Pubdate: Wed, 07 Nov 2001
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2001 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Peter Schrag
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

THE FEDS CRACK DOWN - ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issues unspecified warnings about new 
terrorist attacks -- somewhere, someplace in some form. The FBI declares 
that, despite a month of intense pursuit and a million-dollar reward, it 
has few good leads in its search for the anthrax terrorist, or terrorists, 
and again asks the public for help.

But there seems to be no uncertainty and, it seems, plenty of investigative 
and legal muscle for at least one phase of the federal government's other 
war -- rooting out California's providers of medical marijuana.

In the past month or so, according to the New York Times, the feds have 
uprooted a marijuana garden run by patients, who under the provisions of 
California Proposition 215, passed by voters in 1996, have the legal right 
to smoke pot if they have a doctor's recommendation. The feds also have 
raided a West Hollywood cannabis buyers' club, one of the largest in the 
state. And they've seized the records of a lawyer and doctor in the town of 
Cool who recommended pot for patients suffering from the effects of cancer 
chemotherapy and the symptoms of AIDS, glaucoma and other maladies.

The Justice Department is operating entirely within the provisions of 
federal law, which declares pot to be a dangerous substance, lacking any 
medicinal value. Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court reinforced the Justice 
Department strategy by overwhelmingly striking down the claims of the 
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club that medical necessity gave it a common-law 
defense against the federal injunction shutting it down.

The feds' campaign is confined almost entirely to civil proceedings, 
seeking court orders and threatening doctors with loss of their right to 
prescribe, a sanction that in essence would drive them out of practice. 
They thereby avoid the daunting prospect of getting criminal convictions 
from jurors who may themselves have voted for measures such as Proposition 
215 and who in any case are likely to sympathize with terminally ill 
patients struggling to mitigate pain and prolong life.

In virtually every state where medical marijuana initiatives have been put 
before voters -- Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Colorado, Nevada, the 
District of Columbia -- they've passed overwhelmingly. And in a poll taken 
last March by the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of Americans said they 
favored medical use of marijuana with a doctor's prescription.

So why are the feds harassing the marijuana providers? To be sure, there's 
no certainty that they're only growing for medicinal purposes or providing 
pot only to people legally entitled to get it even under state law. But 
especially at a time like this, when we're told that the FBI is devoting 
extraordinary resources to the prevention of domestic terrorism, you'd 
think the feds would have more important things to do.

Even in ordinary times, this was a dubious campaign, especially in an 
administration that so constantly professed its respect for state 
prerogatives and a disdain for the heavy hand of Washington. In virtually 
every other Western nation -- Canada, Britain and most of Europe, where the 
prime objective is to reduce the harm of both drug use and harsh drug law 
enforcement -- there are strong moves to depenalize marijuana possession. 
American politicians seem to be the only ones who've adamantly resisted 
that trend.

In a major new book, "Drug War Heresies," Robert MacCoun, who teaches law 
and public policy at UC Berkeley, and Peter Reuter of the University of 
Maryland point out that depenalizing is not the same as legalization. It 
simply can mean far more discretion in enforcement, as the justice system 
already does on crimes such as prostitution and gambling. Where such 
policies are wisely pursued, MacCoun's and Reuter's voluminous data show no 
significant increase in use.

In their most recent ballot measures, as in Nevada last year, the promoters 
of medical marijuana have sought to designate the state itself as the 
provider of medical marijuana. So far it hasn't happened, but if it does, 
it would put the feds in the embarrassing position of having to go after 
state officials.

In the meantime, the primary providers under the state medical marijuana 
laws remain the users themselves, or those who, under those initiatives, 
are their primary caretakers -- usually under the general supervision, and 
thus the general approval, of the state.

But what's most troubling about the feds' recent efforts to go after the 
providers is that they are doing it at all. The government's own studies 
have shown that the danger of smoked marijuana is totally irrelevant for 
terminal cases. Nor is there any evidence from the European cases that 
depenalizing its use leads to increased use of cocaine or other more 
dangerous drugs.

When every spare agent and investigator should be devoted to multiple 
threats of terrorism, many from sources we may not have fully imagined, why 
is the government making war on some of our sickest citizens and the 
doctors who are treating them?
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MAP posted-by: Beth