The DEA Wants To Use A $37 Pot Sale To Legally Steal A $1.5 Million Building
Yet another disgusting asset seizure gambit by the Drug War bloodsuckers known as the DEA. Nick Schou writes in the OC Weekly of a couple whose Anaheim building was used for a $37 pot sale to an undercover scumbag (aka undercover cop violating people's civil liberties) and its result:

On Dec. 2, 2011, an undercover officer posing as a patient with a legitimate doctor's recommendation for cannabis--something required of all entrants to the collective--"purchased 4.2 net grams of marijuana for $37."

The investigation ended there, but the single sale--and a sale it was, since most pot goes for $50 or $60 per eighth of an ounce--was enough evidence for the DEA to argue that the otherwise-harmless computer engineer and dentist should lose their retirement-investment property. On Aug. 20, 2012, the agency filed its lawsuit. According to the landlord, he immediately ordered ReLeaf to leave the building, serving it with a three-day eviction notice; the club complied and left posthaste.

The landlord then sent certified letters to both the feds and the city of Anaheim, notifying them of his actions and requesting the government not seize his property. "I had no idea the tenant may allegedly be engaged in illegal activities at this location," he wrote. "I hope we do not have to go through legal procedures to . . . lift the lis pendens [pending lawsuits] filed against my property. My intent is to save the judge's valuable time, court time and taxpayers' money being used unjustly."

But the DEA refused to save time or money and drop the case, a fact that seemed to surprise the federal judge handling the case, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford. In a Dec. 3, 2012, hearing, Guilford repeatedly referred to inconsistencies in the federal government's policy on marijuana--first signaling (via the Ogden memo) that it wasn't going after medical-marijuana clubs, then cracking down and sending threatening letters to landlords. He even wondered aloud if President Obama would change his mind about marijuana again, after the DEA had already seized the building at issue in the case.