Zine to DEA: butt out of LAPD turf; DEA to Zine: no, thanks.

As the turf war between the federal government and local officials over medical marijuana continues, the Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to block more medicinal pot shops from opening over the next year.
The city aims to weed out dope peddlers, ignoring the intention of 1996’s Proposition 215, which allows Californians to obtain marijuana for treatment of chronic pain, anorexia, cancer and other serious illness.
Since Los Angeles doesn’t currently regulate or license the estimated several hundred shops, the City Council voted to temporarily halt new stores while it develops a policy to separate ones selling the drugs for medical use from ones masking recreational sales under the banner of compassionate care.
As the city attempts to implement the policy, Councilman Dennis Zine sent a letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to ask it to back off raiding dispensaries.
The move came the same day as DEA agents raided the California Patients Group, a nonprofit center on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, and nine other dispensaries throughout the city.
“The people of the state of California voted to have this legalized and we want to do that,” Zine said. “We need the ability in this society to help those people who need (marijuana) because of medical purposes. Not because they want to get high, not because they want to commit some violation of the law, but for medical use.”
Zine, a Republican ex-cop who says he’s never tried the drug, asked the feds to back off to let the city police its own territory.
Prior to Wednesday’s raids, the DEA sent more than 100 letters to landlords warning that the pot shops are illegal. “We’re constitutionally mandated to uphold federal drug laws,” said Special Agent Sarah Pullen, a spokeswoman with the agency’s Los Angeles office. “We don’t get involved in city or county politics.”
Wednesday’s raids led to five arrests on suspicion of distribution of marijuana and netted two handguns, “large quantities” of plants, dried drugs and edible products and “significant amounts of cash.”
Though Pullen said the timing of the operation was coincidental, dispensary operator Reed Gordon described it as “a kick in the teeth to the city council.”
Gordon shut down his San Fernando Valley shop, which he said caters mainly to middle-aged patients, for the day and said the federal government is overriding the concept of states’ rights.
“I represent a product that I believe if you give it to 10 different people for 10 different things, most will benefit from it,” he said. “I’ve seen it work.”
Medical marijuana advocates praised the council’s decision and said they hope the temporary moratorium will ease the DEA’s scrutiny.
Sarah Armstrong said one of her regular collectives, Native Natural Care Collective in Reseda, recently closed after the operator’s landlord received a letter from the DEA. It was the kind of dispensary that should be encouraged, she said — clean, well-maintained, secure and conscientious.
“We need good solid laws on the book so we can show the public that responsible adults are behind this,” Armstrong said.
But the proliferation of dispensaries pose a problem for the Los Angeles Police Department. Deputy Chief Michel Moore, who oversees the Valley bureau, said the department backs the moratorium because of the increased property and nuisance crimes associated with seedier operations.
“It’s a significant concern for the Valley,” Moore said. “A number of these aren’t operating with regards to people in need. Many of these are shams where people are disregarding (the intent of the law) for significant financial gain, rather than for people who are actually in need for health reasons.”