Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Friday, 11 October 1996.
Jean H. Lee, Associated Press Writer
Dennis Peron, also an organizer of a ballot measure to legalize marijuana for medical uses, was arrested two months after state agents shut down his Cannabis Buyers Club and seized more than 100 pounds of marijuana.
San Francisco's prosecutor and other local officials who had tolerated the club for years criticized the raid, which was ordered by California's attorney general, Dan Lungren.
Cartoonist Garry Trudeau also ridiculed the raid in his Doonesbury comic strip, and Lungren responded by accusing Trudeau of encouraging a "wink-and-nod" attitude toward drugs.
City District Attorney Terence Hallinan said Friday's arrest was an "abuse of the prosecutorial power" by Lungren to influence the November vote on the medical marijuana ballot measure -- Proposition 215.
But Lungren said a two-year investigation was initiated by city police, and he noted that state drug agents found the club was providing marijuana to children, drug peddlers and people who weren't really ill.
"The timing has nothing to do with 215," said Lungren, who also ordered the raid of the Los Angeles Cannabis Buyers Club last month.
The indictment, which charged Peron with conspiracy, and possession and sale of marijuana, was obtained across the bay, in Alameda County.
"They didn't have the guts to charge us in San Francisco," Peron told the San Francisco Examiner from Santa Rita Jail. "They just barged in this morning."
Hallinan said he would try to have the case prosecuted in San Francisco rather than in Alameda County.
The club openly sold the illegal drug since 1991, operating from a storefront on a busy street and claiming 11,000 members. Members insisted they had rigid restrictions and required proof of a patient's medical condition to sell marijuana.
But the indictment says undercover agents were able to obtain marijuana with faked doctors' notes recommending the drug as treatment. Some agents presented club owners with notes from fictitious doctors who suggested marijuana for ailments like acute back pain, colitis and insomnia.
Lungren said five others alleged to be involved in the operation of the Cannabis Buyer's Club were also being sought.
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