Federal crackdowns are spreading through California right now which is causing problems for patients, business owners, and the state. Yep, cities and states are having to scale back their tax-revenue projections since the Federal Government is trying to get their hands dirty.

According to Brad Wasson, a city revenue manager, Sacramento was on track to meet estimates of $1 million in revenue during its first year. But that track has been targeted by U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner, who has zeroed in on the city’s medical-pot clubs for closure.

The city of Sacramento took in $552,000 over the first five months, collecting a 4 percent sales tax on medical cannabis from about 39 dispensaries. In November 2010, voters approved the marijuana tax by a massive margin of 71 percent, and it took effect July 1, 2011, the beginning of the city’s fiscal year.

Monthly revenue peaked in that first month at $152,000, and dropped each month to $138,000, $131,000, $73,000, and just $58,000 in November, that last month for which there is available data, Wasson said.

Looking ahead to 2012 things might not bee good. We’ll keep you posted.

As originally posted at 4E

Ordinarily, when federal law enforcement officials begin a campaign against whatever forces of evil they claim are afoot in the land, they usually bust a few people, hold a press conference and move on with their campaign without a lot of public fanfare or media appearances. These must be very extraordinary times at the DOJ, at least when it comes to medical cannabis in California, because the US Attorneys in that state cannot stop making press appearances to explain their, um, issues with California’s voter-approved medical cannabis industry.

Andre Birotte Jr., the US Attorney for the Los Angeles area, has been making many media appearances in the last few weeks to explain why the feds moved on dozens of dispensaries and growers in the Golden State over the last few weeks to very loud public criticism. He was recently on Seattle’s KUOW-FM—sadly I cannot find a link to an archive of his chat—but he was on a local TV station in Los Angeles this past weekend and made the claim that all the feds were interested in pursuring were operators who use the protection of California’s medical cannabis law to move cannabis to black markets outside of California. Or as he put it more directly:

[H]e added that marijuana is a controlled substance and the federal authorities will continue targeting those dispensaries that violate state and federal law.

So as long as a dispensary isn’t moving cannabis beyond state borders and is in compliance with California’s laws, then the feds will leave it alone? That sounds like what Birotte is saying.

But, of course, folks moving cannabis to, say, Arkansas isn’t the only thing the feds have been going after on medical cannabis in California. They’ve also been ordering dispensaries located within 1,000 feet of schools to shutter or face federal action. While it’s one thing to go after people engaging in interstate commerce—clearly an area where the feds have some authority—it’s a bit disingenuous to also go after dispensaries for being too close to schools when the 1,000 foot requirement was originally designed in the 1980s to drive crack dealers away from schools. Medical cannabis isn’t crack cocaine and to quietly lump the two together is offensive.

But the feds get to say whatever they want.

So what’s the good news? Well, maybe it’s not “good” in the classic sense of the term, but it’s clear from various press accounts that this new crackdown wasn’t at the direction of DOJ officials in Washington, D.C., but is a homegrown operation in California and seems to be primary focused on operators who’ve been above-ground for years and allegedly operating way outside of state law—making them fair game for the feds—or who’ve been offending their various communities along the way (by being too close to schools among other things). Neither of these things are much of a problem here in Washington State. The collectives that are above-ground are still fairly immature and many of them struggle to survive—the whole claim that medical cannabis operators are all getting rich is pretty much a myth in my experience—and I doubt that 99 percent of them are crazy enough to try and move cannabis into or out of the state. Some are closer to schools than anyone would want—one new Seattle operator opened about 250 feet from a high school! Very dumb—but the majority have worked to be as far from schools as possible. All of that means that Washington State is likely not much of a target for the feds, especially US Attorneys in California who have no authority in this state.