U.S. Launches Drive to Close Marijuana Clubs

SAN FRANCISCO —  For the first time since California voters approved the use of medical marijuana, the federal government Friday mounted a legal battle to shut down six Northern California clubs that sell the weed.

The government wants to “send a clear message regarding the illegality of marijuana cultivation and distribution,” said Michael Yamaguchi, the U.S. attorney for Northern California.

His office filed civil lawsuits Friday accusing the clubs and 10 of their operators of distribution of marijuana, and seeking permanent injunctions to close centers in San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Ukiah and Marin.

The move comes as medical marijuana advocates in other states are pushing to follow California’s lead, seeking similar ballot initiatives to allow patients to grow and use marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

The federal government’s action was praised by California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and denounced by club operators.

“They are trying to thwart the will of the people of California, trying to put out a brush fire before it sweeps into a forest fire,” said Dennis Peron, founder of the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club, the state’s largest club selling marijuana.

Peron and other medical marijuana advocates said that the federal government wants both to undermine the voters who last year passed the medical marijuana initiative, known as Proposition 215, and to discourage fledgling ballot initiatives in Colorado, Alaska and Washington, D.C.

In Washington, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Bert Brandenburg said that if Friday’s action hurts those efforts, “then more’s the better.”

Yamaguchi said the government’s action is a “measured response” to what he characterized as the California clubs’ repeated violations of federal drug laws.

The federal government lists marijuana as a controlled substance that is illegal to grow, possess or distribute.

“California’s medical marijuana statute . . . has no effect on the applicability of federal drug laws,” Yamaguchi said. Federal law, he said, “has supremacy over state law.”

Constitutional scholars agreed with Yamaguchi’s assessment. The only question, after voters approved Proposition 215, was whether the federal government would choose to get involved, said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky.

“Did the California initiative provide clubs with any protection from federal law? No,” said Chemerinsky, who teaches constitutional law. “It was inevitable, if the federal government wanted to get involved,” that the clubs could be forced to close.

The federal action is the second recent setback for the clubs. Last month, a state appellate court ruled that Proposition 215 did not make cannabis clubs legal.

“All we are seeing here is an attempt to put out of business a commercial operation engaging in violations of federal law,” said professor Clark Kelso of the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. “The state appellate court ruling that held that commercial sales are not protected by 215 took the political difficulties off of prosecuting them for the federal government.”

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents made undercover buys of marijuana at the six clubs the government is seeking to shut down, Yamaguchi said.

He said the agents found operators to be lax in identification of clients and in scrutiny of recommendations from doctors. But he said how the clubs are run is not the issue.

“The issue is not the medical use of marijuana, it is the persistent violation of federal law,” Yamaguchi said. “Under our system of federalism, laws passed by Congress cannot be overridden or supplanted by state law.”

He did not rule out the possibility of filing criminal charges against clubs or their operators, or civil lawsuits against the nearly dozen other clubs serving thousands of people around the state.

“Our expectation is that we will prevail [in court] and that many clubs around the state will recognize the supremacy of federal law” and voluntarily close, Yamaguchi said.

Federal marshals served notices of the lawsuit to two clubs in San Francisco and to clubs in Ukiah, Marin, Oakland and Santa Cruz.

Lungren welcomes the federal government’s involvement, said Lungren spokesman Rob Stutzman. “Their actions today certainly help clarify how they believe federal law impacts upon these clubs.”

Lungren has maintained since passage of Proposition 215 that cannabis clubs are illegal under state law. He has been battling the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators club and its founder, Peron, in state courts since 1996 in an effort to shut down the club.

San Francisco officials were less enthusiastic about the federal action.

“If the goal of the U.S. attorney or the attorney general is to somehow dissuade the people of San Francisco from supporting the medicinal use of marijuana, then I think they are going to find themselves in a tough fight regardless of what civil litigation they bring,” said P.J. Johnston, spokesman for Mayor Willie Brown.

Peron and other club operators, who say they carefully screen customers, were defiant Friday.

“We will fight this,” said Peron, who will appear in court in 20 days to defend against the federal effort to shut his club. Asked what he intends to do until then, Peron said: “Sell a lot of pot.”

In San Jose, Peter Baez, executive director of the Santa Clara County Cannabis Center, said he would resort to selling marijuana out of parking lots if necessary.

The center was not a target of Friday’s federal action. But he feared that his club still might be sued.

“We’ve got our doors locked,” Baez said.

He criticized federal officials as callous. “They have no compassion for the sick people of this country,” Baez said. “I’m almost ashamed to be American.”

In West Hollywood, operators of the Cannabis Resource Center also reacted with alarm.

“We’re a little bit rattled,” said club operator Scott Imler. The government did not file suit against the club Friday, but Imler said he was braced for the possibility.

And in Oakland, cannabis club operator Jeff Jones, who was served with notice of the civil suit, pointed out that his club has had strong support from local government officials.

“We’re very meticulous in the people we screen. . . . we verify everything,” he said.

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Times staff writer Ronald Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.