HOW MY LAPTOP AND VIDEO CAMERA WERE DESTROYED

After the FBI had me fired from my job cooking at the airforce base in King Salmon, Alaska, I came back to California. I applied at many places, eventually being hired by the "Medical Miracle" Cannabis dispensary at 4009 Park Blvd, in Hillcrest/North Park. It was one of four dispensaries in the same building (eventually there were eight at one time, plus a doctor who specialized in Medical Marijuana recommendations - all in one building).

Medical Miracle was run by a Board of Directors, only two of which I actually met. They were brothers, Courtney and Dwane Bernard. They were large, well dressed black men, who said they lived in Mexico. When Courtney hired me, there were about nine employees, not including the directors. Three of the employees didn't even smoke cannabis. Courtney NEVER smoked, and his brother, who went by the nickname "Bernie" or "Bernard", ate an edible occasionally, to raucous teasing from the staff over the rarity of the event. While it is normal for people using walkie talkies (as we did to communicate between the front office and the medicine room) to say "10-4", my fellow employees used other law enforcement lingo as well. When asking someone on the phone when they would arrive, for instance, they'd say "what's your 20?"

In May 2011, as the San Diego City Council moved toward what appeared to be a city-wide shut down of all cannabis clubs, Courtney and Bernard told me we were staying open, despite the city's threats, and they fully expected we would be raided. There was even a date circled on the calender at one of the clubs: May 25th. Suddenly, however, the directors began QUADRUPLING the amount of Cannabis we were keeping on site. Suddenly, just weeks before we expected to be raided, they decided decided to start selling plants (clones) for the first time, at all three locations... despite refusing to carry plants previously!

They made sure I was directly in charge of everything. While the three dispensaries' managers and employees contacted me on my own cellphone throughout the day, the directors gave me a second, untraceable throw-away phone, just for me to contact them. When one of the dispensaries was running low on Sativas, a manager would call me on my phone, and i'd tell him it would be taken care of. Then, i'd call either Courtney or Bernard, on their throw-away phones, from my throw-away phone... and they'd deliver more medicine to the dispensary. This would make it appear, to anyone tapping the phones of the dispensaries, that I was completely in charge of the entire operation.

The "Directors" were clearly setting me up to take the fall. Despite my valiant efforts to keep the vast amount of patient paperwork legal and valid (Medical Miracle had two huge 5' tall filing cabinets full of patient folders - literally thousands of patients), the directors - and many of the employees - constantly did things that could get us shut down. Bernard personally approved letting a patient sign up with ONLY a copy of a handwritten health club application for identification. No photo ID at all. Who in their right mind would allow that... especially knowing raids were coming, and our files would be scrutinized?!? Bernard is an EXTREMELY intelligent person, he knew what he was doing.




There were dozens of examples like this.

The second store we opened utilized 'new' software, which didn't screen returning patients for expired Dr.'s recommendations! I had to INSIST on making the tech guys fix it, so we could keep track of whether patients' Dr.'s recommendations were current and valid. Accepting a patient with an expired doctor's recommendation is a common cause of dispensaries being raided! Every other dispensary in town was scaling down how much medicine they were keeping onsite, in preparation for the raids, but for some reason the Bernard brothers substantially increased the pounds of Cannabis we kept onsite, added plants (an entire separate set of federal charges) for the first time, and an entirely new line of both edibles & pipes. (Tommy Chong went to jail JUST for selling pipes). They made sure only i met with the edible and pipe vendors, personally making the purchases from them.

I knew what was coming, but was planning to face the raids with my head held high, come what may... until something happened, just a few days before the expected raid was marked on our calendar. I visited an unaffiliated dispensary in Northpark, and talked to woman there, who was working the desk. A middle aged activist, who's son uses Cannabis for a brain tumor, I am 100% sure she is not a cop. Very nervous about the impending raids (as opposed to the Bernard brothers, who just laughed about them), she was quite worried she would lose her job when the dispensary she worked at was raided. When i told her i worked at Medical Miracle, she scrunched up her nose, and shook her head. She said that most of the problems the Medical Cannabis community was facing from the city involved that infamous building at 4009 Park Blvd. It's like the dispensaries there were TRYING to provoke the city.

Guilt began to creep up my spine, and finally i just blurted out truth i had been holding inside for so long. I told her i was pretty damn sure i was the only person at my dispensary who wasn't a cop. I told her i was reasonably certain that all four dispensaries operating at the 4009 Park blvd building were run by the DEA. I told her the reason i was even in her dispensary buying medicine, was because the three shops i managed (Medical Miracle was in the infamous building, the other two were elsewhere in the city) all sold "tainted" medicine - Cannabis sprayed with some sort of substance that smells similar to marijuana, but more pungent, with a distinct, chemically set of flavors. There are a dozen or so specific smells, and all the medicine we sold during my last few months had the same exact scents. We had started out selling regular cannabis, but they switched to the new stuff a few months before the raids. While the smell of natural cannabis always makes me grin involuntarily, the smell of the tainted weed made me curl my nose in disgust.

