One of the defining moments of the latest war on medical marijuana in Arizona came last month when Gilbert SWAT officers raided the home of a patient suspected of having a single ounce of weed.
Ross Taylor's not only a bona fide, card-holding patient under the law, he also is the owner of the Cannabis Screening Centers, a business that hooks up people with doctors willing to recommend the use of marijuana.
He's a marijuana advocate, and he's a professional in what, since November, has been a legal industry. In April, he spoke about his business before the Gilbert Planning and Zoning Department. On June 9, he was in the process of moving into his new home in south Gilbert, near Higley and Riggs roads. He'd taken title to the home a day earlier; online records show that it was sold on June 8 for $262,200.
Before his movers came, a DIRECTV installer had been setting up a satellite connection in an upstairs bedroom. While doing his work in the room's closet, the installer happened to see baggies of pot in two jars. After he finished the job, the installer called Gilbert police.
About 6:30 p.m., 11 police officers in masks and riot gear gathered outside the home.
This well-armed team of anti-dope crusaders carried a warrant signed by Highland Justice of the Peace Dan Dodge. The warrant shows police were investigating nothing more serious than a possession case, and the suspected amount of marijuana held by Taylor isn't specified. Police later said they were concerned that Taylor had an ounce of marijuana in his home. JP Dodge was never told that Taylor was legally allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana under the voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.
Despite the new law, Arizona still is one of the few states in which possession of any amount of marijuana (unless you have a patient-registration card handy) is considered a felony. By all appearances, this was a major felony bust.
The cops cut the power and water, presumably to prevent any contraband from going down the toilet or garbage disposal, then pounded on the door and yelled for someone to open up. Taylor did so, and nine of the officers stormed into his new home. Two others waited outside, watching the front and back yards.
Some of the members of Gilbert's Special Investigations unit and SWAT-trained Criminal Apprehension Team were wearing masks and carrying shields. They displayed handguns, rifles, and shotguns in the "ready" position as they entered, according to a police report.
"They started screaming, 'Search warrant!'" Taylor tells New Times. "They said to turn around and walk toward the door.
"Luckily," he adds, "my son, who's 2 1/2, wasn't there."
The police report states that four men and a woman were taken out of the house. Another "disabled" woman on the second floor would have been a problem to remove from the home, so she was allowed to stay inside.
The report doesn't mention, however, that three of the men extracted from the home were from the All My Sons moving company.
Kevin Anderson, the company's local branch manager, confirms that the officers put the movers in handcuffs along with Taylor and his wife and detained them all for about an hour while a search of the home was conducted.
The police report, authored by Gilbert Detective Craig Avery, states that the bust was in "reference [to] an ongoing narcotics investigation" and that Avery was told by Sergeant Benny Fisher about Taylor's "making comments about selling marijuana."
As New Times reported in a June 16 Valley Fever blog post before the July 1 release of the police report, Sergeant Bill Balafas, the police department's spokesman, said the reason for the raid was that the Gilbert PD had received a tip that the homeowner was in possession of about an ounce of marijuana.
Balafas told the East Valley Tribune for a June 17 article that "the satellite worker who reported the possession told investigators that Taylor said he was selling the marijuana."
Taylor says an officer asked him whether he was dealing weed, and he denied it, though that exchange isn't mentioned in the report. Nothing else in the report supports the accusation, and police didn't state a word about it in the search warrant they requested from JP Dodge.
A spokesman at DIRECTV's headquarters assured New Times that he would check on the story of the snitching satellite installer and call back, but he never did.
Taylor recalls how the installer mentioned the marijuana he'd spotted in the closet.
"It's okay," Taylor says he told the man. "I'm a medical-marijuana patient, and I've got a card."
Naturally, Taylor says, he produced his card — which contains his photograph. He says one of the raiding officers, a guy in a ski mask, told him, "I don't know even know if you're supposed to have this card."
The officer, Taylor says, referred to the lawsuit filed in federal court against the state's medical-marijuana law six weeks ago by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and state Attorney General Tom Horne.
For all their intense efforts, the raiding party found about two ounces of pot in Taylor's closet, "a small chunk of hashish," and some pipes. Taylor readily admitted the stuff was his. After all, it weighed less than the statutory limit for cardholders.
