An employee at a local pot dispensary charged with conspiring to distribute scores of pounds of marijuana for several years was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to 30 months in jail.
Timothy Doolittle, along with seven others, was arrested in July 2007 at Bakersfield’s Natures Medicinal Inc., which had been operating at 323 Roberts Lane and is owned by co-defendants David Chavez Sr. and David Chavez Jr.
At one point, Doolittle faced up to 20 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in November to the felony charges, but he was found to be a “minor player” in the operations, his attorney David A. Torres said.
Doolittle worked at Natures for two years where he distributed about 188 pounds of marijuana from September 2004 to July 2007, according to the criminal complaint filed in court.
The charges were part of an ongoing tension between state laws, which allow distribution of medicinal marijuana, and federal laws, which do not. Several pot dispensaries in Bakersfield shut down because of the crackdown.
Protests rang out at the time of the crackdown. Medical marijuana advocates here, including Douglas McAfee, president of Bakersfield NORML, a pro-legalization group, called the busts “an overreach of the federal government.”
188 pounds of marijuana in that time period averages out to about 5½ pounds a month or about 4½ ounces per business day (188 lbs. / 34 months / 20 business days). That hardly sounds like a major drug kingpin to me. Sounds to me like one Californian not paying any sales taxes or payroll taxes or income taxes for 2½ years and California footing the bill for his room, board, and guarding for 2½ years. And all the while, there will still be dispensaries and medical marijuana in California, no matter how many lives the federal government shatters.
Loading ...
The cops in Kern County are thugs. The DA is dirty and his wife is an addict. The Sheriff”s bad-boy looser son gets busted for pot and his daddy takes it out on society. Apparently his parenting skills are poor as his apparent need to get even with those who believe there is a place for pot in society. He raids small pot dispensaries in a organized attempt to go agains the voters of this state.
Voters have VOTED and they say that medical pot has its place.
These thugs in law enforcement need to go. Voters in this county are weak at best. If voters would get a backbone and stand up to the abuses of power in law enforcement things would change. Until then voters deserve these dirt-balls. The DA has his own secrets with the stories I have heard. Then ( three years ago) I was at a party drinking wine with an intimate group of upstanding people and a recently retired police detective mentioned how he gave confiscated drugs to his brother in law. FTR he said it was pot. Said it was good stuff too. This is Kern County law enforcement. Two faced and dirty.
Give us real men who have no axes to grind in law enforcement. These present clowns are a sad joke and a huge embarrassment for law abiding citizens.