January, 30 2013, 12:13pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford 415-573-7842 or ASA Media Spokesperson Kris Hermes 510-681-6361
City of Oakland Battles Obama Administration in Federal Court Over Medical Marijuana Dispensary
DOJ motion to dismiss Oakland's lawsuit will be heard Thursday at 10am in San Francisco district court
WASHINGTON
The Obama Administration will argue for the dismissal of a lawsuit Thursday brought by the City of Oakland in an effort to halt the forfeiture of property currently being used by Harborside Health Center, one of the most respected and popular medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Lawyers for Morrison Foerster, the law firm representing the city in this action, claim that the Obama Justice Department is acting contrary to its stated policy on medical marijuana and that the government cannot seize Harborside's property because of an expired federal statute of limitations. The Justice Department, on the other hand, argues that Oakland has no standing to intervene because it failed to file timely legal briefs in the case. The pending federal litigation stems from a forfeiture lawsuit filed in July by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag against the dispensary's landlords in order to force the closure of Harborside's two locations in Oakland and San Jose.
What: Hearing on a motion to dismiss the City of Oakland in the Harborside forfeiture case
When: Thursday, January 31st at 10am
Where: U.S. District Court, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, 15th Floor, Courtroom B, before Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James
"For good reason, the City of Oakland has inserted itself in the struggle between Harborside, a well-respected and state-law-compliant dispensary, and the Justice Department, whose only motivation is to crush legal access to medical marijuana," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access, the country's leading medical marijuana advocacy group, who is representing the interests of patients in the forfeiture proceedings. "By so blatantly threatening access to medical marijuana for thousands of patients, the Obama Administration has drawn even greater attention to its misguided strategy on this issue." Harborside, which is defending its own interests in avoiding closure, is being represented by Henry Wykowski.
In an unprecedented move by a municipal government, Oakland officials filed suit against the Obama Administration in October in an effort to stop its attacks on Harborside, a significant revenue source for the financially troubled city. In its legal briefs, the City of Oakland argues the federal government "exceeded its authority" by trying to shut down Harborside, "thereby jeopardizing the public welfare of Oakland and its residents." The brief further states that closing Harborside will not only "injure patients by denying them the medical benefits of cannabis," but it will also "cause economic harm from lost tax revenue, and increased costs of police enforcement, in addition to untold costs associated with channeling thousands of patients into an unregulated [illicit] market."
Earlier this month, on January 7th, Harborside's landlords lost their legal bid to force the dispensary to stop distributing medical marijuana from both of its storefront locations. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James rejected the claim that the landlords' property values would be harmed by the sale of medical marijuana. "There is nothing in the record indicating that Harborside's continued operation compromises the existence, value or title of either the Oakland or San Jose property," wrote Judge James. "Any argument about the urgency of stopping Harborside's activities rings hollow." Harborside, which serves thousands of patients, has been operating in Oakland at its current location since 2006 and in San Jose since 2009.
Thursday's hearing also comes less than two months after a state court rejected a similar attempt by Harborside's Oakland landlord, Real Property and Improvements (RPI), to evict the longstanding dispensary. RPI alleged in this separate lawsuit filed in August that the dispensary violated its lease by conducting illegal activity, which constituted a nuisance. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo ruled on November 30th that state court could not deem Harborside or any other dispensary a "nuisance" based on a violation of federal law.
The federal forfeiture action against Harborside is one of a handful of similar lawsuits the Obama Justice Department has filed in recent months. However, since October 2011, when all four U.S. Attorneys in California announced a campaign to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries, letters were sent to hundreds of landlords threatening asset forfeiture and criminal prosecution if they continued to lease to their dispensary tenants. Although they have filed fewer than 20 such lawsuits, the specter of litigation has caused the unnecessary closure of at least 500 legally-compliant dispensaries across the state.
Further information:
Oakland complaint: https://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/OaklandVHolderAndHaagOct10...
