In an apparent attempt to enforce federal law, officers from Southern Arizona’s multi-agency Counter Narcotics Alliance recently closed out a two-month-long investigation into the Green Halo Caregiver Collective—and then proceeded to get all up in the collective’s shit in a rude and offensive way.
They stormed the collective, near Interstate 10 and Prince Road, on July 10, tearing apart a costly grow room, smashing lights and ventilation equipment, cutting down plants, intimidating the staff and generally fucking the place up in all kinds of ways. They took “evidence,” including stacks of blank patient forms (but no patient records), the security cameras (but not the video), and the big-screen television from the waiting room, which was used for medical-cannabis education.
“That’s not evidence of anything other than that (the collective) exists,” said Ken Sobel, who operates the nonprofit GHCC. (See “Acceptable Green,” March 8.)
The officers took dozens of plants legitimately cultivated by caregivers in a place preliminarily approved by the city as a dispensary location. (However, the GHCC’s owners do not claim it to be a dispensary.) The officers say they took 74 plants, but they miscounted, according to Sobel. It was 65—far fewer than the number allowed under caregiver rules for a shared grow location.
The Tucson Police Department, which is handling the media because the bust was in its jurisdiction, didn’t have a lot to say about it. The news release was sparse (though it did inadvertently give props to the GHCC for its “high grade” meds). Simply put, the investigation revealed that the collective was outside the law, said Sgt. Maria Hawke, a TPD spokeswoman.
“They were selling marijuana, essentially,” she said.
Essentially? It seems they either were, or they weren’t. Correct me if I am wrong, but you can’t really arrest someone in this country for essentially doing something. I think even Tucson police know this, because no one was charged with selling marijuana. They were charged with having it and with intent to sell it.
I predict this case will be difficult for prosecutors to prove. Sobel has been meticulous about staying within state law at the collective, which does nothing more than bring together patients (like me) with caregivers and other patients (them), so we can get the meds the governor tried to keep from us. The bust was completely unnecessary and unwarranted, Sobel said.
“They could have called me if they had any concerns. There was never any attempt to conceal what we were doing,” he said.
A few months ago, in a similar raid, the doors of the Tucson AZ Collective were slammed shut in patients’ faces. (See “Convenient Meds,” Feb. 16.) The operator of that collective didn’t return a couple of messages seeking comment. I’m sure his story is much the same.
But one of the first brick-and-mortar MMJ spots in the city has thus far escaped the Long Arm. Tumbleweeds Health Center might be a little safer than more-traditional collectives, because its service differs fundamentally: Tumbleweeds charges for classes or private consultations, and then gives away medication rather than taking donations to compensate for costs. (See “Open for Business,” Jan. 19.)
In any event, it’s sad that law-enforcement teams feel a need to shut down places that are filling a huge gap between patents and meds. Until the dispensaries open, these collectives are the only easy way for us nongrowers to get MMJ. It’s also sad that the SWAT team picked on the lowest folks on the totem pole. They arrested four employees, whom Hawke and Sobel declined to identify. These folks were just trying to help patients get meds, period.
“These are innocent employees,” Sobel said. “They were just doing the best they could for the patients.”
Hear, hear.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2012.
unfourtanly i can relate literally my life is ruined over medical marijuana because the police the prosecutors and public defender are all against it and dont bother calling the complaint line cause those guys tesify in court against you. once again thank you for writing this article its really sad zero common sense??? in my case if theres even a trace of metabolites in your system ur considered guilty so if you drive and take med mary jane ur giulty so basically everybody guilty and run the risk of being busted by this slightest degree law i think it takes like two weweks maybe longer to leave your system so to avoid jail take one hit than wait two weeks before you drive again total bull once again very sorry to hear of ur loss
the saying “lest we forget” has been forgotten. “first they came for the jews and we stood by and did nothing”. no offense to those who experienced the horrors of the “war to end all wars”. i will compare the atrocities that led to the drug war,the largest bloodiest war from central america to the u.s.a. in current times.thats my opinion. i am german,and i have been asked often in life “how could the good people of germany let that happen?”these days i say look in the mirror. the reasons for justifying attacking and destroying a population are infinate.the flavor of today in america is “get the druggies”. so good people sit and wait for your turn for the greater good to,as pink flloyd sums it up”to smash in your windows and kick in your doors,to weed out the weeklings and strengthen the strain.”i am very sad for the green halo and its workers.i still think america and the people are better than this.it is looking pretty dark.i have to go.jackboots are kicking in my door,i must answer it.
How do you like living in a police state?
Are you still telling people you live in the greatest country in the world?
“My country, right or wrong, by jingoism!”
Still have that American flag on your pickup truck and the yellow ribbon magnet on the back saying you support our troops?” How will you feel when those same troops come for you?
Is it any surprise that just as our country will attack other nations for fun and profit, they will do the same to us?
People must be careful of who you take to. Some people are so proud of having their MMJ card they flash it all around, it really doesn’t mean anything except you got ripped off for $300. dollars by the state and they know who you are.
If you show your card to a police man during a stop, well your going to jail. They assume you have been smoking….Do Not Leave Your Pipe Or Anything in your Car. If they see it your going to jail and it’s going to cost thousands of dollars.
If the police don’t see it they have NO reason to search your car or you.
Be careful out there.
We must enthusiastically defend these innocent employees from SWAT abuse.
All collectives should have armed guards on duty already due to cartel ripoffs. When thugs with badges show up, it’s time to remember the advice of G. Gordon Liddy and aim for the head. The police don’t care what the law says so neither should anyone else as long as they’re going to break it with impunity-remember Jose Guerena and send them home in boxes!
If Green Halo was in fact selling MMJ (handing over the herb and then asking for a “donation” was how one account described the transactions), it was also in violation of Arizona state law (under which selling is absolutely verboten).
Only if they were selling to make a profit, Templeton-the law allows for donations to recoup costs, so Green Halo were entirely within their rights and the law as long as they didn’t make money. Given how expensive it is to grow, much less run a dispensary, TPD’s going to have a hard time making that case in the face of literally tens of thousands of dollars of bills just for the place to get established, to say nothing of the ludicrous monthly overhead for rent, electricity, water, security, etc.
Law enforcement going above & beyond when the situation clearly doesn’t call for it? I’m not convinced! You must be exaggerating here; because what kind of organization would want to step in the way of caregivers giving much-needed medicine to their patients? I’m convinced that it’s easier just to get your medicine the old fashioned way, such as meeting shady characters in even shadier circumstances. This must be true, because why else would “peace keepers” commit such an action? Shame on all you MMJ patients trying to receive your meds in a more rational way. Showed you guys didn’t they?!
wow old Tucson sounds like you’re snitching over there!! its weed people grow up!! This state is so corrupt ! It doesn’t even recognize its own laws that the citizens voted to be in place.. This is not the job of local police or sheriffs dept who work for the state.. I would understand if the feds came in and did this (which is still BS) but not state paid employees! Do you seriously think anyone of these dispensarys is truly non profit? There is a way to setup a nonprofit and pay yourself whatever salary you want. Why do you think there are millionaires running non profit organizations? And do you think all these business owners are just all of a sudden investing their money into a dispensary to just give everything away for free? Have you ever tried growing yourself or running your own business? The costs are very high and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t making a profit yet selling 8ths and oz . If what you are saying is right it might sound like he was using investment money to buy those things your are snitching about.. This isn’t just a one time thing. The state is going after a lot of dispensarys and mm card holders which is completely wrong. The law passed so let it be.. This state just wants to take assets and money to keep for themselves and doesn’t care which laws they are breaking to do it. I recently had a friend get pulled over on i10 saying he had a tail light out which he didn’t then they proceeded to search his car illegally with no probable cause and ended up stealing his money. He was never arrested and no charges were ever filed. He didn’t have anything illegal in his car and it is not illegal to have money no matter the amount. They will steal it of course and have you try and prove how you had obtained it.. Well he did have proof of all the money and hired a lawyer and had proof of the illegal stop and search. Do you think that he was able to get his money back? Of course not !! it never went in front of a judge or jury and just because the prosecutor didn’t care about the evidence he had it just never mattered that his 4th amendment rights were violated and as well as his civil rights. That my friend is the great state of AZ that we live in.. I knew this kind of stuff would happen with the dispensarys the moment this law was passed.. I knew local and state law enforcement would not recognize the law or care if you have a mm card . So good luck people and keep buying off the black market because thats exactly what they want you to do.
Yes, it is true boys and girls…. The police totally disregard the patient protection laws concerning medical marijuana and arrest you anyways. The money you spend for the doctor’s prescription ($100-200) combined with the registration fee for Arizona Department of Health Services ($150) is all for nothing. Recently, the police without permission, probable cause nor search warrant entered into my friend’s house and discovered a a small amount of marijuana and 5 small plants being cultivated. The amounts found and seized were well below the allowable limits of marijuana set forth in ARS.36-2801. Further, the police ignored ARS.36-2811 which are suppose to protect Medical Marijuana patients from exactly this type of abuse by authorities. Obviously, the police don’t enforce, recognize, nor obey these laws because they don’t like them because they prefer to loot and take whatever they please from a Medical Marijuana Patient’s home without any culpability. If any other individual or group entered into a person’s home without permission, and acted as the police did, they would be charged with everything from burglary, theft, robbery, breaking and entering, trespass, etc… but since it was the police it’s okay to trash the patent’s personal items and take whatever they wish (even though ARS. 36-2811 prohibits such action by police). The next or following day the police obtained a search warrant after already searching the house and arresting my friend the day earlier. I thought police were suppose to obtain a search warrant signed by a judge before searching and not the other way around? Please remember that this all began when a police officer arrived outside my friend’s house to investigate something else completely which appears to have happened outside in front of his house on the street. My friend was not involved whatsoever, nor did he have any knowledge of what happened earlier outside on the street of his residence. My friend was only standing on the front porch of his residence curious as well to what had happened. The police officer asked my friend questions but my friend had been asleep in his bedroom located in the back of his house further away from the street. In fact, he told me he was awaken by the noises of whatever took place outside the front his home. According to my friend, by the time he got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and walked to the front of his house, the street appeared quiet until a few seconds later when the police arrived. My friend had absolutely no idea of about what had happened earlier in front of his residence, in which the officer was now investigating. The police officer asked if there was anyone else inside my friend’s home and my friend responded “no, I live alone and there was no one else inside”. However, to my friend’s surprise the officer promptly marched up the stairs onto the porch, pushed my friend aside, then opened the front door of his house so to verify no one else was inside the residence. According to my friend, the police officer then entered into his house and said that he could smell marijuana odor inside the residence. The police officer swiftly handcuffed my friend (thereby arresting) by putting him into the back of his police car. My friend possesses a current Medical Marijuana Card with Authorized to Cultivate for that address and told the officer the MMJ card was in his wallet on the table inside his house and he would have no problem getting it for the officer. The officer said no he will find it and re-entered my friend’s residence. My friend was helplessly handcuffed in the back of the police car. The police officer had already once pushed my friend aside to open the door and entered the house to look if others were inside, without requesting permission, so my friend believed the officer was looking for his MMJ card to verify my friend’s story, so he believed that the officer would return momentarily to take off the handcuffs and release him after verifying his patient status. However, again to my friend’s surprise, the officer returned only to tell my friend he was going to charged with possession and cultivation of marijuana. The officer said that he discovered 5 marijuana plants growing in 5 gallon buckets in the back of the room of the residence. My friend lives alone and normally keeps his plants locked away in a private room of personal residence when he receives visitors. My friend had less than one half of the amounts allowed patient’s so to comply within accordance to Arizona Medical Marijuana laws. Yet, he was still arrested and charged possession and cultivation…. so folks don’t think the Medical Marijuana card protects you… because it does not stop the police whatsoever from arresting and charging you with it anyways. The police will only do what they do best, “protect and serve” their own interests and can care less about you, your civil rights, nor any laws protecting patients against illegal arrests, search and seizures. Moreover, it apparent by their actions that the police believe that the law does not apply to them, and in most cases it appears they are correct. How many times have you heard of a police officer actually being held accountable for any illegal actions they may have committed while conducting an investigation? Police do whatever they want to do to the average person without fear of punishment because they are the enforcers of law, so therefore above being held accountable if they were to break them, because they are certainly not going arrest themselves if they did violate any laws. Think for a moment on how many times do you hear about the police arresting police for stealing money from a drug bust? I have never read in the paper or heard on the news even once of this happening. Have you? Yet, everyone has heard andor knows someone who the police have taken money from, but before it got checked into evidence, it became a much smaller amount than was actually confiscated from a suspect. If your life depended on the following question, which would you honestly choose as your answer. There is a drug bust of a member of one of the drug cartels. The cartel member tells his boss that the police confiscated $1,500,000 and this was also verified by three other cartel members who assisted in counting the money. However, when the police checked the money confiscated at the drug bust into evidence there was only $1,152,000. Again, your life depends on the correct answer; honestly, who would you choose took the money? Or maybe, you believe that criminals are really bad accountants and don’t know how much they have collected? Therefore, it should be no big surprise to hear that the police then more or less robbed my friend’s house by taking unrelated items, such as TV’s cameras, money, jewelry and his prescriptions issued 3 days earlier by a local hospital for his heart and blood pressure. I really wish that I could say that this isolated occasion by police and a rare abuse of police misconduct, unfortunately it is the norm and not the exception of what happens to our possessions if police enter into our homes. Nowadays, we have only the right to think we are protected with civil rights… but trust that it is nothing less than an illusion or a fairy tale. The checks and balances set forth in the scripting of the US Constitution no longer exists within the democratic system of today. The Bill of Rights is just that… an invoice of what it will cost you to keep or protect what is rightfully yours. The founding fathers of this country intended to protect individual rights against oppression and tyranny by the ruling body of government in power. The average american individual is powerless to protect themselves from being tyrannized by government agencies serving their own agendas and interests. Face it, unfortunately, “We the people” only receive justice if we are one of the few in power which can afford to buy it, or one those in power which decides on whom the laws, shall or shall not, be applied and enforced against. Taxpayers, please have no doubt about one thing; Regardless of how frivolous the case and how it may unjustly devastate a person’s life, some government agencies will have no problem spending large amounts of your tax dollars to justify their paychecks. I wish to end this opinion by stating that there are many good police officers and government agencies out there which serve the public admirably. Please understand, I intend no disrespect towards them for the abuses of power committed by some of their colleagues that make them look bad. I applaud their efforts and believe they have a very difficult job in which they perform daily with integrity. I thank all of those deserving for their honorable service and dedication in maintaining public well being. Thank You for your Service!