With medical marijuana dispensaries on hold until lawmakers can decide if they’re in violation of federal law, pot clubs have been popping up around Arizona, bringing together card-carrying medical marijuana patients to share private supplies of marijuana. Now, these clubs are coming under legal scrutiny.
Now the mmj issue was thrown in my face since the park owner of rancho reata senior mobile home park has posted a notice at the park that all mmj users will be evicted since we agreed to a crime free zone when we moved in and since we smoke even with my card and medical issues...we are involved in a criminal enterprise by using this voter approved medicine so now the want to charge a huge deposit to move it (not to mention cost of moving it....) you know that leaves it wide open to put us all out on the streets and are doing as we speak...only for not wanting to feel sick and steal our mobiles because we obeyed the law and got a card..so now I've lost my house, job, possesions, and moved to az... and then due to health and economy......filed bankruptcy .....scrape together money for a mobile......and now some park owner is taking it because I complied with the law did the right thing and will soon be living in my car....due to this mmj issue and "IM PISSED" IS THIS WHAT OUR COUNTRY BECOME...THE LEFT SAYS WATCH OUT WHILE THE RIGHT ROBS US BLIND AND THEN THEY TAKE TURNS.....WHAT DO YOU WANT..... MY LIFE...I'M DYING AS FAST AS I CANGOD FORBID I USE SOMETHING TO MAKE ..IT TOLERABLE.......
SOON TO BE HOMELESS
THIS MENTALITY IS...........SOON COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD IT IN MINE
When is this stupid dung ever going to stop. The police attacking the sick and dying? Arizona's bitch governor and her @ss hole friend Horne can go to hell........................
These fools have thier brains upside down..they should go after all these shops selling the so called synthetic marijuana !!IIts getting out of hand, i recall a friend working in such a store telling me thay sell around seven hundred capsules or whatever it is (spice) in a week!!.guys go stop the artificial crap rather than harrasing people who want to get it the legit way for legit reasons.....
I'm a card holder, I suffer from Fibromyalgia and extreme anxiety disorder, this past weekend one of Sheriff Joe's boys pulled me and my boyfriend over because our truck was smoking. He claimed he smelled marijuana, and told us to get out the car. I was not driving. I showed him my card and the little bud and pipe I had on me. He kept us there for an hour while he argued on his phone with someone. When he came back he was pissed because someone at the County Attorney's office had told him he could not arrest me for possesion. He then ranted at us for another 15 minutes that it's still illegal for me to possess it, it's not, because he said,"This isn't a law because of the block that our fine Governor has filed," and that I was lucky he wasn't arresting me, which he couldn't. He then left taking with him my bud and pipe and my boyfriends pocket knife. I was left with no proof of this stop and when I called they said they had no record of the stop. Ignoranced is not only rampant in our police departments but it is encouraged.
so are people really free in this piece of shit country???jesus fuckin christ the u.s. gov't loves to fuck with everyone and thanks to them this country will never recover!!!!!!
The reactionary Conservative Clowns in this story are fighting a law their constituents voted FOR, and subsequently, IN THE MAJORITY, support...So much for doing things legally, on the up and up...
what a bunch of idiots cops in riot gear and ski masks and guns for one ounce of weed...one. gilbert police get a life. this is ridiculous...i would love for other police officers to do the same to those gilbert cops for any prescription drugs they might be allowed to have. it makes me depressed to be an american when i hear things like this and wonder how free this country really is. also i would like all police officers to ask them selves if they are peace keepers or law enforcements agents.
TOO many guns and badges and the authority to use both in this state. Most of the guns and badges in this state are pathetic morons, who think they are the law, instead of enforcing the law. Sue the shit out of them. peace
The dispensary model is simply wrong. It creates middle man legal drug dealers who are legitimized because they got leases, paid fees and hired lawyers. Oh- like Wall Street!
Instead, lets just allow patients grow their own. This takes drug dealers out of the discussion.
