Federal Authorities Decided to Put to the End Their Raids on the State-Law-Abiding Dispensaries

USA- medical-marijuana supporters in California are happy to boost that federal authorities decided to put to the end their raids on the state-law-abiding dispensaries.

As far as Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General statement in a news conference on an unrelated matter Wednesday in Washington with Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart is concerned the President Barack Obama's policy is not oriented to carry searches and seizures without arrests, the raids in many cases.

Holder pointed that people will be interested to find out that during the president campaign he was consistent with what we'll be doing in law enforcement. And his statement at the time depicts t present the American policy.

As was earlier this month admitted by White House spokesman Nick Shapiro, Obama was not intended to apply Justice Department resources to try to dissemble state laws on this issue.

"Today is a victory and a huge step forward," Steph Sherer, executive director of Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, said Thursday. "I'm overjoyed to finally have a press conference with some great news." It's better to stop losing time to overcome these federal attacks, but organize the groups like hers which can cooperates with Congress and federal agencies to easy conflicts between federal law, which prohibits the use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana, which pose laws such as California's permitting medical use.

There should be certain exclusions in legislation, which will care about veterans' interests or housing rights of people using the drug in respectively with state law, Sherer said.

In particular cases, the DEA and federal prosecutors have addressed to dispensaries' landlords, threatening to deprive them of their properties rights unless they evict their tenants. The same situation happened to Heather Poet's cooperative in Santa Barbara last month, causing Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, to write to Holder urging a halt to such tactics.

Poet told reporters Thursday that he is very pleasant to admit that her activity brings positive results and the Obama Administration are seriously intended to put the end to that degusting travesty that has been occurring to starving people throughout California.

Sherer said she expects the new administration will set a new course in this and other pending cases.

"This is where we roll up our sleeves," she said. "The devil is in the details."

The question is still in the air concerning the Charles Lynch destiny, whose Morro Bay dispensary was raided in 2007, in the results of which he was accused of illegal marijuana distribution charges last year.

According to premeditated evidences he is to be sentenced March 23, and federal prosecutors still seem are going to imprison him for at least five years. Marijuana dispensaries working outside state and local law's bounds support the evidence to prosecution. As an example you might see as Oakland police last Friday raided the Lemon Drop Cafe on Telegraph Avenue, searching for marijuana and cash and arresting owner-operator Steven Smyrni, of San Ramon, firearms.

NORML'S Weekly news Bulletin_Februaty.