As Lake Forest Marijuana Dispensary Owner Gets Prison Time, Federal Suit is Filed to Guarantee Patient Access

By Matt Coker Tue., Apr. 6 2010 at 12:22 PM

Categories: Cannabis Chronicles

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As a Lake Forest medical marijuana dispensary owner and manager were being convicted today of selling and possessing cannabis, a Mission Viejo law firm was announcing a federal lawsuit aimed at barring authorities from denying patients access to Costa Mesa and Lake Forest dispensaries.

Between January and November 2009, Steven John Wick, 26, of Rancho Santa Margarita, owned and operated the Health Collective dispensary on Raymond Way in Lake Forest.

According to prosecutors, Wick and his manager, Marilynn Geneva Manuel, 29, also of RSM, sold marijuana to people with recommendations from a physician. However, some patients did not have any relationship with the dispensary nor were they required to participate in collectively or cooperatively cultivating marijuana.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office points to state law:

The cultivation, possession, distribution, and/or sale of marijuana is illegal. California law only provides an affirmative defense to those with a physician's recommendation or to their primary caregiver for the possession or cultivation of marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient. California law also allows qualified patients and their primary caregivers to associate in order to collectively and cooperatively cultivate marijuana for medical purposes. This affirmative defense does not apply to the sale of marijuana. Distribution and sale of marijuana to individuals with a physician's recommendation without any other relationship, such as through a dispensary, is not permitted under California law.

Wick pleaded guilty to one felony count each of the sale of marijuana and possession of marijuana for sale, and sentencing enhancements for being out on bail for other cannabis-related counts in Orange and Humboldt Counties at the time of his arrest.

As part of a plea agreement, Wick was sentenced to three years in state prison for the Lake Forest case and is expected to plead guilty on April 13 to charges of sales and possession for sale that will get him an additional year in the can.

Manuel pleaded guilty to one felony count of possession for sale of marijuana. Her one-year jail sentence will be stayed if she successfully completes three years of probation.

Health Collective's co-owner, Tara Elizabeth Sorenson, 22, of Rancho Santa Margarita, is also charged with three felony counts of marijuana sales and one felony count of possession of marijuana for sale.

Sorenson could get up to six years and eight months in state prison if she is convicted. She has an April 29 preliminary hearing date in Newport Beach.

