign against medical marijuana patients. We need to stop the prosecutions, bring the prisoners home, and begin working to eliminate the conflict between state and federal medical marijuana laws.”[1]
Larry Epstein operates a legal medical cannabis dispensing collective in Marina Del Rey, California, that was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on February 4, despite President Obama’s statements on the campaign trail indicating a change in federal policy: “We had been operating as a legitimate cooperative dispensary per California law for a number of years,” said Epstein. “But the DEA came in here as if we were operating an illegal drug cartel. They stole all our property, all our product, and froze our bank accounts. Now, we can’t pay our taxes; that’s part of what they stole. It’s devastating when they do those types of actions, never mind the hundreds of patients who rely on our facility to get their medicine.”[2]