March 23, 2010 -- Last Spring, at a public meeting about creating a set of "best practices" for medical marijuana dispensaries, Steve Sarich from Sentry/CannaCare announced that the Washington State Department of Health had begun investigations into two of their doctors.
Sarich said that the DOH investigations into Dr. Jason Ling and Dr. Karen Hamilton were retaliatory in nature, were started at the request of law enforcement, and showed a new law enforcement tactic -- to attack pot-friendly doctors through the DOH complaint process. The cases involved a patient busted for growing in Thurston County, and an underage patient who provided his medical marijuana authorization to the school nurse.
Public disclosure request
In response to this announcement, in April 2009, the CDC sent a public disclosure request to the Washington State Department of Health for all records related to 1) Dr. Jason Ling and Dr. Karen Hamilton, and 2) all medical marijuana related complaints and investigations of doctors in Washington State.
In January 2010, the Department of Health provided documents responsive to the first part of our request -- the investigations of Dr. Ling and Dr. Hamilton. As of March 2010, we are still waiting for the records of all medical marijuana related investigations of doctors in Washington State.
We did not make these documents public in January because we felt they did not show retaliatory intent by the Department of Health. The Ling complaint was from a Sentry/CannaCare patient who was apparantly busted after Sentry/CannaCare records were taken by WestNET during a much-publicized raid a few years back. The Hamilton complaint is based on two cases: a 12-year-old patient that Hamilton remembers very clearly, and a case involving a patient that allegedly claimed to never have seen Dr. Hamilton, and who Dr. Hamilton doesn't remember.
Why are these relevant now?
In the wake of the CannaCare shooting on March 15, 2010, the Seattle Times reported that Sarich was already under investigation by King County law enforcement based on the complaint of "another medical-marijuana advocate."
The November investigation began after another medical-marijuana advocate complained of narcotics activity at Sarich's home and told investigators Sarich was flying in a California doctor — Ling — to write prescriptions, the affidavit says.
Some medical marijuana activists have expressed concern about a comrade that would report a fellow activist to the police. One particularly vocal and acerbic CannaCare-affiliated activist has been working all week to spread a rumor that the ACLU of Washington -- a constant and steady focus of CannaCare rhetoric -- is somehow responsible for an "assassination attempt" on Steve Sarich. Even Sarich himself is adding fuel to anti-ACLU fire:
"I can't wait to find out who the 'medical marijuana advocate' is who decided to try to get us prosecuted. Allison Holcolm (ACLU) is already publicly defending this person. Figures. Probably a buddy of hers. We'll see shortly." -- Steve Sarich
Speculation on which one of Steve's activist enemies might have "ratted him out" to police is spreading. It occurred to us that the November complaint mentioned in the paper -- about narcotics activity and Sarich flying Dr. Ling in from California -- may be the same complaint sent to the Department of Health about narcotics activity and Sarich flying Dr. Ling in from California. That complaint was dismissed in early December 2009.
And so we are making these records available online, in searchable PDF format, for the benefit of our fellow cannabis activists. We are not certain this is the same complainant as the DOH investigation, but it seems a very real possibility. We are working to get the prosecutor's affidavit and any supporting documentation.
DOH investigation records
