Long Beach City Council to Be Raided by Medical Marijuana Activists

Patient and caregivers who have been continuously harassed by police in Long Beach over collectives and dispensaries plant to pay back the raiding with one of their own.

If you have been approved for a California medical marijuana card and you happen to reside in Long Beach, chances are that you are planning to do a little bit of protesting this week. Activists have organized a planned city council demonstration to protest police harassment of lawfully biding medicinal cannabis users in this city.

The city banned dispensaries and collectives in 2009, and began raiding many without a warrant.

The main goal is to stop the harassment and illegal activity by the city, which picks and chooses dispensaries and collectives that it raids at will, yet issues permits and allows others to operate at its discretion.

All dispensaries in the state of California have been legally allowed per the passage of the 2003 law, SB420, which decriminalized medical marijuana statewide.

The most notable raid took place on May 10^th, when 562 Collective, owned and operated by Katherine Aldridge, was illegally raided by police offers who did not have a search warrant. The officers arrested a few people for operating a collective without proper permits and demanded to gain access to Aldridge’s safe without a warrant, something that she refused to permit and the officers left, not arresting her, the owner, for some reason.

“They were trying to railroad me into opening my safe and I said if you don’t have a warrant, I'm not doing it," Aldridge told the press. “Give me a search warrant and I’ll open it; if you don’t get one, go get a blowtorch and do your thing.”

Another instance occurred when undercover police offers posed as medical marijuana patients and presented legitimate marijuana doctor recommendations to Joe Byron and Joe Grumbine, who owned a dispensary, and then who legally sold them medical marijuana.

Both have been charged with trafficking and sale of a Schedule 1 Drug, even though what they did was in par with state law. If convicted they could face up to seven years in prison.

Activists have gathered to protest these matters and many more related ones to city council this week in Long Beach.