Pubdate: Mon, 01 Aug 2011
Source: Ahwatukee Foothills News (AZ)
Copyright: 2011 Ahwatukee Foothills News
Contact:  http://www.ahwatukee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1337
Author: Howard Fischer

FEDS: ARIZONA'S MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWSUIT HAS NO MERIT

Federal attorneys asked a judge on Monday to throw out a lawsuit 
filed by Gov. Jan Brewer seeking a ruling about the legality of the 
state's medical marijuana law.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Scott Risner said there is no legal basis for 
the lawsuit. Risner told U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton in 
legal papers filed in her court that, absent some actual threat of 
prosecution under federal drug laws by his office, the question is 
purely academic and therefore not a proper subject for litigation.

But state Attorney General Tom Horne, who filed the lawsuit in May on 
the governor's behalf, said Risner is telling only part of the story.

The fight surrounds the decision by Arizona voters last year to set 
up a system allowing those with a doctor's recommendation and a 
state-issued ID card to purchase marijuana from state-regulated dispensaries.

Since that time, several federal prosecutors, including Dennis Burke, 
the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, warned that possession and sale of the 
drug remains illegal under federal law. Brewer then directed Horne to 
ask a federal court whether Arizona could implement its program anyway.

In the interim, the state health department, at Brewer's direction, 
decided not to license any dispensaries, though they have continued 
to certify patients as medical marijuana users.

Risner said the problem with Horne's lawsuit is that no state 
employee involved in issuing licenses -- those that Brewer said she 
was most concerned about -- is facing prosecution.

But Horne said that's not exactly true.

He pointed out that federal prosecutors, in their letters to state 
officials in Arizona and elsewhere, essentially said that medical 
marijuana users have nothing to fear. It's what those letters did not 
say, Horne said, which amounts to a threat.

"They gave no assurance to state employees, they gave no assurance to 
dispensaries,'' he said.

"And they said they were going to vigorously prosecute anyone who is 
involved in the distribution of marijuana,'' Horne continued, a 
category that could include state workers. "What unbelievable hypocrites!''

Horne also brushed aside Risner's argument that there can be no risk 
of prosecution to state health workers since they are neither 
accepting nor processing applications from those who want to operate 
dispensaries.

"We asked for the court decision and we said we'll hold it up until 
there is a court decision,'' Horne complained. He called it 
"sophistry'' for the Department of Justice to now argue that the 
state, by putting the license-issuing process on hold, is now not 
entitled to a ruling on the very issue that is holding up the process 
in the first place.

Risner did not return a call to his office seeking comment.

It's not just the Department of Justice trying to have the governor's 
lawsuit dismissed. Would-be dispensary operators and the American 
Civil Liberties Union are making similar arguments in their own legal filings.

Bolton has not set a date for a hearing.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart