Democratic Party Resolution

WHEREAS California has legalized medical cannibis, with the Bay Area having the nation's safest access centers for medical cannibis, these centers providing critical health-care services to many patients;
 
WHEREAS San Francisco has prioritized providing safe access to medical cannibis for those in need, with the Democratic Party supporting San Francisco's efforts in this regard in light of the Democratic Party’s support for full access to health care;
 
AND WHEREAS the federal government, through the Drug Enforcement Agency, has recently employed aggressive, harsh, and unfair tactics to deprive patients of access to medical cannibis, including threatening landlords with asset forfeiture and imprisonment for leasing space to medical cannibis dispensaries;
 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the San Francisco Democratic Party reaffirms its strong support for safe access to medical cannibis by those in need;
 
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the San Francisco Democratic Party condemns the DEA's efforts to shut down medical cannibis dispensaries, which are legal under California law, and calls on the Congress to investigate DEA's conduct and to amend federal law to respect the power of states to legalize medical cannibis, and further requests that Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and San Francisco’s federal and state representatives to join with Oakland Mayor and former Congressman Ron Dellums in denouncing the DEA’s tactics surrounding the property rights of landlords who rent to medical cannibis dispensaries.

Submitted by Scott Wiener, Connie O’Connor, Robert Haaland, David Campos, Rafael Mandelman, Laura Spanjian, Holli Their, and Leslie Katz, and adopted at the January 23, 2008, meeting of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.