Agreed. This actually makes it a lot easier. If all registered patients were to grow there own pot, then we can actually have a system where profit is not being made. We grow our own since we are allowed to, we then trade it with other patients other strains of pot, goods or services and not cash leaving the dispenaries and state out of the picture. At the same time our paranoid legislature doesn't have to worry about state workers getting arrested. I don't think it's illegal to barter in this state, and the feds aren't going after the patients, only large scale growers and distributors. By doing this problem would be solved. Of course the incident in Gilbert may lead us to think otherwise. We have to understand that the state legislator has no interests in appeasing the voters of this state. Bill Montgomery was openly calling Medical Marijuana patients a bunch of stoners in the AZ republic ( todays letter to the editor), showing his true ignorance and bias in this bill to begin with. I have lived in Texas, and AZ is a lot more backwards than Texas ever was.
I've been SCREAMING this at the New Times for months and they just want to critisize the Gov and the AG. That dispensary part of the law was bad and put in just to satisfy the phamaceutical drug industry (dispensaries might become pharmacies in the future).
Hemp/Cannabis/Sativa is a weed. It is easy to grow. Granted more exotic strains are complicated, but for just plain every day medicine - it's a weed - it grow like a weed. It requires very little knowledge or effort to grow and cultivate. Stop trying to make people rich
Dispensaries ARE needed by patients who are trying the Medicinal Marahuana for the first time. It is also true enough a "weed" but a LOT of the people who need it are not ABLE to grow it themselves. Growing requires more than just tossing some seeds in the ground and waiting, you are talking about "Medicinal Product" NOT something that you know nothing about its ability to help the patient. ExpertShot, I hope you enjoy, wait, continue to enjoy good health but there ARE those of us out here that aren't so lucky. Just my 2 cents worth!
Guest - that is why the law provides for caregivers to help the patient grow their medicine. And yes, it is like throwing the see in the ground and waiting (while watering, trimming buds, etc.). The active ingredient is THC - that will exist in whatever strain or type of cannibas you grow. It doesn't have to be "special" or need expensive equipment. You must be one of those who hope to make money on the dispensaries part of the law. And, before you claim I'm ignorant of the intricacies of growing cannabis - I've been growing it since I was 12 years old and one of my best friends was the curator of the Hemp Museum in Amsterdam for 5 years. I'm no slouch.
The fact is that marijuana is easy to grow, and doesn't have to have a high potency to get a person high, especially if one is using a vaporizer or smoking it. The lungs can only transfer so much THC through to the blood stream and after the process has maxed out, you don't get any higher. Now, if you were to eat it, that would be a different matter. But still, if one has lower potency pot just consume more of it to get the same effect.
People, don't let these hucksters fool you. Grow your own, or have a caregiver grow it for you. Kick these capitalists who want to exploit you to the curb.
Dennis Burke will not be able to dodge the ATF gun scandal much longer. There will be a vacancy soon at the Phonix USA office.Jan Brewer will read this story eating her corn flakes soaked in McCormicks Scotch, and she will dig her heels in for another expensive tax funded fight...and just shrug her shoulders when she loses and the 1 million dollar tab is paid by all of us.
Apparently you posted on the wrong thread. Wow. So off topic. And, you aren't the boss of me. I'll get my TV from whoever I choose. Get a life. Recall Jan Brewer. Friggin beotch.
Grinnin, did you READ this article??? It was a DIRECTV installer who reported the pot to police that got them the warrant and started this whole thing off. I can't believe someone actually liked your comment. What a clown.
I canceled Direct TV as well, but for unrelated reasons... mostly due to incompetence. Speaking of which... since the government can't get it's act together one-way or another... Federal OR State.... Everybody get their card's, get some seed's and grow you're own and let the government do what it does so well... Spin in endless circles. A simple effective plan if you ask me!
I for one am shocked that the spineless big talk and not a protest scheduled. I've not heard of one. In the eyes of the radical right your are a bunch of loser stoners that can't organize. Or can't find your way out through the smoke. Who will inspire the almost a million voters that have once again been quietly been subverted. I'll take some time out of my day and make a sign. Send me a tweet @monte bates
A movement does not live in the Arizona Revised Statutes, but laws do. Our state defines medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation sites but the Carolyn Short cartel is holding up the implementation. Over 841,000 Arizonans voted for the proposition. For those who do not believe in democracies, there are other countries besides America to live in.
Who cares if the opposition meet with Horne or anyone else for that matter! Isn't that what you're suppose to do when you advocate for an issue? You meet with community members, elected officials, and anyone else that'll listen. If this was remotely an issue we need to turn to Humble which paid a special favor to his law group buddies and gave the pro-drug people a special "partnership breakfast meeting." Or when Mr. Humble went on MPR with Andrew Meyer; yet he should remain neutral...hummm! If anything we should be looking at Humble and pro-drug lobby working together...Mr. Stern, why was that never mentioned? This article seems to be quite one sided!
We sponsored that breakfast. It was about the law being implemented and the rules that the Arizona DHS developed for the dispensary application process. Stop drug smugglers from importing marijuana and cocaine across the border, shut down meth labs, impede the resale market of prescription drugs and the recreational use of anxiety meds among our populace. We follow the law. Those impeding medical marijuana are in the way of state law. So really?
I really doubt that all the greens going around the clubs right now were grown here. You can throw around how your "movement" is combating the cartels, but at the end of the day you will get greens in wholesale from whatever seller is fully stocked. Stop making this about some just cause.
So keeping the sick and dieing people who want the freedom to choose their own health care options out of for profit prisons isn't a just cause? Especially when you consider the fact that Arizona is engaged in a law suit against the Federal Government over this very issue. What kind of sick demented people can hold both the position that they be free from the Federal Government forcing health care on them while wanting to lock up citizens of the state of Arizona for freely choosing their own health care?
A movement does not live in the Arizona Revised Statutes, but laws do. Our state defines medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation sites but the Carolyn Short cartel is holding up the implementation. Over 841,000 Arizonans voted for the proposition. For those who do not believe in democracies, there are other countries besides America to live in.
Your side is trying to break the law and deserve to be in jail .Thwarting the will of the voters for third time since 96.Federal courts have already ruled in favor of states right to enact own drug laws vs Fed. controlled substance act . This includes all medical marijuana laws.With supreme court refusing to hear. END OF STORY.... SAN DIEGO CO. VS CALIF.
I think its pretty silly to make this out like its a huge violation of civil rights. Granted there are some really sick patients out there who could benefit from MMJ, a majority would be normal people with no ailments going to the many mills that certify for a few hundred bucks. If you want legalization just be upfront, theres no need to use terminally ill people to get your agenda across. Right now its really all about making a quick buck. Allan Sobol's "club" offers 8ths for $75, and you're telling me its about compassion? Scrap the law and push for full legalization without dragging cancer patients through the mud.
If you don't think that the war on drugs isn't a war on ALL citizens civil liberties then you need to wake up and start paying attention. If adult citizens of this country do not have the right to decide what substances they ingest in their body in the privacy of their homes then what rights do they really have?
So... the state's already made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling these cards that are now worthless? Then they'll be giving refunds, right? Oh, of course not. Obama's flip flopping is, unfortunately, predictable.
Can who ever caters their next tax-payer funded dinner do me a huge favor? Slip them some pot brownies or hash tartar so they can see they too were victims of the propaganda machine (and hopefully chill the hell out just a bit) and we can all move on. Prohibition failed miserably, but obviously the government was a little smarter then as it didnt last quite as long.
Narcotics raid . . . what is this, the 1930s?
Screw the direct tv guy and screw the officer that said "i don't even know if you are supposed to have this card", no ish that is between the doctor and the patient, swat isn't who decides who gets a card!
The Compassion Clubs and Co-op's are here folks and we aren't going anywhere!With groups like our educating those in the industry as well as offering free "rights assertion" classes for the public we hope to take this fight to their doorstep!! We had tried to supply NT with photo's of local patient and caregiver grow op's but the media has everyone scared again. Enough is enough. The more transparent we are and the more we educate each other, the faster this failed "drug war" will end! So in light of Ray's article we have moved our GRAND OPENING at Alma School and the 202 loop to this Monday coming up, the 18th. Arizona Cannabis Society will be giving out truly FREE marijuana to the first 100 prop-203 card holders that come in the club to sign up.
It's time we show Arizona just what "Compassion" is all about. We have assisted other groups in starting their own Compassion Clubs, people like Monte and Ferguson have all consulted with AZCS as did Al Sobol just before the opening of the 2811 Club. They all had great ideas but they just needed a little guidance to stay ARS 28.1 compliant and all of them will now do well with their business models. However, this Monday we will be opening our Compassion Center and it is like nothing you have seen so far Arizona. From pre-rolled cones to pre-rooted clones, medication to education, paraphernalia from local glass blowers to edible mmj treats from culinary arts professionals across the valley, we have everything you need to medicate safely and responsibly Arizona!! Imitation is often referred to as the "highest form of flattery", come see why we are often imitated but will never be duplicated!!Arizona Cannabis Society, Arizona's premier medical marijuana advocacy and mmj services center is about to show AZ how its done!!
Seems as though Carolyn Short and her anti-pot crew could be civilly sued for "causing needless ongoing pain and suffering" or legal terminology similar to those medical marijuana patients who paid for their registration and card, but are unable to acquire medical pot because of the interference of Short and her fundamentalist crew in the operation of currently legal state government processes. A thousand or so claims for damages in the hundreds of thousands of dollars won by the plaintiffs would probably set her back a bit. Ms. Short seems quite willing to provide the New Times with documentary evidence of that interference. I am not an attorney, but it seems to me that patients could and should use tort law against these people who would nullify the will of voters!
Ray, Hash is legal - as are the edibles.
Just check ARS 36-2801
15. "Usable marijuana" means the dried flowers of the marijuana plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof, but does not include the seeds, stalks and roots of the plant and does not include the weight of any non-marijuana ingredients combined with marijuana and prepared for consumption as food or drink."
I’ve pointed out this before as well. "Usable marijuana" means the dried flowers of the marijuana plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof Or 36-2811 sec D, 1,2,3 No person may be subject to arrest, prosecution or penalty… 2-Being in the presence or vicinity of the medical use of marijuana as authorized under this chapter. 3-Assisting a registered qualifying patient with administering marijuana as authorized by this chapter. (Doesn’t state Caregiver either)
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed an Arkansas federal judge's ruling..."Thus, the primary question ... is whether Arkansas law permits a police officer to arrest a person for refusing to identify himself when he is not suspected of other criminal activity and his identification is not needed to protect officer safety or to resolve whatever reasonable suspicions prompted the officer to initiate an ongoing traffic stop. We conclude it does not," the court said.The court also said the state trooper did not have qualified immunity from the lawsuit under state statute.Qualified immunity protects public officials "from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have," the court said, adding that the trooper "acted contrary to the plain meaning" of the state statute.This is something I found about police that take their power too far and violate the law. No immunity….
It's never a surprise to me that Gilbert PD would raid medical marijuana patient home because they never have anything else better to do. They swarm like flies all over the city pulling people over for stupid shit like not using the 2 second rule at a complete stop, and love giving out tickets. Everybody I know get along with Mesa, Chandler, and even Tempe PD but can't stand Gilbert PD because of bullshit like this raid. Why do you think there is a Facebook page of I hate Gilbert Cops and its because of this.
Fuck Brewer and Horne, who elected these assholes any way...oh that's, the dumb ass voters of Arizona where your votes means absolutely nothing unless they want it to.
I'd say Carolyn Short's daughter is on meth because Carolyn Short is her mother and she's rebelling the fact that her mother is a control freak and an ass hole.
Yea I always find it amazing how people like Carolyn Short and Russell Pearce never look inwards too evaluate their own behavior to see if it might be part of their problems. It's always something or someone else who is to blame.
She admits that she keeps recreational drugs (and yes alcohol is just another recreational drug, with very little medicinal value except as a disinfectant) and she runs an organization that claims it's about keeping drugs out of Arizona. What hypocrisy, alcohol kills more people every year than heroin, cocaine, meth and the rest combined. Marijuana on the other hand has been used as a medicine since the dawn of man without a single recorded death. If it's so dangerous, show me the bodies. They can't of course because it's a big lie.
But Carolyn Short wants to make people who use a natural God given plant criminals, locked up in cages like animals, just so she wont have to admit that she may be part of her daughters problems. What sick demented person she must be.
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