Oakland reply brief: https://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/Harborside_Oakland_Reply.pdf
Justice Department's asset forfeiture complaint: https://AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/Forfeiture_Complaint_Harbor...
Americans for Safe Access is the nation's largest organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research.
LATEST NEWS
Modi Government Crackdown on Dissent Hits 'Crisis Point' Before Indian Elections
"The growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities' blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law," said one Amnesty International campaigner.
Mar 22, 2024
As India's right-wing government cracks down on opposition ahead of next month's general elections, Amnesty International on Friday urged authorities to "stop weaponizing the criminal justice system to intimidate and harass" political candidates, activists, and others.
Protests broke out in the capital New Delhi and other Indian cities after police on Thursday arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, an opposition leader from the Aam Aadmi Party, over corruption allegations AAP members say are politically motivated. Two other AAP leaders were previously arrested in connection with the same case, which involves the alleged favoring of certain alcohol vendors and illegal campaign financing.
Authorities also froze the bank accounts of another leading opposition party, the Indian National Congress, over a tax dispute that dates back to 2018. Party leader Sonia Gandhi accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party of perpetrating "a systematic effort to cripple the party financially."
“They want to know we are corrupt like them, which is not the case.” – AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar on the BJP’s crackdown on opposition politicians.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested just today on charges of corruption.
The India Report: https://t.co/rxPr6zKnWx pic.twitter.com/P3eSbxVTVm
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 21, 2024
Gandhi, Kejriwal and others have repeatedly accused of Modi's government of misusing federal agencies and resources to repress opposition figures as elections loom. The BJP denies the allegations.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Indian government's crackdown on peaceful dissent and opposition has now reached a crisis point," Amnesty International India board chair Aakar Patel said in a statement.
"The authorities have repeatedly exploited and weaponized various financial and terrorism laws to systematically crack down on human rights defenders, activists, critics, nonprofit organizations, journalists, students, academics, and political opposition," Patel added. "The arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of Indian National Congress' bank accounts a few weeks before India holds its general elections show the authorities' blatant failure to uphold the country's international human rights obligations."
Patel continued:
What we are witnessing is a brutal crackdown on human rights including through the misuse of central investigative and financial agencies, attacks on peaceful protests, arbitrary arrests, use and export of invasive spyware for unlawful surveillance, [and] systematic discrimination against religious minorities to feed into their majoritarian Hindutva politics and targeted suspension of opposition leaders from the Parliament who dare to hold the authorities to account.
"The growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities' blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law," Patel added. "Authorities must respect, protect, promote, and fulfill the human rights of everyone in the country including human rights defenders, activists, and opposition candidates before, during, and after the general elections which are due to begin in April 2024. Authorities must also ensure access to justice and effective remedies for victims of human rights violations."
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on the situation in India.
The commission noted that in recent years, as Modi and the BJP have consolidated power, "concerns about human rights abuses in India have grown" over "a wide range of significant rights issues, including restrictions on religious and press freedoms, violence or threats of violence targeting members of national/racial/ethnic and religious minorities, harassment of and restrictions on civil society and human rights organizations, corruption, and lack of accountability."
Keep ReadingShow Less
House GOP 'Imploding' as Gallagher Resigns and Greene Moves to Oust Speaker
"House Republicans had a bad day," said one reporter, listing challenges and changes to leadership as a government shutdown looms.
Mar 22, 2024
The U.S. House of Representatives started a two-week recess on Friday, but not before a series of events that provoked fresh declarations of what has become a familiar phrase over the past few years: "Republicans in disarray."
Before leaving Capitol Hill, House members passed a spending package intended to prevent a partial government shutdown that could still occur unless the Senate acts. Fewer than two dozen Democrats and over 100 Republicans opposed the bill. Democratic opposition was largely related to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, far-right Republicans like Texas Congressman Chip Roy have made comments like, "Everyone that I know and trust about the border, about overall spending, see it as a complete and total failure and a capitulation by Republicans. And leadership worked the deal, so it's on leadership."
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) not only opposed the package but also filed a motion to vacate, hoping to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—which would only require a simple majority if it came up for a vote.
The \u201cRepublican-controlled\u201d House just passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill that doesn\u2019t secure our border, but funds full term abortion and trans ideology on our youth.\n\nI filed a Motion to Vacate because the House needs a Speaker who\u2019s able to win for Republicans and our\u2026— (@)
House Republicans elected Johnson to the leadership role in late October, after ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)—who then opted to leave office at the end of last year—and rejecting three other candidates for the post: Reps. Tom Emmer (D-Minn.), Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Noting that Greene filed a regular motion rather than a privileged one, meaning it could be referred to a committee, "where it would likely languish," NBC Newsreported Friday:
Greene told reporters that her motion to vacate was "more of a warning than a pink slip," saying she does not want to "throw the House into chaos," like the three and a half weeks that the chamber was without a speaker when McCarthy, her close ally, was ousted.
"I'm not saying that it won't happen in two weeks or it won't happen in a month or who knows when. But I am saying the clock has started. It's time for our conference to choose a new speaker," she said.
Johnson's October election led Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—who filed the motion to vacate targeting McCarthy—to declare that "MAGA is ascendant," a reference to the "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for the November election.
While Gaetz voted against the spending package on Friday, he also said that "if we vacated this speaker we'd end up with a Democrat. You know, when I vacated the last one, I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker and I was right. I couldn't make that promise again today."
Asked if he thinks Johnson's job is safe, Gaetz responded, "It is."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also responded dismissively when questioned about Greene's motion on Friday, tellingPunchbowl News, "She's a joke."
A spokesperson for Johnson, Raj Shah, toldPolitico that the speaker "always listens to the concerns of members, but is focused on governing. He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense, and demonstrates how we'll grow our majority."
However, Johnson's limited control over the House is dwindling. Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who backed the spending bill, revealed that he is resigning from his seat effective April 19 after previously saying that he would not seek reelection. Friday was also the last day of Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who announced earlier this month that he would step down from his seat.
The Washington Post noted Friday that "Buck and Gallagher are the sixth and seventh members of the House who are quitting midterm simply to leave for the private sector, a trend we dubbed 'the Great Resignation' last weekend. It's also the highest number of lawmakers quitting public service altogether in at least 40 years."
Responding to Gallager's announcement on social media, HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery said that "House Republicans are imploding in plain sight."
In yet another disruption to the chamber's GOP leadership, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas)—who announced last year that she wouldn't seek reelection—wrote in a Friday letter to Johnson that she plans to step down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Granger told the speaker she would stay in the post until the Republican Steering Committee chooses her replacement and then remain on the panel through the end of her term to offer "advice and counsel for my colleagues when it is needed."
The Texas Tribunepointed out that "the Appropriations Committee will need to pass another set of federal funding bills before the end of September to keep the government funded. Congress has failed to meet that deadline for nearly 30 years, and Granger acknowledged in her letter that election years in particular often distract Congress from passing spending bills on time."
GOP members of the upper chamber were also accused of sowing chaos on Friday, as the midnight shutdown deadline loomed.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on social media, "Well, it looks like we're headed for a shutdown at the hands of Senate Republican gremlins who (1) know that amendments can't pass because there's no House to send an amended bill back to (they adjourned) and (2) want amendments anyway."
"And (3) can't decide amongst themselves what won't-pass amendments they want," Whitehouse added. "I sure hope I'm wrong. But the Republican Senate caucus is a rudderless ship right now, so the gremlins are running the show."
Keep ReadingShow Less
AOC Pleads for Biden to End Israel Aid Amid 'Unfolding Genocide' in Gaza
"The time is now to force compliance with U.S. law and the standards of humanity."
Mar 22, 2024
Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the House floor Friday to demand a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel as it wages a genocidal war on Gaza and deliberately starves Palestinians to death in the besieged enclave.
"As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine's door. A famine that is being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during her speech. "This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated following the killing of another 30,000, 70% of whom were women and children."
"If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes," she continued. "It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away. It looks like good and decent people who do nothing. Or too little. Too late."
"As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine's door."
Noting that much of the death and devastation in Gaza was "accomplished with U.S. resources and weapons," the congresswoman pointed out that "it is against United States law to provide weapons to forces who block United States humanitarian assistance."
"That is exactly what is happening right now," she said. "So much so that the president himself stated, during the State of the Union, that the United States must and will be building its own port to let aid through. It will be too late."
"The time is now to force compliance with U.S. law and the standards of humanity," the lawmaker asserted. "And fulfill our obligations to the American people to suspend the transfer of U.S. weapons to the Israeli government in order to stop and prevent further atrocity."
There is no world in which the forced famine of 1.1 million people cannot be considered genocide. And that is exactly what we are watching unfold in Gaza now.
We must enforce U.S. laws and halt weapons transfers to the Israeli government to stop an atrocity in the making. pic.twitter.com/N40Jk3yKc7
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) March 22, 2024
Ocasio-Cortez related that "a decent man" once said: "'Preventing genocide is an achievable goal, a goal that requires a level of government organization and engagement that matches in its intensity the brutality and efficiency required to carry out mass killing. Too often, these efforts have come too late, after the best and least costly opportunities to prevent them have been missed.'"
"The man who said that was then-Vice President and now President Joseph Biden," she revealed. "And he was right."
Ocasio-Cortez was referring to a 2011 speech during which Biden told an audience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that "when a state engages in atrocity, it forfeits its sovereignty."
This, as U.S. troops were committing atrocities while violating the sovereignty of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia as the Obama administration continued and expanded the so-called War on Terror launched after 9/11 by then-President George W. Bush.
"This is not just about Israel or Gaza. This is about us," Ocasio-Cortez added. "The world will never be the same. And we will never be the same. And we must write our story in this moment, of what it means and who we are as Americans. And our story must be not that we were good men who did nothing. But that we were a committed democracy that did something."
Ocasio-Cortez's plea came as her House colleagues voted 286-134 on Friday to extend U.S. sanctions on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) until March 2025, while authorizing another $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel. Ocasio-Cortez was one of just 22 House Democrats to vote against the measure, which also authorizes more than $1 trillion in spending on U.S. militarization.
Responding to unfounded Israeli claims—reportedly resulting from torture—that 12 of UNRWA's more than 13,000 workers in Gaza took part in the October 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries suspended funding for the lifesaving agency, even as famine loomed amid Israel's relentless bombardment and siege. Numerous nations have since reinstated financing for UNRWA, most recently Finland on Friday.
The Biden administration—which is seeking an additional $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel—continues to support the country's war on Gaza even as evidence mounts that the key ally is violating an International Court of Justice order to avoid genocidal acts. However, the administration has ramped up its criticism of Israeli war crimes, with Biden imploring the Israel Defense Forces to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of civilians and Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week asserting that "children should not be dying of malnutrition in Gaza."
"It's time for the president to bring real leverage to bear, in accordance with existing U.S. law, and suspend military assistance to Israel."
But they are dying, and critics say U.S. humanitarian airdrops and construction of an aid port are essentially meaningless as long as Washington also continues to back Israel's genocidal onslaught. And now the world is watching as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his far-right government vow to invade Rafah, where around 1.5 million Palestinians—the vast majority of them refugees forcibly expelled from other parts of Gaza—are sheltering.
"The Biden administration has rightly been sounding the alarm about the threatened Israeli incursion into Rafah, and the looming famine resulting from Israel's indiscriminate war on Gaza," said Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy. "But the devastating last five months have shown the limits of the power of words."
"It's time for the president to bring real leverage to bear, in accordance with existing U.S. law, and suspend military assistance to Israel," Duss added. "We applaud Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's courageous call today for President Biden to do that."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular