(LAist Blog) From lawsuits to raids, around 20 local marijuana dispensaries today were subject of various law enforcement activities. As the DEA served a search warrant to Organica Collective in Culver City this morning, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office announced the filing of lawsuits against three medical marijuana dispensaries, including Organica, which has been subject of raids in the past.

Somebody's pants are on fire, Mr. Attorney General...

“It’s a separate thing,” explained Sarah Pullen with the DEA. “We were aware of each other’s operation today.” Pullen could not elaborate further than that search warrants being served. Witnesses tell the LA Times that three men were seen detained in handcuffs.

Los Angeles City Attorneys said nuisance and narcotics abatement lawsuits were filed against Organica and two Holistic Caregivers locations for violating the Narcotics Abatement Law, Public Nuisance Law and the Sherman Food, Drug and Cosmetics Law. Organica’s owner, Jeffrey Joseph, is the subject of an arrest warrant for sales of marijuana.

The recent medical marijuana ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council has nothing to do with today’s activities as that law has not been finalized. However, the City Attorney’s office contends the sale of marijuana is illegal under state law. Collectives, where the costs of cultivation are shared, are legal, they say.

City Attorneys also “sent eviction letters to owners of 18 different dispensaries and owners of the properties engaged in the sale of marijuana by dispensary employees,” according to a press release.

What was that Attorney General Eric Holder said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

What was that President Obama said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.  We don’t want to hear word parsing excuses – oh, but they aren’t legal under state law; oh, they’re not a collective, etc.  The results are the same: medical marijuana patients being terrorized by federal authorities as they try to get their medicine.

Will you send the armed agents when California votes for outright legalization this November?  Will you cling so desperately to another failed prohibition that you’re willing to pit the federal government against its largest state?

(click for larger image)

NORML Daily Audio Stash
“We heard some noise outside, and then the door literally burst in, and the DEA came in in full combat gear, told everybody to get on the floor and put their hands behind their heads,” Carey said. “It was like, literally, an episode of “24,” when they bust in on a terrorist cell.”

That’s the description of the Culver City DEA dispensary raid I blogged about last Friday.  Who knew that the “terrorist cell” description would have another frightening parallel.  That agent unloading DEA evidence is wearing a Blackwater t-shirt.

Blackwater is the private “security firm” with millions of dollars in no-bid US government contracts in Iraq.

This is a photo published by the LA Times as part of its photo slideshow online accompanying the news story about the raid.

Or, it was published.  If you click that photo slideshow link above, you’ll find that the seven picture slideshow has now been reduced to six.  The Blackwater man is no longer there.

As of this writing, the photo is still online at the Times, but it’s an orphan (you won’t find links to it), along with the caption:

DEA agents remove evidence from Organica Collective after the business was raided by federal agents. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Now, maybe the LA Times took the photo down because the caption was inaccurate.  If he’s working for Blackwater, he’s not part of “DEA agents”.  But then why not just fix the caption?

Maybe he is a DEA agent and he just got the Blackwater shirt as swag at some convention, and the LA Times took the picture down to protect the identity of the hip young pony-tailed goatee-sportin’ undercover narc with a Robocop-sized gun on his hip.

It would be nice to know whether or not our federal Drug Employment Administration is outsourcing federal police duties to private mercenary armies like Blackwater.  After all, they’ve done such a bang-up job with domestic policing in Iraq, like shooting up 17 unarmed civilians without provocation.  The Iraqi government revoked their license and kicked Blackwater out of the country, but, of course, they’re still there.

The Iraqi government has learned what the California government has learned – when it is engaged in a war on nouns like “drugs” or “terror”, the US government will do whatever it damn well pleases.

DEA agents raid Culver City medical marijuana dispensary – Los Angeles Times
Federal agents raided a Culver City medical marijuana dispensary where they spent more than four hours this afternoon, serving a search warrant that resulted in no arrests but left the shop in disarray.

The federal operation came on the same day an appellate court in San Diego ruled that federal law does not preempt the state’s law allowing the use of medical marijuana — a ruling touted by supporters of California’s medical marijuana law as a significant win.

At the dispensary agents left behind trash, counters strewn with open and empty glass jars, piles of receipts thrown on the ground, upturned couch cushions, bits of marijuana on the edges of counters and an ATM with its doors torn open and emptied.

In the residents’ rooms a safe was cut open, dresser drawers pulled open, and rumpled clothes and knickknacks thrown on the ground. An outdoor vegetable garden had plants uprooted, along with marijuana plants removed by the agents.

Brian V. Birbiglia, 35, sat handcuffed next to DEA agents on a tattered couch outside the dispensary for more than four hours during the raid. Next to the couch sat a box marked “DEA evidence,” about a dozen black trash bags and two Trader Joe’s paper bags. Some agents wore protective chest gear, black sunglasses and guns in leg holsters.

After the raid was over and he was released, Birbiglia was visibly enraged. An employee and friend of the dispensary’s owner, Jeff Joseph, Birbiglia said he is a disabled former Marine who has a prescription to smoke marijuana for a foot injury.

“We follow the law,” he yelled, his face red and his eyes teary. “We might as well have just got robbed by a bunch of thugs downtown.”

Clyde Carey, 50, of Marina del Rey was at the store Friday visiting a friend when agents burst in through the locked front door, he said.

“We heard some noise outside, and then the door literally burst in, and the DEA came in in full combat gear, told everybody to get on the floor and put their hands behind their heads,” Carey said. “It was like, literally, an episode of “24,” when they bust in on a terrorist cell.”

Another smash-and-grab federal robbery.  Another raid where there are no arrests.  Another example of state-sponsored terrorism in action.  No, the DEA doesn’t equal al Qaeda — they’re not killing anybody — but these raids do not stop dispensaries and they do not arrest so-called “criminals”, so their only purpose is to terrorize the proprietors and customers of the dispensaries.

Even if I take the prohibitionist’s view, however, I can’t see how this helps their cause.  All you are doing is creating more dedicated activists and martyrs and making your side look arbitrary and capricious.