One of the weirdest outcomes of cannabis legalization is that the cops, who for decades were intent on busting people for weed on behalf of the state and its laws, now bust people largely on behalf of the legal pot industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn\u2019t wrong<\/em>, necessarily. It\u2019s just weird. Often, after a raid on an illicit grow operation or an unlicensed dispensary, spokespeople for the P.D. or prosecutor\u2019s office emphasize the impact that illicit weed has on legitimate pot businesses. But otherwise, the busts seem much the same as they did before legalization, with \u201cdope on the table\u201d and all the rest of it. The same phenomenon plays out in legal states across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, before legalization, such busts had little impact on either the supply of or demand for weed. The same is true now of illicit weed. The so-called \u201cblack market\u201d continues apace, especially in California, fueled by bad state and local policies and high taxes that send people into the arms of their local pot dealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn\u2019t mean that cops shouldn\u2019t enforce the laws, of course. If they didn\u2019t, the situation might be even worse (though precisely how much worse is hard to know).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many cases, police seem as zealous as they ever did, and some of the busts they pull off, or attempt to pull off, are outright amusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week we learned that, nearly a year ago, the Los Angeles Police Department raided what it thought was an illegal cannabis operation. It turned out to be a medical imaging center. The owners of NoHo Diagnostic Center have filed a lawsuit against the department, claiming that their civil rights were violated. The lawsuit, first reported by Law 360<\/a>, did not specify damages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow, the cops got the idea that the MRI center, in the Van Nuys neighborhood, was an illegal grow operation, and that the MRI business was just a front. Part of what led them to believe this was that the site\u2019s electricity use was found to be higher than average, which should give pause to any business or private citizen that uses a lot of electricity. (One wonders: will they ever raid a crypto data center<\/a>?) The cops also claimed they smelled weed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The raid occurred on Oct. 18 of last year. One employee was on the site at the time, and was detained while the cops walked around wondering why it looked like a medical-imaging center and not like a pot farm. According to the lawsuit, the raid was \u201cnothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.\u201d The cops found no weed on the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is all really funny stuff (though not for the victims, of course) but the hilarity doesn\u2019t end there. According to the lawsuit, one of the cops walked past a sign outside an MRI room warning that metal was prohibited in the room. He was carrying a rifle that, the lawsuit alleges, was sucked out of his hand and was attached to the magnetized machine. Yeah, bitch! Magnets!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This particular cop hit the machine\u2019s emergency \u201coff\u201d switch, which the lawsuit alleges damaged the machine. He also allegedly left a magazine of ammunition behind in the room. The LAPD hasn\u2019t commented on any of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n