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If you need to find a dispensary in Lake forest got to PotSpot 411 They have them all listed. Evergreen has like 10 good reviews.
DUDE FUCK THE GOVERNMENT OF COURSE THEY WOULD RATHER HAVE US DIE FROM PERSCRIPTION DRUG USE THAN SMOKE SOME HERB>>
I am mixed on responding to your question. What US AG Halder did was absolutely illegal---he used the power of the pulpit to derail the elective process of a State by threatening voters---that is a total violation of the 9th and 10th Amendment!!! On the Other Hand, I am jumping for joy that PROP 19 'Went up in smoke' (and I voted for it and worked the phone lines for it). Prop 19 was a total piece of shit that should never have seen the light of day. It was poorly written and would have destroyed the MED-WEED Industry by forcing the FED to shut it all down!!! In order to obtain LEGITIMACY on something, you first have to regulate it and tax it. Prostitution is not legitimate in California because it is neither regulated or taxed. With MED-WEED, it is currently illegal to pay taxes on your goods sold AND it is not regulated. Second problem I had with PROP 19 is that they did not include a comprehensive business model with their proposal. Example? Why belong to a Collective when you can go to McDonalds for a 'Sicky-Sticky Happy Meal' with a Cannabis Shake? Pass Prop 19, bye bye Collectives. Are you going to have Bars and Resturants sell weed? What about internet sales? You've got ten year olds swipping their pop's hooch and stealing their mother's pills---how does Prop 19 prevent an aspiring ten year old pot head from snagging Purple Haze from the internet? Prop19 didn't say. Third Problem: Taxation was left to the LOCAL COMMUNITIES as it is now. So Oaksterdam could charge $20.00 yr for the 5x5' patch but Rancho Cordova could charge $15,000.00 a year for the same 5x5' patch---Prop 19 didn't address that. I could go on and on. Stoners DROOL, they don't RULE and it is pointless to enguage them in debate. Suffice it to say, LEGALIZATION will not happen for another 5-10 years. Until then, the MED-WEED Industry needs to get its own shit together BEFORE the FED does it for them. The Husslers, the Psydeo-Dope Dealers and the Absolute Wasteoids need to be run out of the business VOLUNTARILY...Like the Bar Association disbarring fuck-up lawyers. All dope dispensed needs to be tested by a lab (LA Country requires this, SF, OAKLAND AND SAC do not?!!!) so that we all don't get Aspergilliosis and shit. Finally, there needs to be a STRUCTURED entry into the business (like the awarding of TAXI Medalians) and career training to be growers/budtenders, etc.). Once the communities get 'hooked' on the tax revenues, they will be your biggest supporters!!! THAT IS HOW YOU LEGALIZE WEED!!!
People seem to forget the fact that MED-WEED IS ILLEGAL in the eyes of the FEDS. Remember Orgamica raid(s) of 18FEB2010? The owner got busted THREE TIMES and still he doesn't get his kempshi together!!! YOU GONNA RUN A DISPENSARY, YOU GOTTA FOLLOW DA RULES!!!! 1. Don't Get High On Your Own Supply!!! 2. Vigerously enforce a cash drop policy---no more than 2 day's cash receipts on prem---dude had TEN LARGE in the back room!!! 3. Remember the Song '99 bottles of beers on the wall'---well make that "99 Cannabis Indicta to be plucked"!!! Dude got snagged with 100 plants---that's a Felony, my friends!!! 4. Idiot owners was busted handing out flyers for Orgamica at a local HS at recess---way to PO the PTA. 4. Dude got busted having people hawling 100 plants to other dispensaries with no paperwork. MED-WEED is a BUSINESS---you people are providing ETHICAL Pharma products, you ain't dealin' STICKY at the Burning Man Concert!!! LEARN DA RULES!!! And Don't lay that 'Fairness' rap on me about Alchole being more harmful. I LOVE HOOKERS---where else am I going to get my Midgets and Double Amputee Chicks? HOWEVER, I don't LOVE HOOKERS playing their trade up and down my block. I LOVE GAMBLING but I don't want an Indian Casino at the end of my block. I am a big fan of rules, regulations and restrictions---you don't have to give the NAZI Salute wanting everyone to stop at Red Stoplights!
Two weeks before the vote on Prop 19, the US Drug Czar sent a request to the law enforcement agencies in California asking them to do whatever it takes to make sure Prop 19 was defeated, and their response was to show on television that marijuana smokers would drive stoned, and that MMJ patients would poison children (by accident leaving $20 chocolates with the halloween candy). The harrassment now seems coordinated with those efforts, and not any public outcry about "too many shops." We are letting the police tell our doctors how to treat us (DEA chilling effect on Pain Docs), and how to interpret a law that says we have a constitutional right to access. How can we stop this?
I personally am boycotting Lake Forest, have been for months now, and will not buy anything in Lake Forest until they get a collective. They not only stepped on my constitutional rights, as defined in California law, but they subverted the free market process - having several collectives had started price wars that had it within LA prices, but that's changed now, there's no more pressure to keep the prices in line with Long Beach, since there's no competition.
@OldBetty I wish there was a lick button for your comment! "lake forest needs a city council enema."
MATT!!! -- Hope you can cover the protest going down today. The Sheriff's dept is actually providing armed security for the DA. They're worried that people in wheelchairs might ram him.
Seriously these authorities could raid anyone of the lake forest dispensaries for the same reason so why not wipe out all the fucking Gorillas and monkeys? their buds suck! and their business practices are unethical.. many members of 210 and a215 did participate in the whole thing and they were returned the way the law states.. not like cheap dirt bags that creep out from the shadows! I have heard many people being ripped off from the very collectives they join and grow for, that's down right fucked up & wrong.. you wanna talk about people who are in it just for the money..
Somehow the point of the law passed seems to have been missed. Law enforcement and State government will look the other way when it comes to marijuana use to relieve severe recurring pain and if to get that marijuana patients need to grow it and by chance that kinda means they also benefit from being able to grey-area legally get away with selling a little here and there so what? THEY ARE FRIGGEN DYING AND SUFFERING AND THERE IS NO OTHER DRUG HELPING THEM. Everyone looking to cash in on dealing pot is violating the essence of the law and they will eventually force a tough regulatory environment to be established to counter there never-ending need to stay high on something at any expense. The California medical dispensaries are destroying the public opinion on marijuana use in general all because you guys wanna get-rich-quick and refuse to obey any rules, regulations or laws on anything. Just a matter of time before medical marijuana dispensaries become operating arms of Mexican cartels and gangs which will force the federal government's hand and they will eliminate retail marijuana sales period. No point debating it with "stoners" they all become geniuses once their high, according to them.
wow dj4petesake, that was a really intelligent comment........
I used to smoke weed & listen to Cypress Hill, man, that was awesome in '92!
yeah i personally know about being hooked on those pills as a iraq war vet and being injured over there i had my share of the pill waltz from vicoden, percocet, and valium dam i rather smoke pot! no side effect unless you count the munchies but whatever this is america make and take money!!
lake forest needs a city council enema.
Glad to hear it and thank you Mr. Pappas! Preventing patients from getting medication they need is a terrible situation. If patients prefer a natural form of pain relief that should be their choice. The alternative is Vicodin and other equally addictive and readily abused synthetic forms of pain killers.