New Medical Marijuana Collective Opens In Sausalito

[User]

Down an alley in the back of an aging commercial building on Gate 5 Road in Sausalito, members of the county's newest marijuana collective, Gate Five Caregivers, come to pick up their "medicine."

Inside the collective's steel-caged door sits Darryl Compton, a burly 22-year-old Marin City resident and collective member. Compton watches a large-screen TV monitor that connects to a closed-circuit camera trained on the alley.

"Darryl's the door man. He's keeping it real safe," said Kris Scott, 24, of San Rafael, another collective member.

Despite a Sausalito city ban on marijuana dispensaries, Gate Five Caregivers opened in September without informing local officials. It joins the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax as the second local medical marijuana collective, but more may be on the way: Two other groups are seeking to establish medical marijuana collectives in Novato and Corte Madera.

The first thing visitors do when they enter Gate Five Caregivers is sign an agreement stating that a licensed California physician has found them qualified to use marijuana and that they agree to be part of the Gate Five collective. Then they're ushered into the back room where they select their "medicine" and make their "donations," which range from $25 to $50 for an eighth of an ounce of pot.

"It's donations, and we refer to everything as medicine, not pot," Scott said.

The marijuana is packed in plastic medicine bottles and arrayed in long glass cases. The range of choices would humble Baskin Robbins. There is Train Wreck Haze, Purple Afgoo, Organic Grandaddy, Super Plat Kush, New York City Deisle, Chunky Monkey, Swazi, Romulan and Purple Dream, to name a few.

The Gate Five collective occupies the same space where last December the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force and Sausalito police confiscated $1 million worth of marijuana plants and processed pot. Four men, three of them Marin residents, were booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of cultivation of marijuana and possession for sale.

Scott called that a "coincidence." But Sausalito Councilman Mike Kelly said he doesn't buy that; he said the Gate Five collective is illegal because it violates a city ordinance prohibiting dispensaries passed by the council in 2007.

Sausalito adopted its ban after a group calling itself Capitol Compassionate Care Co-op of Fort Bragg sought to open a medical marijuana cooperative there in 2005.

"The question is, how do we enforce that ordinance?" Kelly said.

Proposition 215, approved in 1996 by 55.6 percent of California voters - and 76 percent in Marin - made it legal for patients and caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for medical treatment as recommended by a doctor. The federal government, however, has never recognized the legitimacy of the state law.

David Nix, a San Francisco lawyer who is working with the Gate Five Caregivers, said Sausalito's ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries is illegal.

"You don't have to be an attorney to understand that if the city of Sausalito passed an ordinance tomorrow that said there shall be no abortion clinics in this town that is not going to hold up in court," Nix said.

Mary Wagner, Sausalito's city attorney, said, "The city is exploring its legal options."

In Marin, San Rafael, Mill Valley, and Larkspur have also adopted ordinances banning medical marijuana clubs.

Attorney General Jerry Brown in August ordered a crackdown on medical marijuana clubs that are generating big profits. Brown also issued an 11-page directive outlining the rules such clubs must observe to be legal: they must operate as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives and pay sales tax, and they are prohibited from buying marijuana from illegal commercial growers. They must obtain their "medicine" from patients or caregivers, who may grow no more than 12 immature or six mature plants.

On Dec. 2, Scot Candell, a San Rafael lawyer, told the Corte Madera Town Council that he represented a group of 20 medical marijuana users who wanted to open a collective there. Since then, Candell said the council has warned him that it would close down the club on the basis that it would violate federal law. Candell is scouting alternative sites in Marin. He declined to say where.

Soon after Candell sounded out Corte Madera, William Ringgold, 33, of San Francisco informed the Novato City Council that he plans to establish a medical marijuana collective in Bel Marin Keys. Ringgold said he has identified two possible sites, but declined to identify them.

Ringgold, who works as a manager at an online dry cleaning delivery service and part-time for a marijuana dispensary in San Francisco's Bernal Heights, said he has received no response from the city.

"I'm really interested in doing this with the city's permission," Ringgold said. "Everything that Jerry Brown set forth as what we need to do to make this legitimate we're going to do."

Novato Mayor Jim Leland said, "I didn't have a reaction one way or the other when he spoke, and I have no opinion."

Candell said Brown's guidelines may be just one of the factors fostering new interest in Marin among medical marijuana club organizers. With the Obama administration coming into office soon, club organizers may be anticipating less federal harassment, Candell said. Also, enforcement of Brown's guidelines may result in many of San Francisco's clubs closing down, he said. In November, the Office of National Drug Control Policy estimated that San Francisco had 98 marijuana dispensaries, more than the city's 71 Starbucks shops.

"People can make money by opening them. I think that's the bottom line," said Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle. "I have no issue with people who are very ill and believe marjuana in some way helps them, but I'm opposed to these cooperatives because as far as I'm concerned they're hiding behind ( Proposition ) 215 to be distributors and sellers of a banned substance."

There are 770 Marin residents who have been issued a state card identifing them as having received a doctor's recommendation to use medical marijuana. The cards not required, however, under Proposition 215. The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which received a use permit from the town of Fairfax in 1997, has 5,000 members, said founder and director Lynette Shaw. Ringgold estimates there are 11,000 medical marijuana users in Marin.

Ringgold said, "If there were 11,000 people who had a cold, would they all have to go to the same Walgreens?"


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Marin Independent Journal (CA)
Copyright: 2008 Marin Independent Journal
Contact: opinion@marinij.com
Website: Home - Marin Independent Journal
Author: Richard Halstead