10:20am | Dozens of protestors lined Ocean Boulevard Thursday morning and continued to make their presence known long after the preliminary hearing had ended in the trial of Joe Grumbine and Joe Byron, who are being prosecuted based on their operation of two medical marijuana collectives in Long Beach.
The trial, discussed at length in a previous Long Beach Post story, is likely to be a watershed in the story of medical marijuana, as the charging theory against the pair appears to be that all sales of marijuana — even those made to doctor-qualified patients by a properly-set-up nonprofit collective — are illegal. If the pair are convicted under the charging theory, the precedent may mean that virtually all collectives operating statewide will be vulnerable to prosecution.
“[The prosecution] is saying that all sales are illegal, period,” said Christopher Glew, the attorney for Grumbine, on the courthouse steps, “[that] any monetary transaction is illegal per se.”
Although during the crafting of the City’s medpot ordinance City Attorney Robert Shannon originally pushed for sales to be prohibited, he later abandoned that position, and Long Beach’s ordinance contains so such prohibition.
Regarding whether California medpot law was designed to allow for sales, Senator Mark Leno, co-author of the Compassionate Use Act, has stated, “”I can tell you the intent [of the Compassionate Use Act] was not to prohibit dispensaries from engaging in sales of this medicine. In fact it was to clarify the allowance of it.”1
Beginning at approximately 8 a.m., protestors gathered in front of the Long Beach County Courthouse with signs and bullhorn, chanting against what they see as efforts to criminalize patient distribution of and access to cannabis, which since 1996 has been allowed under the state’s Compassionate Use Act and Medical Marijuana Program, and which has been codified by city ordinance for more than a year.
“There are a lot of people here from a lot of groups,” Grumbine told his supporters via bullhorn after his hearing. “This is a huge statement that’s being made right now. … If this [kind of protest] happens every single time there’s a cannabis case, and it grows … you’re going to realize that [things can change]. … Those of you who were in the court heard the prosecutor make the statement that sales are illegal. If you are a member of a collective, and especially if you are an owner [or management member] of a collective, what you’re doing is considered illegal by the prosecutor … and you could be standing where I am.”
The start date of the trial has been set for November 28.
