Federal Judge Rules In Favor Of California’s Oldest Marijuana Dispensary

A sovereign decider has signaled support for a medical pot hospital in Berkeley, California, notwithstanding countless attempts by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag to tighten it down.

Judge Jon S. Tigar of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released an sequence on Friday saying that Berkeley Patients Group, a 15-year-old pot emporium that bills itself as California’s oldest, can continue to work while a justice considers tentative litigation.

“We’re really gratified with a outcome of this sold ruling, and we’re really fervent to continue portion a patients in a Berkeley area,” Victor Pinho, BPG’s executive of marketing, told The Huffington Post. “This should be noticed as a tiny feat in a incomparable quarrel to secure protected entrance to medical cannabis for anyone who needs it in California and opposite a country.”

Haag initial changed to tighten down BPG in 2011 as partial of a incomparable crackdown on medical pot businesses via California, arguing that a hospital was located too tighten to dual schools. Although one of a schools, a Center for Early Intervention on Deafness, came to BPG’s defense

Lawmakers representing a city of Berkeley sued to retard Haag’s actions, arguing that shutting BPG

A orator for Haag declined to criticism on a lawsuit when reached by HuffPost on Monday.

BPG has prolonged enjoyed support from Berkeley residents and internal officials. Last year, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates announced Oct. 31 to be “Berkeley Patients Group Day,” and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) awarded a hospital a “Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition.”

Haag and her colleagues have targeted a series of medical pot businesses via California, and hundreds have been forced to tighten down in a years given a crackdown began. Last week, one of Haag’s lawyers seemed in justice in a move to shiver Oakland’s Harborside Health Center

The pierce astonished pot remodel advocates, who forked to countless new gestures from sovereign officials suggesting pot laws should be left to a states. “There was utterly a bit of head-scratching,” Tamar Todd, executive of pot law and process for a Drug Policy Alliance, told HuffPost of a Oakland conference final week. “The Department of Justice has regularly pronounced to behind off these cases. Why collect this fight?”

A memo released in 2013prohibited a use of sovereign funds

And final month, effusive U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new process that prevents sovereign agencies from seizing assets

Although 23 states and a District of Columbia have upheld medical pot laws, and 4 states have laws that concede for recreational use of a drug, lawmakers contend any overtures by a Obama administration are mostly mystic as prolonged as cannabis stays federally illegal.

“This isn’t finely created process yet,” Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), who authored a spending check provision, said in June

Advocates wish that situations like a one confronting BPG will force a Obama administration to yield some-more protections to states that have clearly enacted cannabis laws. A congressional check sponsored by Lee final month, H.R. 262

“We are carefree that Congress will act fast to solve a separate between state and sovereign pot laws by flitting bills like Congresswoman Lee’s due H.R. 262,” BPG President Tim Schick pronounced in a matter Monday. “In a meantime, we demeanour brazen to stability to offer a internal studious population.”

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/10/berkeley-patients-group_n_6648268.html?utm_hp_ref=los-angeles&ir=Los+Angeles