Eugene Davidovich vs. the County of San Diego

My name is Eugene Davidovich and I have been a resident of San Diego for over 20 years, honorably discharged from the US Navy, and having completed an MBA, I built a successful career in Software Development Project Management. I also am a medical cannabis patient and operated a non profit collective here in San Diego until last February when my house was raided and I arrested in ‘Operation Green Rx’ later announced by the District Attorney in a press conference as ‘Operation Endless Summer’.

In this operation a local San Diego Police Detective lied to his doctor about his identity and condition, obtained a valid recommendation for medical marijuana and joined the majority of the medical collectives and coops listed on the San Diego section of the CA NORML list.

The detective called me and joined the collective over the phone. Then after verifying his eligibility with his doctor I allowed him to join the collective. While pretending to be a sick patient, he requested that I deliver medical cannabis to him. Having seen him once and provided him with a ¼ ounce of medical cannabis, I am now facing 4 felony charges, $65,000 bail, and permanent profoundly traumatic damage to my professional and personal life.

Here in California it has been over a decade since the Compassionate Use Act. Several years since SB420, and almost a year since the California Attorney General’s guidelines. We even have had Congress urge the department of justice to clarify medical marijuana policy and stop the DEA raids.

However, here in San Diego we have the DA’s Office saying there is no such thing as a legal collective or cooperative, and that anyone who engages in an attempt to cultivate and distribute collectively is obviously in it for profit, “why else would they get in to this activity”.

There are many patients and collectives in San Diego who have gone above and beyond what is required in order to comply and stay within the law. Yet every attempt made to date by collectives and coops to follow the law in San Diego has resulted in long investigations, prosecutions, and collectives having to operate so deeply underground and under such intense daily fear and pressure, that the potential public benefit they could be bringing to the community and to patients is stifled by this environment of fear.

The DA has made it clear, San Diego is not a safe place for collectives, here patients are rounded up in drug sting operations, prosecuted, and forced into taking plea bargains.

Please visit my website which contains the actual footage of the undercover “delivery” of medicine to the detective, as well as many other details of my case. The Preliminary Hearing in my case is scheduled for 13 July, 2009 in Department 11 at 8:15am (220 W. Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101)
http://www.eugenedavidovich.com or http://sites.google.com/site/peoplevdavidovich/

Today’s Stash features a live report from the San Diego courthouse where activist “Henry Hemp” and others were protesting this action.  Degé Coutee from Patients Advocacy Network also weighs in on Operation Endless Summer.