Pubdate: Thu, 14 Jun 2001
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/27
Author: David Kravets, Associated Press Writer

FEDS SILENT ON MARIJUANA STRATEGY DESPITE HIGH COURT VICTORY

In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court said it's illegal to sell or
possess marijuana for medical use, the decision appears to be having
little effect in the eight states with medical marijuana laws.

"I dispense a couple pounds a month," said Jim Green, operator of the
Market Street Club, where business has thrived even after the May 14
ruling. "All of my clients have a legitimate and compelling need."

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and
Washington allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke
marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state
prosecution.

Those states have done little to change since the Supreme Court ruled
federal law prohibits people from dispensing marijuana to the ill.
Some states have even moved to expand marijuana laws despite the ruling.

State prosecutors say it's up to federal authorities, not them, to
enforce the court's decision.

"If the feds want to prosecute these people, they can," said Norm
Vroman, the district attorney in Northern California's Mendocino
County, where the sheriff issues medical marijuana licenses to
residents with a doctor's recommendation, or to people who grow the
marijuana for them.

In Maine, "state prosecutors aren't too involved with enforcing the
federal law," said state attorney general spokesman Chuck Dow.

In response to the high court's decision, however, Maine lawmakers
shelved an effort to supply marijuana to the ill.

The Bush administration, which inherited the medical marijuana fight
from President Clinton, has taken no public action to enforce the
ruling and has been silent about its next move.

"There's generally no comment about what the government will do in the
future in any context," said Mark T. Quinlivan, the Justice
Department's lead attorney in the Supreme Court case.

Leslie Baker, head of the U.S. attorney's Portland, Ore.,
drug-enforcement unit, said last week that U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft's office has not given her guidance on how to respond to the
ruling. Oregon allows "caregivers" to grow and dispense marijuana for
patients who have a doctor's recommendation.

Baker declined to say what federal authorities may do in the
state.

Meanwhile, Nevada lawmakers, abiding by a voter referendum, on June 4
adopted a medical marijuana measure that Gov. Kenny Guinn said he would sign.

In California, the nation's first state to approve medical marijuana
in 1996, the Senate approved legislation June 6 legalizing marijuana
cooperatives for the sick.

Three days earlier, Colorado expanded its medical marijuana law,
complying with a state voter initiative that requires the state to
license medical marijuana users. That was despite the opposition of
Gov. Bill Owens and the state's attorney general, who urged federal
authorities to prosecute anybody who sells, distributes or grows
medical marijuana, even if they qualify for the state program.

At the Market Street Club in California, the marijuana goes to
patients such as Grant Magner, 49, of Novato, who says it reduces
nausea and headaches resulting from AIDS and gives him enough of an
appetite to eat.

"It gives me a slight feeling of wellness. I can not smoke marijuana,
and watch my body waste away," he said.

The absence of federal action has led to speculation about the Bush
administration's strategy.

"I think they are biding their time and are being very careful for
which organizations or persons they are going to target first after
this U.S. Supreme Court decision because that is what is going to get
all of the media attention," said Tim Lynch, the Cato Institute
director of criminal justice studies.

The Justice Department may take no action in hopes that the decision
will scare medical marijuana providers out of business, said Mark
Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the University of California at Los
Angeles.

The public silence also may reflect that the White House has more
important issues to handle.

"That is not what they're talking about in the Capitol and the
corridors of the White House," said presidential analyst Stephen Hess
of the Brookings Institution.

Any federal crackdown may open a Pandora's box of new legal questions,
said Robert Raich, the lawyer for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Oakland club could not defend
its actions against federal drug laws by declaring it was dispensing
marijuana to the medically needy.

But the justices said they addressed only the issue of a so-called
"medical necessity defense" being at odds with a 1970 federal law that
marijuana, like heroin and LSD, has no medical benefits and cannot be
dispensed or prescribed by doctors.

Important constitutional questions remain, such as Congress' ability
to interfere with intrastate commerce, the right of states to
experiment with their own laws and whether Americans have a
fundamental right to marijuana as an avenue to be free of pain.
Justice Thomas wrote that the court would not decide those "underlying
constitutional issues today."
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