A Marina medical marijuana dispute is smoking up as police order a cannabis collective to stop business, and one of the collective’s leaders slings insults at the city’s police chief.
In late May, Marina Police Chief Edmundo Rodriguez sent leaders of the Coasterdam Cannabis Collective a letter warning if the collective doesn’t halt operations, the city may fine operators or shut the collective down.
The letter came just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can use zoning laws to ban dispensaries.
Despite the May 20 police notice, Coasterdam has continued producing and delivering weed. Kevin Saunders and his partner, Nobia Monsauret, say there’s adifference between a grow collective, which provides product to a small group that works and grows together, and a dispensary, which often distributes to a larger number of people from a storefront.
“Right now we’re in a language game between what’s a dispensary and what’s a collective,” Saunders says.
“I’m just a grow collective,” Monsauret says. “It’s like me having a vegetable garden, and them telling me to stop growing vegetables.”
The pair hope state Senate Bill 439, which hasn’t yet passed the Legislature, will expand the rights of collectives. But city officials aren’t buying it.
“You can call it whatever you want to call it,” Rodriguez says. “It’s about whether you can sell or you can dispense marijuana in the city.” According to a 2009 Marina City Council ban, you can’t.
Rodriguez says his department would take similar action against any marijuana businesses that might try to operate in the city.
Scot Candell, a medical marijuana attorney in San Rafael, says who’s right in this situation depends on how Coasterdam runs its operations, how the city defines a dispensary and whether that definition of “dispensary” is too broad.
To the Coasterdam leaders, the issue goes beyond legal principles: Patients, some undergoing cancer or other serious illnesses, need the marijuana. Monsauret, whose husband died of cancer, says the group is growing for people, some disabled, who wouldn’t have the means to grow themselves.
An attempt to shut down the collective will look bad for the city, Saunders says. “I am moving forward as if SB 439 will protect me and I’m moving forward as a collective,” he says. “And if the chief wants to roll the dice, let him roll, because there will be blowback.”
Monsauret stands by the assertion that she’s not doing anything illegal by having a grow collective. “I’m not dispensing; I never was. Me and a bunch of growers are just growing together and dividing our harvest.”
But matters have gone beyond legal wordplay. Saunders took to Facebook, saying the chief wouldn’t have his job “if [he] didn’t have a Hispanic surname.” He also called Rodriguez a “little man with a cheap badge and an outsized gun.”
Rodriguez says the racist remarks detract from the the main issues. “I just think it’s unfortunate that he needs to resort to that level,” the chief says.
Saunders defended his comments in a phone interview. He accused the chief of arresting young minority men for pot possession and ruining their futures.
“I’ve been supporting liberal causes all my life. I don’t see color,” Saunders says. “This guy is an Uncle Tom and should be ashamed of himself.”
(5) comments
It would be nice of people could just focus on the facts and not bring in racist comments. Saunders could have some good facts and speak some truth, but it is clouded by the fact that he called an educated chief who has a tough job some very racist things. What's even more funny is that Saunders says these things, then says he not racist. Interesting.
If you want people to listen to your side of the story, then play clean. Stick to the facts. Whether you agree or disagree with someones opinion is not reason to attack an individual.
Lastly, I think its very interesting to see so many people criticize the police, yet I bet those same individuals wouldn't hesitate to call the police when someone is breaking into their home. Just remember those police officers put their lives on the line everyday for people like us, the least we could do is give them our respect.
We are a great country because we all don't all have the same opinions and can speak for what we think is right, but we should all remember to at the very least respect each other. Just a thought...
Why don't you try doing a little research/reading before you blurt out some uninformed nonsense Not a pot head? Federal data recently gathered by the ACLU indicates African Americans are almost four times as likely to be arrested for pot (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/04/2100571/blacks-are-almost-four-times-more-likely-to-be-arrested-for-marijuana/?mobile=nc ). You question Mr. Saunders motives AS IF the police DON'T have a financial interest in throwing non violent pot heads in cages for a substance that is benign when compared to the alcohol and tobacco they allow to flow freely on the streets of Marina. If you take a few seconds to use one of those "internet browser" things to search alcohol or tobacco related deaths each year, you will see there are hundreds of thousands. Disgusted citizen is equally uninformed and ignorant to the medicinal properties of marijuana, pointing people towards pharmaceuticals ignoring all the deaths related to those harmful drugs. Interesting that these self righteous beer brained huckleberries provide no supporting information for their ridiculous Reefer Madness claims. They just blurt out the first thing that their poor little naive bigoted minds were conditioned to believe by the salesman and profiteers of the failed war on drugs; cops, corrections, lawyers, pharmaceutical companies.
Mr pothead are you for real? You talk like a real great citizen. Look who is ruining young lives. Do these young men that you speak of all have cancer? And by the way why don't you lay out the paper work , just how much do you benefit from this business of your? Let the community know and separate the monetary gain from the gain of each joint that you can smoke yourself! You are a grown man that is calling out a Chief as if you were a gang member attaching someone from a rival gang. Your comments are so racist and offensive I'm ashamed to be white! Don't make us look bad. Pack up and build a hippie pot smoking commune somewhere far from here. Crazy lunatic!
Well citizens of Marina how can you allow this mindless man and his girlfriend whom states her husband died of cancer to do business in your City. In the line of work I do I come across many Marina residents anywhere between the ages of 15 and above. Always the same story" I use Medical Marijuana for "MY" back pain". Every Tom, Dick and Harry has legal marijuana use for the most minor aches and pains. Mr Saunders have you heard of simple tylenol. Yes maybe a handful of cancer patients benefit but thanks to you the others are just PLain Potheads whom cannot contribute to society because their brain is so delayed! If you ever had a good argument you ruined it by your racist, uneducated comments. By the way Ms. Monsauret since when can Pot be compared to Vegetables. It sounds like both your brains have turned into Vegetables. Wake up and stop munching and junk as Im sure both of you are always High!
The collective v. dispensary debate is heavily skewed in Marina due to a draconian interpretation of Prop215 and SB420. Inaction by the city council and gross bias by Marina PD has led to a catch 22 environment in the city. The conversation about opening a dispensary is barely getting off the ground, and in response the city has decided to go after people who are legally providing medical marijuana to collective members who CAN NOT grow their own medicine. If the current state law regarding cultivation of medical cannabis for patients is to be ignored in the City of Marina then perhaps it is time to peer in depth into the constitutionality of city ordinance 2006-06, and following revisions.
Using zoning laws to deny the right to open a medical cannabis dispensary makes some tiny bit of sense, but interpreting ANY distribution of medical cannabis to include distribution protected under SB420: "In deference to local autonomy, SB 420 also allows counties and cities to establish HIGHER - but NOT LOWER - guidelines if they so choose."(emphasis mine).
In other provisions, SB 420:
-Recognizes the right of patients and caregivers to associate collectively or cooperatively to cultivate medical marijuana.
-Protects patients and caregivers from arrest for transportation and other miscellaneous charges not covered in 215.
Regardless of anyone's personal feelings about the use of medical cannabis, the way Marina is going after Kevin Saunders and Nobia Monsauret is similar to the concept of mass gun confiscation or any other gross breach of personal rights in the name of 'Safety'.
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