SmokeDog420
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From the day he opened his retail establishment in an 80-year-old building in Old Roseville, he says, he scrupulously screened his customers to make sure no one who was unqualified was able to buy his product. He established meticulous business procedures and even joined the Chamber of Commerce.
"I worked my (butt) off to make this whole thing work," he said last week over a lunchtime bowl of soup. "... I was trying to be part of the community."
The federal government, however, says Marino did at least one thing very, very wrong.
"He was selling marijuana," said Gordon Taylor, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Sacramento office. "It's pretty simple ... you can't do that. It's against the law."
Just which law - and whose law trumps whose - are at the core of the federal government versus Marino.
And the Marino dust-up is just one skirmish in an 8-year-old war that has pitted states against the federal government, federal judges against federal prosecutors and two very sick Northern California women against the Bush administration.
Last week, the U.S. attorney's office filed a civil complaint against Marino, a 51-year-old former electrician who opened his Capitol Compassionate Care store on Old Roseville's Lincoln Street in late January to sell marijuana to people with medical prescriptions for it.
The complaint, in which the government contends Marino profited from an illegal enterprise, asks a federal judge to order the forfeiture of the 5-acre Newcastle property Marino bought for $550,000 last June, and the historic building in which he leases space.
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Author: Denny Walsh and Steve Wiegand -- Bee Staff Writers
Published: Sunday, September 12, 2004
Copyright: 2004 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: Northern California Breaking News, Sports & Crime | The Sacramento Bee
"I worked my (butt) off to make this whole thing work," he said last week over a lunchtime bowl of soup. "... I was trying to be part of the community."
The federal government, however, says Marino did at least one thing very, very wrong.
"He was selling marijuana," said Gordon Taylor, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Sacramento office. "It's pretty simple ... you can't do that. It's against the law."
Just which law - and whose law trumps whose - are at the core of the federal government versus Marino.
And the Marino dust-up is just one skirmish in an 8-year-old war that has pitted states against the federal government, federal judges against federal prosecutors and two very sick Northern California women against the Bush administration.
Last week, the U.S. attorney's office filed a civil complaint against Marino, a 51-year-old former electrician who opened his Capitol Compassionate Care store on Old Roseville's Lincoln Street in late January to sell marijuana to people with medical prescriptions for it.
The complaint, in which the government contends Marino profited from an illegal enterprise, asks a federal judge to order the forfeiture of the 5-acre Newcastle property Marino bought for $550,000 last June, and the historic building in which he leases space.
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Author: Denny Walsh and Steve Wiegand -- Bee Staff Writers
Published: Sunday, September 12, 2004
Copyright: 2004 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: Northern California Breaking News, Sports & Crime | The Sacramento Bee
