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Patients arrested at DEA Convention protesting flurry of federal, local raids |
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Written by Jaime Galindo
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Thursday, 16 November 2006 |
A group of medical marijuana patients demanding to speak with the head of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency were arrested in San Diego Nov. 1 for refusing to leave the site of an agency convention.
The seven patients arrested and one cited were among 60 patients and activists protesting at the Marriott San Diego Mission Valley, where the DEA is holding a meeting to discuss medical marijuana.
 DISMISSED ? Rick Watts had three charges dismissed in his federal case. Oaksterdam News photo by Clark Sullivan.
“Doctors recommend cannabis and patients use it because it works,” said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, the medical cannabis advocacy group that organized the protest. “The DEA is inflicting unnecessary suffering on tens of thousands of Americans by denying them a safe, effective medicine. It has to stop.”
Earlier in the day, two other patients were cited for dropping a large banner near the hotel that read, simply, “The DEA is Not My Doctor.”
The seven arrested are: Ira Altshuler, Wendy Christakes, Alex Franco, Chris Fusco, Kris Hermes, Dale Tripp, and Kristen White. The one person cited was spinal-injury patient Craig McCain.
Patients in San Diego report that they are having difficulty getting safe access to the medical cannabis their doctors recommend since the DEA raided or threatened all the medical cannabis dispensaries in the area. Similar raids in the past month have shut dispensaries in Modesto, as well as in LA, Palm Springs and San Francisco. |
Jaime Galindo |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 17 November 2006 )
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