Law Enforcement Immunity Poses Problems for Pot Operators

SAN FRANCISCO – JUNE 22: Federal law enforcement agents remove grow lights during a raid June 22, 2005 in San Francisco, California. The clubs raided today were opened after the deadline San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom enacted in March, banning all new medical marijuana clubs from opening. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, concluding that state laws don’t protect users from a federal ban on the drug. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Andres Rondon was miles away from his licensed California cannabis farm when he received an alarming phone call that would set off a years-long legal battle.

Rondon owned Skunkworkx Pharms, a cannabis cultivation operation in Mendocino County, when a worker at the farm called him on a Sunday morning in October 2018 to alert him to a robbery in progress. Because his operation was compliant with the state, Rondon said he immediately called the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office to apprehend the thieves.

Officers showed up some two hours later, Rondon claimed in ensuing . . .