Feds Force Citizens Underground in Black Market Clash

A pair of San Francisco prominent medical marijuana businesses closed their doors Tuesday, a sign of the federal government’s recent crackdown on medical cannabis dispensaries

by Johnny Punish

The federal mafia posing as a government of the people attacked again today using an effective strategy to scare the people that do business with those that safely fill the demand for cannabis.

Being a victim of this tactic many years ago when they completely destroyed my business without charge or cause, I am fully aware of how normal everyday people can be frightened out of their pants by the beast when they send out such letters threatening action against ancillary vendors and business. They are super shrewd and this is how they get around the law to get what they want.

It’s a war against the people and they win because they have the money and power to destroy lives. They are the enemy, plain and simple. They hate our people. We are in the way of their sick agenda. They are pure evil and there is NO other way to put it because they fail the basic tenant of government which is to help organize and empower society. Instead, they push cannabis users underground into dangerous black market clashes with nefarious characters in places only gangsters and mobsters hang out. It’s just awful. They put our children, and our people at risk. This is NOT the government. It’s fascism, plain and simple. Stalin would love it.

Here’s what happened today in San Francisco…..

HopeNet and the Vapor Room announced they would cease operations in response to threatening letters sent to the business’ landlords by the federal government.

“The Justice Department sent our landlord one of those nasty letters,” said HopeNet co-founder Catherine Smith. “So this is our D-Day, we have to leave.”

Smith and her husband founded HopeNet in 1998 on Ninth Street in the city’s South of Market. The business was held out by medical marijuana advocates as an example of a legitimate pot club working within the city laws. Smith worked alongside city legislators, served on San Francisco’s Medical Marijuana Task Force and helped craft the city’s landmark marijuana ordinance.

“Hard to believe we did all these things and accomplished all these things in the City and they’re shutting us down,” Smith said.

Since November, the Justice Department has sent out 600 letters across California threatening landlords who rent space to medical marijuana operations. Since November, nine San Francisco pot clubs have shut their doors.

The closures haven’t just affected marijuana clubs but also ancillary businesses. Ray Chico whose company Doob Tubes sells plastic containers for medical marijuana, said the litany of closures has hurt business.

“We have an employee that we had to let go, or at least lay off two weeks ago,” Chico said, “since the Harborside forfeiture letter and Vapor Room.”

The sprawling Harborside medical marijuana complex in East Oakland is vowing to fight federal efforts to shut it down. Chico said he was saddened to see HopeNet close-up shop.

“They are like a cornerstone to the little community here,” Chico said. “I think they’ve worked very diligently with local authorities and do everything you need to do to run it above board.”

Smith said the business would continue to run its delivery service, but wasn’t optimistic about finding another location for its dispensary and on-site smoking room.

“The word is out about the Justice Department sending the landlord letters,” said Smith. “The real estate people don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

Longtime patient Ramon Flores said HopeNet represented more than just a pot club.

“A lot of people that come here are mental health patients, or they have physical afflictions,” Flores said as he sat in the club clutching a guitar. “They come here for the marijuana which is also medicine, but they also come here for socialization.”

Since last fall, the Justice Department has cranked up its campaign on California’s medicinal marijuana industry. The government views the glut of medical pot businesses as in violation of California’s voter-passed 1996 law.

The movement was dealt another blow last week when the Los Angeles City Council voted to tentatively ban the city’s 762 marijuana clubs.

With the medical marijuana movement facing a seemingly unfriendly tide, Smith looked around her club, watching as customers hugged each other and said their goodbyes.

“I don’t have much hope right now,” she said.

Johnny Punish

Johnny Punish founded VT in 2004.  After 20 years at the helm, he “retired” from the daily operations in late 2023 passing the ball over to the new owner of VT, Chief Justin Time.   He now writes for VT as “Writer Emeritus”.  He is also a global citizen eco-activist, visionary, musician, artist, entertainer, businessman, investor, life coach, podcast host, and syndicated columnist.  

Punish is an ethnically cleansed Palestinian-American whose maternal family was evicted from their home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948 by Irgun; a Euro-Zionist Settler Terrorist Group.  The family became part of the over 1,000,000 Palestinians who are Al-Nakba refugees (The Catastrophe).  The family fled to Beirut Lebanon for 13 years eventually emigrating to the USA in 1961 via a Brasilian passport obtained by his Palestinian Brasilian-born grandmother (In the early 1900s, the family was sent to Sao Paolo Brasil as guest workers in the mining industry.  Punish’s father is Italian-American from New York City.  Punish’s paternal great-grandparents emigrated to the USA from Naples Italy and Marineo in Sicily in the 1890s.  Punish was born in the Bronx, New York in 1963.

Punish was educated at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (1980-81) and California State University Fullerton (1981-1984) with studies in accounting and business. Before the “internets” had been invented, he owned and ran (5) national newspapers in the United States of America from 1987-1998.  From 2004 to 2023, he owned and managed VT Foreign Policy retiring at the end of 2023.

Punish is also a recording artist.  He has over 100 original songs written. He records and produces music. A member of ASCAP, Punish has several songs placed in feature films. His music is promoted worldwide and played on all digital networks and net radio.

He is also the founder and owner of  Global Thinkers, a freedom media that helps free thinkers create real wealth.

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