Medical-cannabis provider talks about guilty plea
Yesterday, the US Attorney announced that Joseph Nunes, the proprietor administrator of Green Kross Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary, has filed a guilty plea to three federal criminal charges related to the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
Obviously, this is a blow to the medical cannabis movement. Here’s what Nunes had to say via e-mail:
I plead guilty to manufacture of 25 marijuana plants (3″ tall clones found in the cooperative), money laundering (using cooperative revenue to pay cooperative bills), and maintaining a drug premises (the cooperative itself).
Nunes asserts that the two dispensaries, Green Kross Collective and Downtown Kush Lounge Cooperative, were “incorporated mutual benefit non-profit organizations in compliance with state law.” However, he didn’t have much of a chance in US District Court because medical cannabis isn’t recognized under federal law.
As he understands it, here’s why he he was charged in federal court, while others are facing charges in state court.
My case was federal because of an additional 89 clones (3″ tall marijuana plants) found in the back of someone’s car outside another cooperative I was involved with during the raid. Those 89 plants combined with the 25 found inside the cooperative I was arrested in exceeded the federal 5-year minimum mandatory threshold of 99 plants…I am not being charged for the cultivation of the additional 89 plants now but nevertheless my case stayed federal.
Mother Earth Coop gets a free pass, ad infinitum, while Joe Nunes goes down hard? Is anybody paying attention? How’s that Medical Cannabis Task Force coming along, anyway… oops, that was the 2002 version. Now its called MMTF. That’s an improvement! Not!
A horrible blow to the Medical Cannabis Community.
People need to start tightening up the way they run their collectives. Please stop treating these like roof-over drug deals.
Some of us are taking Medical Cannabis for it’s healing purposes, and most of us take it very seriously.
Greed is a horrible horrible thing. Human Nature vs. Utopia.