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Federal law enforcement authorities will continue to pressure California medical marijuana providers and the landlords who rent space to dispensaries, according to federal prosecutors and activists.

On Oct. 5, more than 220 letters warning of possible law enforcement action and asset forfeiture if medical marijuana operations continued past 45 days began going out to dispensary owners and landlords, according to Debra Hartman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in California’s Southern District.

“Preliminary calculations show that 139 commercial marijuana businesses have closed down since the U.S. Attorney’s Office started sending out letters,” Hartman said. “That is a 62.6 percent self-closure rate, however, additional storefront operators have reported that more closures are imminent and DEA estimates there will be rolling closures of another 9 percent of notified commercial marijuana businesses in the next two weeks.”

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office Central District of California, said federal authorities “have executed several search warrants at marijuana stores and grow sites.” He anticipated additional letters will be sent in the near future to dispensary and property owners.

“It is important to note that for-profit, commercial marijuana operations are illegal not only under federal law, but also under California law,” California Central District U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. said in a statement. “While California law permits collective cultivation of marijuana in limited circumstances, it does not allow commercial distribution through the store-front model we see across California.”

Kris Hermes, spokesman for medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, countered “not only have more than 50 localities across California adopted local ordinances regulating storefront dispensaries, according to state law and guidelines issued by the State Attorney General, but there are currently more than 1,000 licensed facilities operating as nonprofits and paying the required sales taxes.”

ASA filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 27 challenging the Justice Department’s dispensary crackdown.

“Although the Obama administration is entitled to enforce federal marijuana laws, the 10th Amendment forbids it from using coercive tactics to commandeer the law-making functions of the state,” ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who filed the lawsuit in San Francisco, said in a statement. “This case is aimed at restoring California’s sovereign and constitutional right to establish its own public health laws based on this country’s federalist principles.”

Hermes added “it is not the purview of the federal government to determine whether storefront dispensaries are making a profit or are in violation of local or state laws. States must be able to develop, implement and enforce their own public health laws without federal interference.”

A proposed law to protect medical marijuana patients from workplace discrimination was introduced in January in the California Senate. Sen. Mark Leno, the bill’s author, put the legislation on hold in June in order to gain more supporters on the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate.

“[Senate Bill] 129 would make it unlawful to discriminate in employment practices based on an employee’s legal use of medial marijuana outside the work place and not during working hours,” according to a document from Leno’s office that explains the legislation.

State law forbids medical marijuana use at a patient’s place of employment, however, Leno’s bill “clarifies that an employer may not discriminate against an employee in hiring, termination, or any term or condition of employment, if the discrimination is based on the employee’s status as a qualified medical cannabis patient,” the document states.

SB 129 does not apply to workers who perform jobs that have a public-safety component, according to the bill.

“[The legislation] rightly moves the focus away from the detection of long lasting metabolites in urine or blood and instead focuses on impairment which is the root concern that drug testing seeks to address,” Leno’s fact sheet claims.

“The people who voted for Proposition 215 never intended to force law-abiding patients out of a job,” Don Duncan, California director of the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said in a statement. “Why must hundreds of thousands of Californians be denied their civil rights, and be forced to live with the risk of losing their job due to their choice of medication?”

SB 129 is a response to a 2008 California Supreme Court ruling, Ross v. RagingWire Telecommunications, that an employee may be fired or a job applicant denied entirely because of his or her status as a medical marijuana patient.

Shortly after the court’s decision, Leno, who was then a state assemblyman, sponsored a bill that passed both legislative houses but was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

ASA spokesman Kris Hermes said Leno likely will revive SB 129 in the new legislative session that begins in January.

Trade associations from a range of industries such as manufacturing, retail, health care and law enforcement have come out against the proposed legislation. Advocacy groups, lawyer organizations and two law enforcement groups in favor of medical marijuana have registered their support for SB 129.