[420 Girl]

Los Angeles has become the unofficial capital of storefront shops that sell marijuana in recent years, and so many have sprouted that no one knows exactly how many exist. But those freewheeling times are skidding to a halt.

The City Council has imposed a moratorium on any new pot shops and is moving to regulate the existing ones. Users are feeling a chill, too, from a recent court ruling that allows California employers to fire pot smokers -- even if the marijuana is used at home and purchased under state law.

But even worse for marijuana shop owners, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has conducted raids of medical marijuana dispensaries, recently began sending letters to some shop landlords telling them that their property could be confiscated because it is being used for illegal activity, at least under federal law. The DEA has never recognized California's so-called compassionate use legislation and considers marijuana dispensaries as little more than drug dealers.

"It's tough for all of us who have been trying to run a reputable business that helped a lot of sick people get their medicine," said Michael Leavitt, who shut his Canoga Park dispensary last summer. His landlord had received a letter from the DEA, pointing out that his property could be seized under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. "For the price of a postage stamp, they closed me up," said Leavitt, who had never been raided and is himself a patient who uses medical marijuana to alleviate symptoms of several chronic diseases.

Leavitt's former landlord, Miguel Fernandez, said he initially was leery of renting to a pot dispensary, but said Leavitt turned out to be a model tenant. "I still have not been able to rent his space to someone as good," said Fernandez, adding that it was Leavitt's decision to liquidate his business rather than call the DEA's bluff. Los Angeles attorney William Kroger, who has seen a few of his roughly 20 dispensary clients similarly affected, said that in the current atmosphere, Leavitt probably made the right choice.

While even the DEA doesn't have an exact figure on how many operations were shut down due to the letter campaign, advocate groups know of several cases throughout the city, with some dispensaries raided even after they informed DEA agents that they were closing.

"And what we've seen is that even when you fight back, you get raided anyway and lose everything," said Kroger, who served on the advisory task force that drafted the interim ordinance now regulating the dispensaries. "You have to keep in mind, given the conflict between the federal and state law, and the inclination of the current (U.S.) administration, the DEA is just doing its job."

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