Marijuana Dispensary Owner Gets 8 Years

California has allowed the use and exchange of marijuana for medical use for well over a decade now, but the federal government still considers marijuana to be a Schedule I narcotic, a group of drugs that includes dangerous substances like heroin and meth. The dichotomy between state and federal law creates a complicated situation for medical marijuana users and the people supplying them cannabis. As a result, you end up with federal cases where marijuana dispensary owners get sentenced to years in prison for operating as drug dealers.

One of the most high-profile and recent cases to showcase this phenomenon involves 32-year-old Joshua Hester, a San Diego resident who secretly operated several medical dispensaries in the downtown area. While no state authorities brought up charges against Hester’s marijuana operations, federal authorities launched an investigation that involved wire taps and surveillance in 2008. Two years later the feds indicted Hester and ten of his accomplices for their roles in violating the Controlled Substances Act.

Judge Irma Gonzalez of the U.S. District Court downtown stated that Hester was not being punished for his simple involvement with medical marijuana, but because he profited so highly from the operation. “You used state laws that allow people to benefit from these cooperatives for your own benefit,” Gonzalez said in court. Hester was ultimately handed an 8-year sentence for his role in the operation. Laura Duffy, the prosecutor in the case, said that the defendant exemplified the type of marijuana dealing that the feds were targeting in San Diego.

Despite Duffy’s claims that the federal government is only prosecuting dispensaries who operate as for-profit drug dealing businesses, 95 percent of medical marijuana dispensaries in the area have been effectively shut down. Advocates for medical marijuana claim that the feds are targeting all dispensaries, not just the most egregious ones. Federal law gives no special status to marijuana operations that properly follow California law regarding the exchange and use of medical cannabis.

William Sherman, head of the DEA office in San Diego, said that he never witnessed any legitimate use for the dispensaries in San Diego. Out of the hundreds of investigations the DEA has conducted on dispensaries in the last few years, “None of them have been true collectives or true cooperatives that are in the business of compassionate care,” Sherman said after the court hearing. “They are all in the business of making a profit. This is a big business.”