DEA agents raided the Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center at 52 Sixth Street in San Francisco early on 12 February 2002, serving seven other search warrants across the Bay Area the same morning.[1][2] The operation targeted what the agency described as a marijuana pipeline running from British Columbia to California.[3][2]
Agents seized about a pound of marijuana and 630 plants at the club, which served about 200 patients a day, along with computers and paperwork; workers reopened the club shortly afterwards.[1] DEA spokesman Richard Meyer said 8,135 marijuana plants were seized across the searched sites.[3] Four men were arrested: club operators Richard Watts and Kenneth Hayes, grow author Ed Rosenthal, and Oakland grower James Halloran; Hayes was arrested in Canada, where he faced a possible extradition fight.[1][3][2] Watts and Hayes were charged with cultivating more than 100 plants and with maintaining a place for cultivation, Rosenthal with cultivation, and Halloran with cultivating more than 1,000 plants, which carried a possible life sentence.[3][2] Rosenthal and Halloran were released on $500,000 bond the next day while Watts stayed in custody.[3]
The raids coincided with DEA chief Asa Hutchinson’s speech at the Commonwealth Club that evening, drawing several hundred protesters including members of the Board of Supervisors and District Attorney Terence Hallinan.[3][2] The case underscored the clash between California’s medical marijuana law and federal drug law.[3][2]
