(NaturalNews) In California, where marijuana has been legal for medical use since the Compassionate Use Act was passed into law in 1996, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided 11 dispensaries of medical marijuana, seizing a large cache of marijuana and marijuana-based products, raising concerns over state’s rights.
On Wednesday, search warrants were served at four locations in the San Fernando Valley, five locations in West Hollywood, with the remainder being executed in Venice and Hollywood.
The raids yielded several thousand pounds of Marijuana, confectionaries based on the plant, several fire arms, and “a significant amount of U.S. currency,” according to a DEA Public Information Officer for the Los Angeles Field Office, Special Agent Sarah Pullen.
No arrests have been made.
“Today’s enforcement operations show that these establishments are nothing more than drug trafficking organizations bringing criminal activities to our neighborhoods and drugs near our children and schools,” said DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge, Ralf W. Partridge.
Agents wearing bulletproof vests and masks were heckled and pelted with shouts of “state’s rights,” by some 50 protesters as they exited a West Hollywood storefront with evidence.
At another location on Santa Monica Boulevard, known as The Farmacy, onlookers armed with cameras captured agents loading three cars with evidence.
“These raids are a perfect example of the tyranny of the United States federal government and the influence of pharmaceutical companies which are attempting to outlaw and eradicate all forms of natural herbal medicine,” said Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and critic of federal drug policy. “The real threat to our safety is an out-of-control DEA that uses terrorist tactics to eradicate a form of medicine that is not politically accepted by the current administration,” said Adams.
Special Agent Pullen stated that Wednesday’s raids are part of an ongoing investigation, and has declined to comment further on the operations, saying that the warrants remain under court seal. “But obviously we are looking for marijuana and other illegal drugs, marijuana edibles and evidence of ongoing criminal activity and anything from paperwork to documents—you name it,” said Pullen.
“While dangerous prescription drugs are killing a hundred thousand Americans each year, the DEA does nothing. But when herb smokers light up in private, they are branded criminals and subject to a form of tyranny and oppression that should never be tolerated in a free society,” said Adams.
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