DEA agents and Kern County sheriff’s deputies arrested Joseph W. Fortt, 42, of Caliente, on 20 July 2005 for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 plants.[1] Federal search warrants served at four locations in the Bakersfield area turned up more than 2,000 plants at three sites, including the American Kenpo Kung Fu School of Public Health in Oildale, which operated as both a martial-arts school and a marijuana dispensary.[1]

The DEA put the plants’ value at about $5 million and said the dispensary had recently closed but was expected to reopen.[1] A rifle and a shotgun were seized at one grow site and a handgun from Fortt’s vehicle; the sheriff’s office had opened the investigation in May and the case went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento, with Fortt held in federal custody.[1]

Fortt had opened Kern County’s first medical cannabis dispensary in early 2003 and said his Bakersfield-area operation served 300 patients, which he said allowed him under state law to keep 1,800 mature plants.[2] Federal agents had already raided the dispensary on 7 June 2005, the day after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Raich decision upheld federal prosecution of state-legal medical marijuana, and Fortt was jailed in Fresno County at the U.S. Marshals’ request.[2]