Perris City Declares “War on Medicine” –Perris City Council Approves Improper Raids of Medical Marijuana Cooperatives

 

Story by John Davison With HemetEyeNews

October 7, 2015 Perris City Declares “War on Medicine” –Perris City Council Approves Improper Raids of Medical Marijuana Cooperatives

On October 7, 2015 Perris Code Enforcement served a municipal code abatement warrant using a small army of armed Riverside County Sherriff’s deputies to affect the improper forced eviction of 8 to 9 Medical Marijuana Cooperatives. A municipal code is different than a penal code, with municipal codes locally governing anything from business zoning to garage sales. 

While Perris has a municipal code prohibiting Medical Cannabis Cooperatives it does not have any summary abatement codes on its books for dispensaries nor did the city notice or hold an adversarial hearing pursuant to the codes that it does have; therefore Perris City had no legal authority to use police force to summarily evict Medical Marijuana Cooperatives without due process of law (no notice, no hearing, no due process, just a swarm of police using force to remove citizens from their land and separat patients from their medicine). 

The City of Perris evicted Cooperatives on the spot and without notice of the planned eviction even though Cooperatives are legal in California, the medicine is lawfully prescribed to card-carrying registered patients, and there is no summary abatement procedure for dispensaries in Perris’ Municipal Code.

Sherriffs’ swarmed on Cooperatives giving those inside 15 minutes to grab their personal belongings AND THEN the Sherriff’s Department changed the locks on the doors, thereby affecting a summary abatement (i.e., an eviction without typical due process of law, like a properly noticed hearing before a judge and an adversarial hearing).

Under the City of Perris’ present illegal abatement enforcement plan a citizen can be ejected, locked-out, and stripped of his family home or business by armed police enforcing municipal code enforcement warrants without due process of law. This is not only unlawful and unconstitutional but also extremely dangerous as it puts armed police officers on the street against unarmed citizens over municipal code enforcement issues; as well as being a gross misuse of expensive police resources in order to save money and work for city officials and code enforcement officers.

Would you want your son or daughter shot and killed by police while serving a municipal code enforcement abatement warrant? If we do not stop this illegal city activity, when will the police be breaking into your home or business? Because you forgot to take out the garbage? Because you have an old car in your driveway? Or for whatever reason they decide to allege that you are a nuisance to your neighborhood?

UPDATE: October 9, 2015- Governor Signs Law—California Medical Cannabis Industry is Here to Stay

On October 9, 2015, just days after The City of Perris’ improper Medical Marijuana Cooperative raids, California Governor Jerry Brown signs into law a comprehensive statewide regulatory structure for California’s well established and burgeoning Medical Cannabis industry. 

The new laws are comprehensive and provide the much needed regulatory skeletal structure on a wide range of interrelated matters like: growing Medical Cannabis, employment in the Medical Cannabis industry, prescribing Medical Cannabis, using Medical Cannabis, and Dispensing Medical Cannabis; and the licensing, regulatory, and policing structures related thereto.

As a result of the new laws, the California Business and Professions Code has been amended to expressly authorize licensed physicians to prescribe “dangerous drugs” or “prescription controlled substances for the treatment of pain or a condition causing pain…” (BPC § 2241.5), and further guides physicians on how to do the same.


In other parts of the three new bills passed, California Codes were amended to discuss employment matters like subjecting Medical Commercial Cannabis cultivation employees to the Industrial Welfare Commission; as well as establishing rules for organic cultivation and rules for appellation of origins (i.e., geographic branding is here, like wine grapes);  new California Code even seeks to protect the integrity of California Cannabis by making it illegal for cannabis producers to claim Cannabis is from a specific California County if, in fact, it is not from that County.

Ultimately, the definitive statement of the new legislation is the official recognition of Cannabis as an agricultural product of the State of California.

So as the dust begins to settle on the issue of Medical Marijuana it still may take some months for the Green Curtain to finally come down, and municipalities may still be left with the ability to “zone-out” dispensaries, but the writing is on the wall as well as in the law books, and the Medical Cannabis Industry is here to stay in California.

So why are cities like Perris, California, that have had Medical Cannabis Cooperatives for years, suddenly raiding Cooperatives and closing their doors without due process of law and with expensive contract Sherriff’s deputies? What changed in Perris? Perris used to be known as a “Compassionate” city, and now it is known for Constitutional Due Process Violations and separating sick patients from medicine, without notice, and with unlawful use of force.

One thing is for certain, an inquiry should be made into the allegations of due process violations by the City of Perris; and more importantly why the City would expose themselves to liability just for the sake of separating sick patients from lawful medicine.

Update: October 13, 2015

Please find the included video below where Joshua D. Naggar, Attorney At Law, addresses Perris City Officials about this matter.

More updates to come as the Green Curtain is dismantled block by block.

Some of the Cooperatives are being represented by: