Pubdate: Thu, 01 May 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Sari Horwitz
Page: A6

MARIJUANA TRAFFICKING ON RISE IN STATES NEAR COLORADO

The Drug Enforcement Administration is concerned about a surge in the 
illegal shipment of marijuana from Colorado since the state legalized 
the drug, and is trying to crack down on minors' use of the 
substance, the head of the agency said Wednesday.

Administrator Michele Leonhart said the DEA is troubled by the 
increase in marijuana trafficking in states surrounding Colorado and 
worries that the same phenomenon could be repeated around Washington 
state, where recreational marijuana is expected to be sold legally 
soon. In Kansas, she said, there has been a 61 percent increase in 
seizures of marijuana from Colorado.

Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leonhart said the 
softening of attitudes nationwide about the risk of marijuana has 
confirmed some of the agency's fears.

"The trends are what us in law enforcement had expected would 
happen," she said. "In 2012, 438,000 Americans were addicted to 
heroin. And 10 times that number were dependent on marijuana."

The Obama administration released a memo in August saying it would 
not challenge legalization laws in Colorado and Washington as long as 
the two states maintained strict rules regarding the sale and 
distribution of the drug. In the memo, Deputy Attorney General James 
M. Cole stressed that marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

The Justice Department directed federal prosecutors not to target 
individual users but instead to focus on eight areas of enforcement. 
Those aims include preventing the distribution of marijuana to 
minors, stopping the drug from being grown on public land, keeping 
marijuana from falling into the hands of cartels and gangs, and 
preventing the diversion of the drug to states where it remains illegal.

DEA officials have expressed frustration privately about the 
legalization of marijuana by Colorado and Washington state, where 
local officials consider the change an opportunity to generate tax 
revenue and boost tourism.

But in January, James. L. Capra, the DEA's chief of operations, 
called marijuana legalization at the state level "reckless and 
irresponsible," and warned that the decriminalization movement would 
have dire consequences.

"It scares us," he said during a Senate hearing. "Every part of the 
world where this has been tried, it has failed time and time again."

Two years ago, nine former DEA administrators wrote a letter to 
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to express their concern about 
the states' movements to legalize marijuana and urge him to oppose 
the ballot initiatives.

"To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the 
global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives," 
wrote the former administrators, who oversaw the DEA under Democratic 
and Republican presidents from 1973 to 2007.

On Wednesday, Leonhart spoke about why she thinks marijuana is 
dangerous. She said that marijuana-related emergency room visits 
increased by 28 percent between 2007 and 2011 and that one in 15 high 
school seniors is a near-daily marijuana user. Since 2009, she said, 
more high school seniors have been smoking pot than smoking cigarettes.

Marijuana advocates say that concerns about the drug's danger are 
exaggerated. In an interview with the New Yorker magazine, President 
Obama compared the use of marijuana to drinking alcohol.

"As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as 
a bad habit and a vice not very different from the cigarettes that I 
smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life," he 
said. "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol."

Leonhart also spoke out in support of mandatory minimum sentencing 
for drug crimes, an issue Holder has highlighted recently as part of 
his initiative to reduce prison crowding and foster equity in 
criminal sentencing.

Holder has instructed his 93 U.S. attorneys to use their discretion 
in charging low-level, nonviolent criminals with offenses that impose 
severe mandatory sentences.

Leonhart, in response to a question from Sen. Charles E. Grassley 
(R-Iowa), said: "Having been in law enforcement as an agent for 33 
years [and] a Baltimore City police officer before that, I can tell 
you that for me and for the agents that work at the DEA, mandatory 
minimums have been very important to our investigations. We depend on 
those as a way to ensure that the right sentences equate the level of 
violator we are going after."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom