Pubdate: Fri, 06 Sep 2013
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Joe Garofoli

SPOTLIGHT ON POT AT SENATE HEARING MAY CLEAR THE AIR

Tuesday is a day that marijuana supporters have been looking forward 
to forever: The second-ranking official in the Justice Department 
will answer questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee about U.S. 
marijuana policy, just days after the feds said they would have a 
hands-off policy toward the two states - Washington and Colorado - 
where recreational pot recently became legal.

For many, it's mind-blowing to have a discussion about the U.S. 
policy on marijuana - before the Senate, no less - after the previous 
before the Senate, no less - after the previous political 
generation's single-minded admonition of "Just Say No" when it came to pot.

California marijuana advocates say this attitudinal sea change - 
coupled with supportive polls - clears the way for a 2016 ballot 
measure to legalize cannabis for adult use. Insiders say the Justice 
Department's new Aug. 29 memo offers some clarity for campaign 
funders and organizers who worried that the federal government was 
going to crack down on states where voters legalized cannabis.

Much of the infighting in California has dissipated among the 
activists who backed Proposition 19, the failed 2010 ballot measure 
that would have legalized weed for recreational use among adults who 
are at least 21 years old. In recent months the adversaries, who were 
bickering about whether or when to launch another initiative, have 
been meeting regularly, quietly organizing and monitoring Washington 
and Colorado to see what they could learn.

The 2016 election cycle is a presidential year, when more young 
voters typically turn out, and would offer a better hope for 
legalizing marijuana, they say.

"The hope is that California will be ready to end its prohibition and 
be ready to tax and legalize cannabis for adults," said Will 
Matthews, a spokesman for the Northern California branch of the ACLU, 
which has been at the forefront of the state's movement to legalize marijuana.

Still wary

But medical marijuana advocates, in California and 19 other states 
and the District of Columbia where it is legal, remain wary. They 
want clarity out of Tuesday's hearing-such as when and why federal 
authorities may try to close medical marijuana dispensaries in 
California, where voters approved medical cannabis in 1996.

For much of the past two years, despite several promises by President 
Obama not to disrupt the flow of the drug to the ill, federal 
prosecutors have cracked down on dispensaries, closing dozens of them 
across the state, including some that local governments have lauded as models.

The Aug. 29 DOJ memo, authored by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, 
who will be Tuesday's star witness, is a bit vague on how it will 
treat medicinal marijuana operations.

Cole's memo said federal authorities weren't going to be as focused 
on "states and local governments that have enacted laws legalizing 
marijuana in some form" and have "strong and effective regulatory and 
enforcement systems."

How big a step?

"It was a step forward," said Steve DeAngelo, executive director of 
the Harborside Health Center, the nation's largest medical cannabis 
dispensary, with outlets in Oakland and San Jose. "But I don't know 
how much of a step forward it is."

It all depends, say DeAngelo and others, on whether the Justice 
Department thinks California has a "strong and effective" medical 
cannabis system. The memo didn't mention California or medicinal 
marijuana specifically. State lawmakers are grappling with how to 
better regulate California's medicinal outposts.

At the same time, some of the state's model dispensaries have been 
receiving mixed messages.

Despite being lauded earlier this year by the Alameda County Board of 
Supervisors with a Commendation of Service, Harborside has been 
feeling federal heat on several fronts. Harborside brings Oakland 
$1.1 million a year in tax revenues.

In July, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag in San Francisco filed a federal 
court complaint alleging that dispensary, which does $22 million a 
year in business, violates federal law prohibiting marijuana distribution.

At the time, Haag said, "The larger the operation, the greater the 
likelihood that there will be abuse of the state's medical marijuana 
law, and marijuana in the hands of individuals who do not have a 
demonstrated medical need."

Cole's memo, however, states that prosecutors "should not consider 
size or commercial nature alone" in determining whether a dispensary 
violates federal guidelines on marijuana.

"All of us applaud these comments. Hooray! It's about time," said 
James Gray, a retired Orange County Superior Court judge who now 
speaks on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a 
drug reform organization.

"But there is very little significance to it," Gray added, because 
federal prosecutors "don't have to follow it if they don't want to."

Haag's office declined to comment on the Justice Department memo.

California marijuana advocates doubt that their U.S. senator on the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, will grill the 
DOJ official for clarity on the issue. They wish she would, because 
they know Feinstein has enormous bipartisan influence in the Senate.

Feinstein's opposition

But she is no friend to marijuana advocates. She opposed Prop. 19 in 
2010 and Proposition 215, which legalized medicinal marijuana.

"She has an 'F' rating, from me personally," said Dale Gieringer, who 
leads the California chapter of the National Organization for the 
Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Feinstein's opposition to Prop. 19 was key to its demise, as she 
called it "a jumbled legal nightmare that will make our highways, our 
workplaces and our communities less safe."

In written responses to questions from The Chronicle, Feinstein said 
she will be focused on illegal grow operations, particularly in 
Fresno County, at Tuesday's hearing.

"I will seek confirmation that DOJ's new guidance will not stop DEA 
or the Justice Department from investigating rogue medical marijuana 
dispensaries and illicit crop production in California," Feinstein said.

While she opposed Prop. 215, Feinstein said she supports "the right 
of individuals to use medical marijuana."

But as chairwoman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics 
Control, she does not support "unregulated marijuana dispensaries or 
the legalization of marijuana."

If Feinstein were to change that position, De Angelo said, "we would 
see a much more rapid change in people's attitudes" toward marijuana.

[sidebar]

CLARIFYING U.S. MARIJUANA POLICY

Marijuana advocates have waited for years for a Senate hearing with 
Department of Justice officials. They have many questions, but wonder 
if the senators on the committee will ask them. Here are few issues 
they hope will be clarified:

1. Will the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency 
stop pressuring banks and financial institutions to deny services to 
cannabis businesses that are operating legally under state law?

2. Will the DOJ direct the DEA to stop sending threatening forfeiture 
letters to landlords of cannabis businesses that operate legally 
under state law?

3. Is the Obama administration reviewing the classification of 
marijuana as a so-called "Schedule I drug," which is defined as 
having no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse?

4. Will the administration allow security companies to do business 
with marijuana providers free of intervention?

5. Is the Obama administration considering an executive order or 
providing any other sort of assurance that, unlike its track record 
with medical marijuana, it's going to do what it says this time and 
leave alone marijuana businesses that are legal in states?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom