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Bluelight Crew
SACRAMENTO (KABC) - The federal government is intensifying its efforts to smother California's pot industry by targeting not only medical marijuana dispensaries and growers, but also those who do business with them.
The latest possible targets: landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana.
The U.S. attorneys from California's four federal districts are preparing to unveil in the coming days their latest effort to push a coordinated statewide marijuana enforcement strategy. That approach includes the possible seizure of land or buildings leased to marijuana operations that may be legal under state law but remain illegal under federal statutes.
William Panzer, an Oakland attorney who co-authored Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California, said the days are numbered for the current model for medical marijuana dispensaries.
"It's an effective strategy because they're basically saying to landlords, 'If you don't do this, then you lose your property, and we could also come after you criminally,'" he said.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=8381567
The latest possible targets: landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana.
The U.S. attorneys from California's four federal districts are preparing to unveil in the coming days their latest effort to push a coordinated statewide marijuana enforcement strategy. That approach includes the possible seizure of land or buildings leased to marijuana operations that may be legal under state law but remain illegal under federal statutes.
William Panzer, an Oakland attorney who co-authored Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California, said the days are numbered for the current model for medical marijuana dispensaries.
"It's an effective strategy because they're basically saying to landlords, 'If you don't do this, then you lose your property, and we could also come after you criminally,'" he said.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=8381567
