emulate. harborside and you, and you and harborside are the first medical marijuana cannabis dispensary that has stood up to the medical government. they have done it to other dispensaries, but they have quietly closed down. why do more people not fight back? they re scared and it s very expensive. the odds are overwhelming. it s very few people that are willing to stand up to the united states of america. and that s what he s doing. he s willing to make a sacrifice for what he believes in. i mean, this is the united states of america versus harborside. the day steve d angelo has been waiting for is finally here. chief federal justice maria elena james is hearing their motions, and she could effectively shutdown harborside for good. i came from kentucky. i love you. i love you. i love your brother.
miscarriage of justice it would be to put him in prison. dispensaries can t stay open without a steady supply of product to sell. cannabis is a plant and for harborside to operate, someone has to grow it. in california, dispensaries are state licensed, but not any of the growers. leaving them with no real legal protection and living under the constant threat of prosecution. once targeted, the growing operation s legal consequences could be much more severe than dispensaries, as they are often subject to severe mandatory federal sentences. so i m locked in the back of a blacked out van somewhere in northern california being driven to an undisclosed location where they grow vast amounts of marijuana. there are some other stipulations that we have to follow now. we can t show any of the people who work there. we can t show any of the people
legalizing marijuana, can the federal government still believe that pot is as dangerous as heroin? and what will it take for the feds to respect state cannabis laws? turns out, one particular dispensary in oakland, california, could decide the fate of medical marijuana for the entire nation. time the go sell some weed. get ready. in california where we are right now, medical marijuana has been legal since 1996. and once it was made legal, there was a proliferation of dispensaries where people could go and get marijuana, you know,
companies who had dealings with dispensar dispensaries, all of harborside s transactions are conducted in cash. why is marijuana such an porpt part of your life? i have a history of being extremely underweight. i go down to 80 pounds. that s not good. if i smoke a little before each meal, i find i can eat more. this is why you guys are over here. what happened? i broke my ankle. gabrielle is a care giver for her husband, a veteran who did three tours of duty and currently struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. how long has your husband been on medical marijuana? three years. how was it before? that was not a pretty picture. because we had to give him medicine. i think it was just making him more numb and not getting any results. versus using pot, he s always in
legal, you wouldn t have the worry about the feds knocking down your door. this policy shift led to medical marijuana dispensaries proliferating in all states that previously legalized it. but in the following two years of its release, the department of justice actually increased its raids. in 2011 as the crackdowns continued, the justice department released a subsequent memo saying that medical marijuana patients would be free from prosecution, but not industrial growers. by april 2012, the number of dispensaries raided grew to nearly 200, resulting in over 60 federal indictments. that s more raids than the first four years of the obama administration than in all eight years of the george w. bush presidency. harborside was a model that we looked to and were very happy with. we thought steve was a pioneer in the industry. and we thought he was definitely somebody to look at to do things