I told her all this, and while she was shocked, she believed me. Walking home, i realized the cat was out of the bag. There was no going back. I contacted the local head of Americans for Safe Access, Eugene Davidovich, and told him what had happened. I told him i wanted to call a press conference at the 4009 Park Blvd building, in my capacity as a dispensary district manager, intending to out the diespensaries as DEA fronts. Eugene (who many people think is a cop infiltrating A.S.A. - one of the most successful Cannabis activism organizations on the planet) nervously convinced me not to call a press conference. He insisted i call a specific lawyer instead: Lance Rodgers, of the Jeffery A. Lake Law firm. I met with Lance, and told him my story. At first, he pretended to be advocating for me, but, it turns out, he actually works for the very same law firm as Courtney and Bernard's lawyer! He too nervously talked me out of calling a press conference. His advice was to "just walk away" and not expose the undercover operation. After all, he said, who would believe me?

The next day, i vociferously quit, over the phone, to Courtney. The day after that, i hid my video camera in my shirt pocket, and went to meet Courtney and Bernard to turn in my keys. Before relinquishing the keys, i yelled at them, furious over what they were doing. Bernard kept his head down, and wouldn't look me in the eye. I said i knew they were cops, and asked how could they sleep at night, knowing they were selling tainted medicine to cancer patients. Courtney's reaction was priceless: "Cancer patients?!?" he scoffed, as if he didn't believe sick people bought medicine from us. He didn't dispute my characterization of the medicine being "tainted", merely my suggestion that people buying it might be cancer patients. Incredibly damning video!

I threw the keys on the ground at their feet, told them to go fuck themselves, and stormed off.  The next day, i felt a weight had been lifted. Freed from my guilt at selling tainted medicine and working with DEA agents, i was eager to start a new chapter of my life. I went to a grocery store, bought some things, then stopped at a table outside the door to sign a petition. That's when a tall black man got in my face. Completely invading my personal space, he got right up in front of me, and began asking odd questions, like why was i signing the petition, where was i from, and didn't he recognize me from one of the dispensaries? Very disconcerting. I was so angry, i went directly to a local Big 5. I was agitated, and quite stoned at the time, so i can see why what happened next would seem strange.

I asked the gun manager about waiting periods for rifles and shotguns. He said they were the same as for handguns. I remarked how i hadn't realized the old loophole had been closed, since waiting periods used to only be for handguns, not long barreled guns. At that point, two undercover cops came in behind me, and were standing very close to me. The gun manager was nervous, and i just turned and left the store.

I wasn't planning to shoot anybody, let me be very clear about that. But, heading to that Big 5, i had a very strong sense of what conservatives are always saying the 2nd Amendment is really all about: protection against tyranny. I just wanted to see the look on faces of the narcs' who were keeping Heidi strung out, when they came over that afternoon and i was cleaning my gun. But, it was not to be. I knew they'd never let me buy a weapon. I didn't even try.

Later that day, i was using my computer in my room. The only windows i had open were the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, and my email. Taking a break at one point, i went into the kitchen to sharpen my kitchen knives. Somehow, no matter how many times i sharpened them, i'd get home the next day and they'd literally be as dull as butter knives. Ever try chopping a bell pepper with a butter knife? It's a pain in the ass. Again, i wasn't planning on stabbing anybody, i just wanted a sharp knife for when i made dinner. Unfortunately, while i was sharpening the knives, my computer hard drive fried. My computer was literally destroyed while i was sharpening my knives. I took it to be serviced, and while they could salvage the data, the hard drive was toast.

A few weeks earlier, i had placed an ad on craigslist, looking for a camera person to collaborate with me on film projects. A few days before i quit my job, a girl answered my ad, and we met at a local In-N-Out burger. She was from Argentina, with a thick accent. She liked my film projects, and agreed to work for me for $20 an hour. Her schedule was busy, so by the time we finally got together to collaborate, it was a few days after my computer was destroyed.

She came to my apartment, and immediately something was off. She kept talking about wanting to completely redesign mindswell.org. I said i'd consider some of her ideas, then kept trying to steer the conversation back to the film projects we were supposed to be working on. She pulled mindswell.org up on her laptop, and showed me an obscure link that didn't work. I was shocked she'd even come across that link, as it was pretty deeply buried in the website. She kept insisting we completely redesign mindswell, right then and there, until finally, exasperated, i had to raise my voice a bit to quell her nagging, and get us focused back on the film projects.

At that point, she relented, and agreed to let me plug my videocamera into her laptop, so we could download some of the things i had filmed. I plugged the USB cable into my camera, then her computer... and a few seconds later, my videocamera's screen went blank. The hard drive of the videocamera fried, right there in front of my eyes. Incredulous, i unplugged it, and stood there dumbfounded at my new doorstop. She kept sweetly repeating "maybe the battery ran out", blinking innocently, shrugging, and smiling. That's when i realized what she had done. Through gritted teeth, i asked her to leave. She sent me a bill for her time a week later.
   

And that's how my laptop and video camera were destroyed.