Pubdate: Wed, 28 Mar 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Vincent Carroll

WALSH KNOWS BEST

Next week the people of Lyons will vote on whether to close that 
small town's three medical marijuana dispensaries. That's their right 
under Colorado's carefully crafted law, which defers on the most 
basic issue of all - whether dispensaries even exist - to local sentiment.

Many communities have banned dispensaries, some through popular vote 
and some through ordinance, but others have refused - and the 
decisions have not always fallen along predictable lines. The college 
city of Fort Collins outlawed dispensaries last fall, for example, 
while residents of unincorporated El Paso County rejected a ban in 2010.

If Lyons residents refuse to close their dispensaries - and Mayor 
Julie Van Domelen says the outcome is "anyone's guess" - it may be 
because the town council imposed tight regulations on them last May. 
Not only are no new ones permitted, for example, but if one of the 
three closes, the total number will be capped at two.

Unfortunately, this sort of grass-roots democracy doesn't sit well 
with U.S. Attorney John Walsh, whose office has once again sent out 
notices to a number of medical marijuana dispensaries around the 
state warning them that they have 45 days to close or face 
prosecution. Walsh's excuse is that these dispensaries are located 
within 1,000 feet of a school - in Boulder that includes the 
University of Colorado - even if they comply with local and state rules.

Walsh not only knows better than local civic leaders what constitutes 
a threat to young people, his long-term goals don't necessarily stop 
with the enforcement of a 1,000-foot zone that may or may not be the 
most appropriate buffer.

No, Walsh is keeping his powder dry for possible further crackdowns 
on Colorado's medical marijuana system.

He acknowledged this astonishing possibility in a letter last week to 
Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett, who'd suggested that "the 
resources of the United States Attorney's Office should be focused 
elsewhere: on terrorism, serious economic crime, organized crime and 
serious drug dealing (involving significant amounts of heroin, 
cocaine and methamphetamine)."

"I can see no legitimate basis in this judicial district to focus the 
resources of the United States government on the medical marijuana 
dispensaries that are otherwise compliant with Colorado law or local 
regulation," Garnett wrote on March 13. "The people of Boulder County 
do not need ... the federal government dictating how far dispensaries 
should be from schools, or other fine points of local land use law."

Just so. Nor do the people of Denver and a host of other communities 
need such second-guessing.

But Walsh was unimpressed. Not only did he reiterate his intention to 
continue with the current crackdown, which he said was entirely his 
call, not Washington's, but he added a warning for other dispensaries.

"I should emphasize that this program is only one part of this 
office's overall enforcement effort, and does not create by 
implication a safe harbor for marijuana dispensaries or marijuana 
cultivation in other locations," Walsh wrote.

As it happens, a safe harbor is exactly what the Obama administration 
signaled in October 2009 it was willing to create for those "in clear 
and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws." Yet Walsh, 
following more recent Justice Department practice, blithely recasts 
the clear meaning of the "Ogden memo," claiming it extended only to 
patients and "their immediate caregivers."

It must be difficult for federal officials, conditioned to expect 
universal obeisance, to encounter a population that asks: Don't you 
have better things to do? But in this case the only wonder is that 
the officials themselves don't slap their foreheads and say: Now that 
you mention it, we do.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom