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 Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:54 am
The Press-Enterprise Palm Desert bans medical pot sites
Friday, May 25, 2007The Palm Desert City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to outlaw medical marijuana dispensaries.
The vote makes Palm Desert the first city in the Coachella Valley to outlaw medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives, and it means the fate of CannaHelp -- a dispensary in the El Paseo shopping district -- could be in jeopardy.
While state law permits the cultivation, use and sale of marijuana for people with prescriptions from doctors, it is illegal for any purpose under federal law.
The City Council first considered the ban in October 2005, when CannaHelp opened. But medical marijuana patients and advocates urged the council to instead pass a moratorium, which was approved in December 2005 -- with a provision exempting CannaHelp from the ban.
Late Tuesday, Palm Desert City Attorney David Erwin disputed reports that CannaHelp owner Stacy Hochanadel signed an agreement with the city allowing him to keep his dispensary open until mid-September, when his lease on El Paseo expires.
Erwin told KESQ-TV that although there has been discussion with Hochanadel and his attorney, there is no signed agreement.
The relationship with the city and Hochanadel has significantly soured. On Dec. 19, CannaHelp was served by the city with a cease-and-desist order stemming from the alleged sale of marijuana to an undercover officer with no prescription for the drug.
Hochanadel had agreed in writing to sell only to patients with proper identification cards issued by the state, according to authorities.
Sales and other financial records were seized at CannaHelp in a Dec. 1 raid by sheriff's deputies. At that time, investigators determined CannaHelp was operating "for profit," which is prohibited under state law, sheriff's investigator Manny Garcia said.
Hochanadel, along with CannaHelp's two managers, James Campbell and John Bednar, surrendered at the Indio Jail on Jan. 8. They each face charges of possession of marijuana for sale, sale and transport of marijuana and keeping a place to sell controlled substances.
A preliminary hearing for the three defendants is scheduled today at the Larson Justice Center. A judge is also expected to rule on a motion to quash the search warrant.
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:43 pm
The Press-Enterprise Raid on Corona dispensary
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
About 25 people held signs and screamed in protest outside a Corona marijuana dispensary raided by federal agents and Corona police this morning.
The mostly young protesters gathered outside the Healing Nations facility on West Grand Avenue. They watched as agents form the Drug Enforcement Agency loaded boxes into a van and left around 9:30 a.m.
Marie Vasquera, a 21-year-old Riverside resident who works at the dispensary, said agents served owner Ronald Naulls a federal warrant around 6:30 a.m. Another employee, 35-year-old Shaun Bonner, said Naulls was being questioned at his Corona home.
DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen said she could not comment on the raid because the operation was still ongoing. She said federal agents were raiding several dispensaries in Southern California this morning.
A press conference is planned for 2 p.m. today in Los Angeles concerning the raids.
Hopefully there'll be photos by tomorrow... apparently a certain little sister had to be physically carried away from where she was lying in front of the police cruiser to try to prevent it from moving... *grin*
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:18 am
The Press-Enterprise Federal agents raid Corona pot dispensary
Tuesday, July 17, 2007ยป Video: Medical marijuana advocates protest the raid
Federal agents on Tuesday arrested the operator of a Corona medical marijuana dispensary and raided his shop as dozens of patients and employees protested outside the business.
 The raid and arrest were part of a series that took place in Southern California on Tuesday. Operators of medical marijuana dispensaries in Hollywood, San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay also were arrested, according to Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Sarah Pullen.
The DEA, local police, Internal Revenue Service agents and the U.S. Attorney's Office took part in the investigations leading up to the raids and arrests, she said.
Prop. 215, approved by California voters in 1996, decriminalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. But the sale and use of marijuana remain illegal under federal law.
Pullen said Tuesday's raids were part of the agency's enforcement of federal drug laws. She said the dispensaries had come under scrutiny because of the scale of their sales operations.
The DEA previously has conducted raids on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, including in such Inland cities as Riverside and Palm Springs.
The Corona dispensary raided on Tuesday, Healing Nations Collective, had sales of more than $1.2 million in a nine-month time period, Pullen said.
"Our goals are to target the most egregious traffickers out there," she said.
The raid on the strip-mall dispensary on West Grand Boulevard began about 6 a.m. Agents also raided the Corona home of its operator, Ronald Naulls, and searched a storage unit in the 2500 block of Hamner Avenue in Norco. Corona police assisted in the investigation and the serving of the warrant.
Authorities seized Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and GMC vehicles and $75,000 in cash at Naulls' home, 15 pounds of marijuana and a substantial amount of "marijuana edibles" at the business, and additional marijuana at the storage unit, Pullen said. Numerous documents also were seized.
A federal indictment charges Naulls with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, and of causing others to illegally sell marijuana, which refers to employees of the dispensary. Naulls faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted, Pullen said. He was being held in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon awaiting arraignment.
Attempts to reach Naulls or family members Tuesday were unsuccessful.
 James Anthony, a civil attorney who previously represented Naulls, said Tuesday was a "sad day."
"Ronald Naulls is caught in a war between the state and federal governments over the legality of medical cannabis," Anthony said. "Today, he was arrested for standing up for his medical rights under state law."
Marie Vasquera, a 21-year-old Riverside resident who works at Healing Nations, contends the business operated as a nonprofit cooperative and followed all state and local laws.
She said the business got its plants from medical marijuana patients legally allowed to grow small numbers of plants, and the marijuana was sold only to people with valid identification cards. Nonprofit farming cooperatives were explicitly allowed by state legislation in 2003 and require identification cards for patients using marijuana for medical purposes.
Pullen said that Naulls was not charged under state or local laws, and that she did not know whether the business operated as a nonprofit.
Throughout Tuesday morning, Vasquera and others staged a boisterous and emotional protest outside the dispensary. With signs and chants and spontaneous cries, they invoked state law and patients rights, and berated federal agents and police.
"What are the police going to do for people like me? Do they care that people are going to suffer?" said Corona resident David Martinez, 45, who suffers from painful tumors and back problems and has patronized Healing Nations Collective since it opened in May 2006.
Many others said that medical marijuana was the best treatment for their host of painful and life-disrupting conditions.
"It gave me my life back," said 47-year-old Riverside resident Kathy Jones, who said a regimen of heavy painkillers taken for fibromyalgia and other conditions had previously left her incapacitated.
 "I'm not a druggie, I'm a patient," she said through tears.
Healing Nations was locked and boarded Tuesday afternoon. Its fate is unclear.
The raid follows a year of Corona City Council actions and court hearings aimed at shuttering the city's only known medical marijuana dispensary.
Last summer, the City Council approved a yearlong moratorium prohibiting the establishment of new dispensaries in Corona. In April, the council voted unanimously to make the ban permanent.
In December, Riverside Superior Court Commissioner Joan R. Burgess granted Corona a preliminary injunction against Healing Nations Collective to shut down the dispensary, then stayed the injunction so the business could operate until Naulls' appeal of the ruling was complete.
About a month ago, the city refused to renew Naulls' business license. He is appealing that ruling, Naulls' attorney said. An administrative hearing was scheduled at City Hall on July 24, but it may not happen after the raid, he said.
Corona Mayor Eugene Montanez said that the possibility of the federal authorities coming into Corona to close the dispensary was a concern the city shared with Naulls when he opened Healing Nations.
The mayor said he believes there is a hierarchy in the law and the city can do little to alter that.
"Federal law always takes state law, just like state law overruns any city laws we might pass," he said. "It's a priority for the federal government and the district attorney. It's the priority of the law."
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Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:31 pm
The Press-Enterprise Feds digging deep in pot-dispensary blitz
Thursday, July 19, 2007Tuesday's raid on a marijuana dispensary in Corona is part of broader law-enforcement efforts to shut down medical-pot outlets throughout Southern California.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration earlier this month threatened to seize the property of about 150 Los Angeles County landlords unless they stopped renting to marijuana dispensaries.
Building owners in other counties may be targeted next, said Special Agent Sarah Pullen, of the DEA's Los Angeles office, which oversees Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The landlords are breaking federal law, she said.
"Anyone who owns property where ongoing criminal activity -- whether it's a crack house or a marijuana dispensary -- takes place are possibly subject to asset forfeiture," Pullen said.
 The Corona raid and arrest of its operator follows the closure of pot dispensaries in Riverside and Norco earlier this year. Marijuana-patient advocates and law-enforcement officials said they believe there are now no more than three marijuana dispensaries remaining in the Inland area, none outside the Coachella Valley.
State and Federal Laws
Dispensaries distribute marijuana to people who have a doctor's recommendation to use the drug to relieve pain from cancer, AIDS-related complications, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. California voters legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996.
But federal law prohibits possession of marijuana for any reason, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that medical-marijuana outlets and patients can be prosecuted under federal law.
The only reason more marijuana dispensaries have not been shut down is that federal officials don't have the resources to investigate every violation, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.
Federal prosecutors and the DEA must amass enough evidence to convince a judge to grant a search warrant, he said.
The Corona dispensary, Healing Nations Collective, was targeted in part because of the large amount of marijuana that it sold, Pullen said. Healing Nations had sales of more than $1.2 million between July 2006 -- when it opened -- through March 2007.
"Just like with other drug traffickers, we concentrate on [operators] that have the most impact in the community," she said.
The DEA is aware of at least 300 marijuana dispensaries in the seven central and Southern California counties that it covers, Pullen said.
Corona Charges
A federal indictment charges Healing Nations operator Ronald Naulls with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, and of causing others to illegally sell marijuana. Naulls was transferred Wednesday from the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside into federal custody, Sheriff's Department officials said.
Former Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask last year issued a report stating that dispensaries in the county are illegal because they violate federal law; his successor, Rod Pacheco, agrees, district attorney spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said. The district attorney's office has prosecuted dispensaries that allegedly violate state law, she said.
San Bernardino County is part of a lawsuit challenging the state medical-marijuana law. Riverside County tried to join the suit too late.
 San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said he is unaware of any pot dispensary operating in the county.
Impact on Patients
With the Corona dispensary closed, medical-marijuana patients must now travel to the Coachella Valley or Los Angeles to get pot, said Summer Glenney, Inland Empire field coordinator for the Patient Advocacy Network, which assists medical-marijuana patients. Glenney said she was a Healing Nations patient.
"There are so many patients who are not going to make it out to LA or Palm Springs," she said. "They're not physically able to do so."
Glenney said she supports state and local crackdowns on any dispensary that violates state marijuana laws that limit pot use to people with a doctor's permission. Such marijuana outlets taint dispensaries that serve only people with legitimate medical needs, she said.
A Palm Desert dispensary will be allowed to operate only until September, when its lease expires, Palm Desert City Attorney David Erwin said. Palm Desert outlawed marijuana dispensaries in May.
A man who answered the phone at the dispensary, CannaHelp, declined to say whether the dispensary plans to move and if it does, whether it hopes to locate elsewhere in Riverside County.
The owner and two employees of CannaHelp are facing felony drug charges. City officials have said that undercover officials were able to buy marijuana from the dispensary without proper credentials.
Wyatt and Palm Springs officials said they did not know if the two pot dispensaries that had operated in Palm Springs are still open. Glenney said she believed at least one was still operating.
One of the dispensaries, Palm Springs Caregivers, was raided twice last fall after authorities said a man connected with the dispensary left food containing marijuana as a tip for a Palm Springs hotel employee. There was no answer Wednesday at the Caregivers phone number.
Riverside police raided a dispensary in May for allegedly violating state medical-marijuana regulations. The outlet was shut down.
In March, a Riverside County Superior Court judge shut down a Norco dispensary after granting a city injunction against the outlet.
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm
The Press-Enterprise Medical-pot protest in Riverside
Friday, July 27, 2007ยป Video: Protestors react to DEA raids
About 30 medical-marijuana advocates shouting slogans and carrying signs picketed outside the Riverside office of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration Friday protesting recent raids on medical-marijuana dispensaries.
Members of the group also handed out flyers criticizing Rep. Ken Calvert for supporting the DEA raids. They urged passers by to contact federal legislators to express support for decriminalizing medical marijuana.
DEA officers have shut down several Southern California medical-marijuana dispensaries in recent weeks, including outlets in Corona and Palm Springs. Several storeowners face federal charges for drug trafficking and illegal operations.
California voters in 1996 legalized marijuana for medical use. But marijuana remains illegal under federal law, which supercedes state law.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a proposal to bar the DEA from using federal funds to conduct the raids. Supporters of the measure argued that the raids were overriding the wishes of Californians and taking away doctor-approved drugs from sick people.
Only two or three dispensaries remain in the Inland area. One, in Palm Desert, will close in September under pressure from the city, and another, in Palm Springs, is being threatened with eviction after the DEA announced it reserves the right to seize the property of anyone who rents to medical-marijuana outlets.
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 7:34 am
The Press-Enterprise Two report relief from medical marijuana, but government doctor unconvinced
Friday, September 28, 2007
Carl Casey is convinced marijuana saved his sight. Kathy Jones says cannabis provides more relief for her muscle-related disease than the 27 pills she used to take for it.
The two Inland residents are among thousands of Californians who have doctors' permission to smoke marijuana to help them cope with medical conditions.
As medical-marijuana dispensaries in the Inland area close or authorities shut them down, local patients are traveling to Los Angeles County dispensaries or combing Inland streets to search for what they view as medicine, not a recreational drug.
With the closure this week of a medical-cannabis dispensary in Palm Desert, only two known medical-marijuana outlets remain in Riverside or San Bernardino counties, both in Palm Springs, patients and authorities said.
Earlier this year, authorities raided or closed four Inland marijuana dispensaries -- in Corona, Perris, Riverside and Norco.
Special Agent Steve Robertson, a spokesman at Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters outside Washington, D.C., said the agency would continue conducting raids because "marijuana has no medical use based on federal law."
California voters approved the medicinal use of marijuana in 1996. State law allows people suffering from AIDS-related complications, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other diseases to use cannabis to relieve pain. They must first get a doctor's recommendation. Patients can possess no more than eight ounces of marijuana and six mature plants.
But marijuana use remains a federal crime, and federal officials view state and local laws as irrelevant.
In addition, the DEA and the Riverside County district attorney's office allege that some of the dispensaries were operating as for-profit businesses, which is illegal in California.
Bearable Pain
Nearly 10 years ago, Kathy Jones felt an intense pain in the abdomen when she reached for the telephone. A year later, the 47-year-old Riverside woman was taking 27 pills a day to help her cope with a condition later diagnosed as fibromyalgia, disorder of the muscles and joints that can cause severe pain.
"I was mostly bedridden," she says. "I was so out of it with the pills."
In 2002, Jones' son, after researching the potential medical benefits of cannabis, approached her with a marijuana cigarette and said, "Mom, why don't you try this?"
That night, she smoked the joint her son had given her. Jones says she slept better than she had in years, and that, when she woke up, she didn't have to ask her husband to help her walk to the bathroom, as she had every day for four years.
The marijuana provided far more pain relief than her prescription medicine, she says. Jones started smoking it four times a day.
Eventually, she stopped taking most of her pills. She now only takes two pills each day.
"I don't want to be a druggie," Jones says. "Those 27 pills made me a druggie. I'd rather die than start taking that many pills again."
Marijuana has not eliminated Jones' pain. But it's bearable, Jones says as she stands in her bedroom.
On the dresser, near a package of antacids and a pair of glasses, sits two clear plastic containers of marijuana - one with cannabis for the day, the other with a more sleep-inducing strain of the weed for the night.
Every two weeks or so, her husband drives her to Los Angeles or West Hollywood to buy marijuana from a dispensary. She's afraid those dispensaries will be shut down one day as well.
"I don't want to have to go to the street corner to get my medicine," Jones says, her eyes welling up with tears. "By (state) law, I'm allowed to grow six marijuana plants for myself, but I'm afraid to grow it because I don't want to get arrested."
Jones says her life is vastly better now that she smokes marijuana. She can take walks and move around the house, and she can visit her ailing parents in San Bernardino.
"I thank God every day that I have my life back now," she said.
Glaucoma Relief
The area around Carl Casey's bathroom sink is covered almost entirely by plastic bottles of prescription drugs.
The Hemet man takes 31 pills a day, for clogged arteries, high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments.
Yet Casey, 66, says the most effective medicine he's found sits in a cookie jar in his dining room.
He smokes the marijuana in that jar only once a day, just before bed, so he doesn't spend the day high from the drug's effects. But that's enough to get relief from the intense pressure on his eyes that glaucoma causes, he says. Marijuana has helped far more than any pill, Casey says.
The cannabis even helps counter the side effects from his diabetes medication, which causes him to shun food. The marijuana stimulates his appetite.
On Casey's table sits a 101st Airborne Division cap, a reminder of the three years Casey served in Korea as an Army paratrooper.
As Casey explains how he believes marijuana has prevented him from going blind, a Federal Express deliveryman arrives carrying yet another package of pills from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Casey says a friend obtains marijuana for him. He doesn't know where the friend gets it. Casey had gone a few times to a marijuana dispensary in North Hollywood, but he says he can't drive that far by himself.
He wishes there were a dispensary nearby, because he doesn't want his friend to get arrested for helping him.
'Poor Science'
Dr. Bertha Madras said she's heard anecdotes of people who say marijuana has helped reduce their suffering from illnesses.
But Madras, a deputy director in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the anecdotes are not enough.
"We're not dismissing them," she said. "But using anecdotes is poor science and poor medicine, and it's poor public policy."
Her office has helped lead the federal government's battle against the 12 states that have legalized marijuana for medical use.
A 1999 National Academy of Sciences report found evidence that components of marijuana -- called cannabinoids -- can help combat severe pain, nausea and loss of appetite. But the report said that marijuana smoke, like cigarette smoke, can be harmful, and recommended that scientists focus on developing nonsmokable, cannabinoid medicine.
Madras said Marinol, a pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration that includes a synthetic version of THC, a key compound in cannabis, is just as medically helpful as patients claim smoked marijuana is. Other FDA-approved drugs, without cannabinoids, provide more relief from nausea, appetite loss and other conditions than marijuana does, with a controlled dosage and without harmful smoke, she said.
Caren Woodson, director of governmental affairs for Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, which supports the use of medical marijuana, said many people say that smoked or baked marijuana provides much more relief than Marinol and other prescription drugs. Marinol uses only one synthesized component of marijuana, THC, which can produce anxiety in patients, she said. In smoked marijuana, other compounds counteract anxiety, she said.
Long-term heavy smoking of marijuana could cause health problems, Woodson acknowledged. But cannabis can also be baked into food and ingested using drops or sprays, she said.
The group supports research into creating medications out of individual cannabinoids, Woodson said. But people suffering from debilitating diseases should not have to wait years for such medications to be developed if they are able to get relief now from smoking marijuana, she said.
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Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:32 pm
I'd just like to point out the time this story was posted...
I don't make 'em up, folks!The Press-Enterprise Another Inland pot bust made
04:20 PM PDT on Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Moreno Valley police raided a suburban home Tuesday night that had been converted into a marijuana-growing operation.
Police seized about 200 plants, worth about $600,000, in the latest in a string of residential drug busts in the Inland region.
Police were called to the house in the 15000 block of Bello Avenue at about 6:30 p.m. when neighbors called to report suspicious activity next door, said Riverside County Sheriff's Investigator Jerry Franchville.
Police returned with a search warrant at about 9:30 p.m. and discovered several upstairs bedrooms were being used to grow the plants, utilizing a sophisticated light and watering system, Franchville said.
No one was living in the home and no arrests have been made, Franchville said. No one answered the door of the three-bedroom, stucco home today and phone calls to the listed property owner were unsuccessful.
The house lies on a residential street in the Rancho Belago neighborhood, with an unkempt front lawn and children's toys by the front door.
Neighbors said they didn't know the residents of the home, who were rarely at the property.
Police did not say if this growing operation was related to several other homes busted in other cities in recent months, some related to Asian gangs.
A raid in May netted more than 1,000 plants in Corona and Eastvale. Raids last month found 732 plants at an Eastvale home and 350 plants in Big Bear City.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:22 pm
The Press-Enterprise Indoor pot farms cast cloud over soil-free gardening
Saturday, October 20, 2007At Discount Hydroponics, which claims to be the single largest mail-order dealer of hydroponic gardening supplies, "marijuana" is a dirty word.
The Riverside store advertises in "High Times," a magazine dedicated to the cannabis subculture, promising customers discreet packaging and confidential transactions. But once you step into the company's 18,000-square-foot "warehouse & superstore," pot talk is verboten.
If you utter the "m-word" on the premises, clerks will politely direct you to a sign at the cash register. It explains that virtually any plant under the sun can be grown hydroponically and that the store need not know what its customers are growing.
Discount Hydroponics is the largest of more than half-dozen Inland Empire stores dedicated to hydroponics gardening -- the growing of plants with nutrient solutions instead of soil.
Most of the local hydroponics stores are mom-and-pop operations in tiny storefronts.
Colton has a hydroponics store, and so do Corona and Palm Springs. In Temecula, dueling stores are neighbors along Interstate 15.
 In recent months, the Inland Empire has seen a wave of police raids at tract homes-turned-indoor marijuana farms. In the past year, more than two dozen of the indoor farms have been found in Riverside County alone.
Jarrod Grunder, 33, owner of Grunder Family Organics and Hydroponics in Riverside, which opened this year, said he doesn't mind discussing his business because he has nothing to hide. Grunder, who grew up farming and ranching, said he caters to home vegetable growers.
Talk of marijuana isn't allowed in the store, he said, even by customers who are card-carrying medical users.
Outside his shop on Magnolia Avenue, potted vegetable plants sit on the sidewalk. Inside, handpainted signs urge customers to "Grow your own" alongside a large poster for a music group called "Inhale."
Even narcotics investigators are quick to point out the many legitimate uses for hydroponics.
Many legitimate farmers use hydroponic growing techniques, and one of the best-known hydroponic farms is at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida.
Tina Torres operates a hydroponic farm in the Aguanga area, where she grows herbs, such as basil, that she sells to local grocery stores. Her plants grow in greenhouses, however, not under electric lamps.
Once, she said, when she was shopping at a San Diego County hydroponics store, the owner joked to his other customers about her being an "anomaly," that is, a legitimate commercial grower.
People growing marijuana hydroponically often cram thousands of plants into a single house, use sophisticated grow lights on timers, systems that recirculate water and industrial-size carbon air filters to mask the pungent odor of budding marijuana plants. With coverings on the windows that keep anyone passing by from seeing inside and any indoor light from escaping, the houses look normal from the street, But inside, once the lights kick on, the rooms are lit up like a football stadium at night.
Those grow lights run up huge electric bills, which often tip off authorities to an operation's presence.
Sgt. Joseph Pemberton, of Riverside County's West County Narcotics Task Force, said many of the indoor marijuana-growing operations have ties to Asian gangs, but investigators see others copying the tract home-turned-pot farm model.
"People are paying attention," Pemberton said. "This is big business."
Pemberton said the equipment found in a 3,800-square- foot Eastvale house was easily worth $35,000. In that case, most of the equipment came from outside Riverside County. But other larger-scale indoor growers will go from store to store picking up a few pieces at a time to avoid arousing suspicion, he said.
Pemberton said narcotics investigators do keep track of hydroponics stores.
"It's not necessarily going to lead to charges against the stores," he said, "but it might help lead us to who's buying" for illicit purposes.
Like head shops that sell the pipes and other accessories used to smoke marijuana, hydroponics stores operate in something of a legal gray area. Smoke shops can sell bongs and pipes, for instance, because legally they aren't considered drug paraphernalia until they have been used to smoke illegal drugs, Pemberton explained.
Sarah Pullen, a spokeswoman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, said store owners can be prosecuted if they sell their products knowing they will be used to grow marijuana.
"We would have to be able to prove knowledge and intent," she said. "It's very difficult to say that someone in a store knows exactly."
In the past, when merchants ran afoul of the law, they were growing marijuana for sale themselves or had ties to drug-dealing operations, Pullen said.
Investigators can't make assumptions about what the customers of hydroponics stores are doing with the equipment, Pemberton said. Nor can they assume that the stores' owners know the marijuana growers from the vegetable gardeners.
Sure, they aren't asking their customers a lot of questions, he said, but that's no crime. After all, he said, the people running large indoor marijuana nurseries get a lot of their materials at big-box home-improvement stores too.
Chris Jackson, the owner of Green Mile Hydroponics in Colton, said he and businessmen like him find themselves in a "catch-22" situation.
"When you talk about hydroponics, everyone thinks: illegal," he said. "And it's not that way."
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:32 pm
The Press-Enterprise First marijuana clinic in Riverside to open Thursday
10:00 PM PST on Tuesday, January 15, 2008
An 80-year-old great-grandmother from Temecula could be the first person to get a legal recommendation in the city of Riverside to use marijuana for medicinal reasons.
Iris Berger said she plans to use the drug to ease the pain of arthritis in her hands and back. She is scheduled to be the first patient at a medical marijuana clinic opening Thursday at 647 N. Main St., in northern Riverside.
"It seems to help," said Berger, whose son and daughter-in-law are longtime medical marijuana users and advocates. The couple won a three-year legal battle in late 2003 after being arrested for growing marijuana to treat their chronic illnesses.
The clinic will mean that Inland patients seeking a marijuana recommendation will no longer have to travel to the Coachella Valley, Los Angeles or Orange County to get one. A Rancho Mirage doctor has been the only person in Riverside or San Bernardino counties who could provide a recommendation for the drug, said Lanny Swerdlow, a registered nurse and longtime advocate for medical marijuana.
No marijuana will be dispensed at the clinic, said Swerdlow, who will operate the clinic under the auspices of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation. The nonprofit group operates medical marijuana clinics in Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state.
Ingrid Wyatt, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County district attorney's office, has said that the clinic would not be against the law as long as no marijuana was provided there.
California voters approved decriminalizing the medicinal use of marijuana in 1996. State law allows people suffering from AIDS-related complications, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other ailments to use cannabis to relieve pain. They must first get a doctor's recommendation.
Marijuana use is a federal crime. Authorities have raided or shut down dispensaries in Palm Desert, Corona, Perris, Riverside and Norco last year.
One doctor -- Paul Ironside, retired cardiothoracic surgeon from Bermuda Dunes -- will write recommendations at the clinic. Ironside said he will recommend marijuana only for people with serious illnesses, and he is not concerned about any law enforcement scrutiny.
"It's not to be used as a recreational" drug, he said. "As far as I'm concerned, law enforcement is invited in."
Berger's son, Martin Victor, said he is proud that his mother will be the clinic's first patient.
Victor, 55, uses marijuana to soothe cluster headaches he suffers as a result of a progressive eye disease and fibromyalgia. His wife, La Vonne, 52, uses the drug because of her multiple sclerosis, emphysema, panic attacks and compressed vertebrae in her back.
The couple was originally charged with felony counts of cultivation and distribution. Their case ended after Martin Victor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of providing less than an ounce of pot to a roommate, who Victor said took it without his knowledge or consent.
Berger said it is understandable that some people remain opposed to medical marijuana.
"We just can't change people's minds that don't want to be changed," she said.
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