"Medical" Facility's Real Purpose

Marijuana Center Shut Down
Patients Selling Drug Inside Office Building


When medical marijuana initiatives have appeared on the ballot, particularly in western states, voters have generally been sympathetic to the cause and approved measures for certain legalized uses.

There's always been an uneasy feeling, however, that medical pot advocates were really after something more, using the needs of sick patients to further their real cause: full-scale drug legalization.

Now, at least part of those concerns have been realized. A medical marijuana facility in Santa Cruz, California, has been ordered to shut down after it was determined it was being used for outright private pot dealing.

"Patients" were regularly using the facility for sales to others, effectively turning the center into a drug dealing office, rather than a clinic. Now they'll have to move it to another location unless the operation can be cleaned up to the city's satisfaction.

When a city as liberal as Santa Cruz thinks there's a problem it must be quite out of control.

What then, is the difference between deals inside an office building, as opposed to drug sales at the bus station across the street?

Voters have given medical marijuana advocates every opportunity to open legitimate clinics for use by patients and they've shown they have no intention of sticking to it, they want full-scale drug dealing, instead.

They blew it and shouldn't expect voters to be very sympathetic:


(Santa Cruz Sentinel- Shanna McCord- 5 April 2005)

Compassion Flower Inn owner Andrea Tischler said a medical marijuana co-op is needed to help guarantee patients receive top-quality organic cannabis.

Plus, a well-run co-op would prevent medical marijuana patients from having to drive to San Francisco or Oakland to find such services, Tischler said.

"Medical marijuana patients need to have safe access," she said. "They’re not going to have that if they have to buy marijuana on the streets.

"Why not downtown?"

For now, Pacific Coast Cooperative has shut its doors while Hilliard and Koch attempt to work amicably with the city to stay downtown.

If they are unable, Koch said they will relocate.

"If it means they don’t want us here, and we have to move, fine, we’ll move," Koch said. "We’re not renegades. We’re just trying to serve the needs of patients in the community."

A common complaint by medical marijuana opponents is that the practice sends a bad message to youth.

Proposition 215 critics say it was a deceptive and poorly written initiative to exploit public compassion for the sick to legalize and legitimatize the widespread use of marijuana in California.