DEA agents with San Diego police and sheriff’s deputies raided 13 medical marijuana dispensaries across San Diego County on Thursday 6 July 2006.[1] Five people were arrested in the day’s raids, with more arrests expected.[1] The raids came seven months after a similar December 2005 crackdown on 13 dispensaries.[2]
Federal officials unsealed two indictments with the raids, one against the Purple Bud Room and Tender Holistics Care dispensaries and another against five people who ran Co-op San Diego.[1] The San Diego District Attorney’s office filed marijuana distribution charges against five shops: Ocean Beach Dispensary and Utopia on Voltaire Street, Native Sun Dispensary on Rosecrans Street, THC Dispensary in Pacific Beach and the California Medical Center in La Jolla.[1] State and federal officials also filed complaints with the Medical Board against four doctors accused of writing recommendations for people without legitimate medical need.[1]
Ten arrested, remaining shops shut
The county’s district attorney investigators and sheriff’s deputies joined the July raids and arrested ten people in total, the North County Times later reported.[3] The paper quoted the county’s top drug prosecutor saying no retail sale of marijuana was allowed under state law.[3] Later in July, DEA agents visited dispensaries the raids had missed and warned them to close, seizing medicine on hand; the remaining shops shut down.[2] Patients protested at San Diego city hall and urged the council to protect access, without success.[2]
