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A Bay Area congresswoman's new bill would bar federal prosecutors from filing civil lawsuits to seize property from landlords whose tenants comply with states' medical marijuana laws. "The people of California have made it legal for patients to have safe access to medicinal marijuana and, as a result, thousands of small business owners have invested millions of dollars in building their companies, creating jobs, and paying their taxes," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said in a statement issued Friday by Americans for Safe Access. "We should be protecting and implementing the will of voters, not undermining our democracy by prosecuting small business owners who pay taxes and comply with the laws of their states in providing medicine to patients in need," she said. U.S. attorneys for more than a year have been threatening landlords of medical marijuana dispensaries with civil asset forfeiture proceedings if they don't kick their tenants out -- more than 300 such letters have gone to property owners in California, Colorado and some of the 15 other states with medical marijuana laws. Landlords whose properties are seized this way can try to retrieve them in civil court, but they're not afforded many of the constitutional rights granted to criminal defendants, such as the right to an attorney and a jury trial. And the burden of proof is on the property owner to show innocence rather than the government having to prove guilt. Relatively few of
the prosecutors' threats have led to actual civil asset forfeiture
cases, yet the pressure has caused many landlords to force dispensaries
to close.
Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for California's Northern
District, did serve an asset forfeiture lawsuit last month against the
landlord of Oakland's Harborside Health Center, a dispensary in Lee's
district. This wasn't the first federal attack on Harborside: The
dispensary already had appealed an Internal Revenue Service finding
that it owed $2.5 million in back taxes because it can't deduct
standard business expenses such as payroll and rent while violating the
federal ban on marijuana. Haag has threatened civil asset forfeiture actions against
landlords of many other Bay Area dispensaries as well. In San Francisco
this week, local officials joined a "funeral procession" to Haag's
office to mark the closing of two more dispensaries forced to close due
to her pressure on their landlords. Lee's HR 6335 would prohibit the Justice Department from using
civil asset forfeiture to go after properties so long as the medical
marijuana tenants comply with state law; those in violation of state
law would still be fair game. Among the bill's eight original
cosponsors are Reps. Mike Honda, D-Campbell, and Pete Stark, D-Fremont. Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_richman.
Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
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Breaking Cannabis News
Saturday, August 4, 2012
New bill would bar feds from seizing properties rented to medical marijuana businesses
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