In February, Oakland City Attorney John Russo asked the Obama Justice Department whether his city's plan to regulate large-scale medical marijuana cultivation would get the approval of the federal government. As expected, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag responded to Russo with a declarative "No!" Little did patient advocates realize, though, that Haag's letter would begin a trend resulting in similar U.S. Attorney letters sent to local and state officials in at least 9 different medical marijuana states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
This cynical tactic of sending letters that threaten public officials with criminal prosecution is not new -- the Bush Justice Department made similar threats against New Mexico officials in 2007 -- but it's now being used by Obama to obstruct the democratic process and impede the development of local and state laws regulating cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana.
In Montana, more than 8 federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the criminal division of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), executed 26 raids on the same day the senate was due to vote on a bill repealing the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law. The bill was ultimately passed by the legislature, but was later vetoed by Governor Brian Schweitzer. Then, in April, U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter sent a letter to the state legislative leadership urging them not to pass a law that would regulate medical marijuana production and distribution. This federal action contributed to the development of a bill that not only criminalizes this activity but also is expected to drastically and arbitrarily reduce the number of patients in Montana. That bill was not vetoed by Schweitzer and has since become law.
At the end of April, a day before the Washington State legislature put a bill on Governor Christine Gregoire's desk that would have regulated medical marijuana production and distribution, the DEA raided three distribution centers in Spokane. The raids came two weeks after U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby sent a letter to Gregoire threatening criminal prosecution if the law was passed. These actions compelled the governor to veto portions of the bill that would have licensed the same facilities raided a day earlier. The Associated Press reported at the time that Gregoire said "she could not approve a measure that might put state workers at risk of federal criminal charges." Just as in Montana, the bill passed in Washington represented a serious erosion of patients' rights.
A threatening U.S. Attorney letter sent to the governor of Rhode Island has resulted in the suspension of its recently passed, but not yet implemented, medical marijuana production and distribution law. Thousands of patients have been negatively affected by this suspension. Every time there's a raid, or a threatening letter is sent to an elected official, hundreds if not thousands of patients are left wondering where they're going to get their medication. The federal government gets a lot of mileage from saying it doesn't target patients, but the reality is that large numbers of us are directly impacted by these federal actions. ASA has argued that such tactics have forced untold patients into illicit markets, thereby jeopardizing their safety and making them more vulnerable to arrest and prosecution.
Fortunately, not all politicians have buckled under federal pressure. The Delaware legislature recently passed and Governor Markell signed a bill that made Delaware the 16th medical marijuana state. In spite of recent threats to its neighboring states, Delaware boldly included a production and distribution plan for patients across the state. In similar defiance of federal intimidation, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is expected to soon sign into law a bill that will license four medical marijuana distribution sites, despite a Justice Department letter sent to public officials in that state. Patients commend Markell, Shumlin and all of the local and state officials who are standing up to federal interference. We need more of that kind of leadership.
The letters come nearly two years after the Obama Justice Department issued a memorandum in October 2009 to these same U.S. Attorneys, signaling a different policy from the prior administration. Even before becoming president, then-Senator Obama campaigned on the promise that he would not use "Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws." However, today his administration is not only circumventing these laws, it is undermining the right of cities and states to implement their medical marijuana laws accordingly.
Patients are sick and tired of broken promises and half-measures from the Obama administration. The president must answer for his inconsistent and harmful policies and work with us to address medical marijuana as a public health issue. Americans for Safe Access recently launched its "Sick and Tired" campaign to bring attention to the continued harassment, discrimination, and stigmatization of patients, and the need for a comprehensive federal policy.
Patient advocates are also seizing on a comment made by Governor Gregoire as she was vetoing parts of Washington's medical marijuana bill. According to the Seattle Times, Gregoire said she would "use her position as chair of the National Governor's Association to lead an effort to change marijuana federal classification." This presents a ripe opportunity to take the next step toward addressing medical marijuana as a public health issue. Join us as we work with governors and other key officials from medical marijuana states to take this fight to the next level!
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Relief+bottle/4821774/story.html
http://www.dailysmoker.com/blog/clearing-smoke-science-cannabis
http://www.dailysmoker.com/blog/cured-cannabis-story
or Compassionate Liberal..
would be for Legalization By Now:
http://www.dailysmoker.com/blog/cured-cannabis-story
as a joke.!
fire, The President is not without influence, and he CAN have the Fed's tone down the BS.
The problem is, Obama won't do it.
Surprised? I'm not. "Hope and Change"? Not much of that. Not much different from "The Shrub"
in my opinion. The Wars in the middle east, the war on drugs,fattening and furthering the Wall St
thieves, the continued screwing of the middle class . . nope not much change there at all.
to agree with you!
Obama:
“I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It’s not a good use of our resources.” — August 21, 2007, event in Nashua, New Hampshire
“I don’t think that should be a top priority of us, raiding people who are using ... medical marijuana. With all the things we’ve got to worry about, and our Justice Department should be doing, that probably shouldn’t be a high priority.” — June 2, 2007, town hall meeting in Laconia, New Hampshire
“You know, it’s really not a good use of Justice Department resources.” — responding to whether the federal government should stop medical marijuana raids, August 13, 2007, town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire
“The Justice Department going after sick individuals using [marijuana] as a palliative instead of going after serious criminals makes no sense.” — July 21, 2007, town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire
Apparently it's easier to raid a pot barn than the gun runner they actually sold guns too.
Why should it take 16 years to hear a rescheduling petition? How in the heck is that anything but abuse of the system? Filed in 1972, and it took until 1988 to drag them kicking and screaming to the table.
How can you call it anything but an abuse of the system when the administrative law judge at that hearing rules in no uncertain terms that the DEA needs to acknowledge cannabis as a valid medicine, and the DEA declines?
How is it anything but abuse when the POTUS (Bush the 41st) shut down the Compassionate IND because suddenly a large cohort is going to be eligible to enter the program?
You say Cali and Colorado have "legalized" under the guise of medicinal use. Are you even aware of what the penalty for petty possession of cannabis is in either State? Tell me, do you think that illegally parking in a space reserved for those with valid handicapped permits is a heinous crime? Because in Cali that penalty is almost 10x as harsh as the penalty for petty possession. Because of Prop 36 no one's going to be incarcerated for cultivation until the 3rd offense.
How in the heck do you people justify your petty, self serving obsession with the malingering over the needs of the sick?
Unfortunately, possessing half a brain is not a requirement for being appointed to any court and, in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), the Supreme Court essentially deleted this restriction on Federal Government power from the Constitution. In that case, a farmer was growing wheat for consumption on his own farm. The U.S. government imposed limits on wheat production in order to drive up wheat prices and it ordered the farmer to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use on his own farm. The court agreed with the Government that the farmer's wheat, grown and consumed on his own farm, was deemed to "affect" interstate commerce.
As a result, the Federal government has become exactly what the founders tried to protect us from: a monolithic unstoppable power unaccountable to anyone other than special interests.