Pubdate: Mon, 25 Aug 2014
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2014 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.
Author: Andrew Harris, Bloomberg News
Page: A7

POT'S BUST OR BOON DEPENDS ON STATE

CHICAGO - America is two nations when it comes to marijuana: In one 
it's legal, in the other it's not. The result is that people like 
B.J. Patel are going to jail.

The 34-year-old Arizona man may face a decade in prison and 
deportation following an arrest in 2012.

On a trip in a rented U-Haul to move his uncle from California to 
Ohio, he brought along some marijuana, legal for medicinal use in his 
home state.

Headed eastbound on Interstate-44 through Oklahoma, Patel was stopped 
for failing to signal by Rogers County Deputy Quint Tucker, just 
outside Tulsa. He was about to get off with a warning when Tucker 
spotted a medical marijuana card in his open wallet.

"'I see you have this card. Where's the marijuana?' " Patel recalled 
Tucker asking him. "I very politely and truthfully told him, 'I'll 
show you where it is.' "

That's where things started to go bad for Patel. He faces trial next 
month on a felony charge.

Possessing pot for recreational use is legal in Washington and 
Colorado, and allowed for medicinal purposes in 23 states.

The other half of the country, including Oklahoma, prohibits any 
amount for any purpose.

The difference is especially clear in states like Idaho.

Surrounded on three sides by pot-friendly Washington, Oregon, Nevada 
and Montana, Idaho State Police seized three times as much marijuana 
this year as in all of 2011.

Fourteen percent of Americans smoke pot, said Keith Stroup, legal 
counsel for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

A Gallup poll conducted last year found 58 percent of Americans think 
cannabis should be legal, the first time a clear majority had 
expressed that sentiment.

But amid the increasing tolerance for marijuana use in some states, 
the seeds of legal conflict, and unequal treatment, are being sown by 
region across the nation.

On the Eastern Seaboard, Florida voters will be asked in November to 
decide whether their state should legalize it for medicinal use. If 
yes, they would join New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and the 
District of Columbia.

But between the Sunshine State and that group is a no-pot land, with 
possession deemed illegal in Georgia and Virginia and just 
cannabidiol legal in the Carolinas and Alabama.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom