Pubdate: Thu, 07 Mar 2013
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold
Page: 4A

SIMMERING OVER WATCHED POT

Pressure Builds on Feds to Do Something About Marijuana
Schism

Four months after voters in Colorado and Washington legalized limited
marijuana possession and sales, the federal government remained
resolutely mum Wednesday on what it will do about it.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder offered no new foliage for those reading the
federal government's tea leaves on marijuana.

"We are ... at this point considering what the federal government's
response to those new statutes will be," Holder said. "I expect that
we will have an ability to announce what our policy is going to be
relatively soon."

That is, essentially, the same answer he gave last week to a gathering
of state attorneys general, and it offered no update on President
Barack Obama's comment in December that "what we're going to need to
have is a conversation" on the discrepancies between state and federal
marijuana laws.

Holder's comments, though, came amid mounting pressure on the federal
government to do something.

On Tuesday, a United Nations-affiliated drug agency scolded
governments that allow a loosening of drug laws - a swat partially
directed at the United States following the two states' legalization
votes. The same day, eight former leaders of the Drug Enforcement
Administration urged Holder, in a letter, to file a lawsuit arguing
that Colorado and Washington's new marijuana laws are illegal and
preempted by federal law.

But University of Denver law professor Sam Kamin, who served on
Colorado's recently concluded marijuana task force, says a federal
lawsuit probably wouldn't succeed in overturning the Colorado law. The
federal government can't force a state to make something - such as
small-scale marijuana possession - a crime. And Kamin said Colorado's
new laws for marijuana sales aren't so opposite of federal law that
people can't comply with both. In other words, Kamin said, the state
law isn't forcing anyone to sell pot.

"It's quite easy for someone to obey both state and federal law,"
Kamin said. "Don't sell and grow marijuana."

That possibly explains the state of arrest the Department of Justice
currently finds itself in.

Marijuana advocates, though, are optimistically suggesting a different
explanation: Perhaps, by not commenting as regulations for
recreational marijuana proceed in Colorado and Washington, the federal
government is giving a winking approval.

"We're glad to see a dialogue taking place between state and federal
officials," said Mason Tvert, one of the chief proponents of marijuana
legalization in Colorado, "so that we can arrive at a solution that
respects voters in these states as well as federal interests."
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MAP posted-by: Matt