Medical marijuana advocates celebrate
Published 10:51 pm Saturday, March 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES — Medical marijuana users and dispensary owners in California have held their breath for years — fearful they would be targeted for prosecution by the federal government.
They finally exhaled this past week when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said federal agents will now target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state laws, a departure from the policy of the Bush administration.
It’s not seen by many as a move by the Obama administration toward the legalization of marijuana.
However, it could end much of the confusion among state and federal authorities dealing with the mishmash of laws in which cultivating, using and selling pot for medical purposes is allowed by states but outlawed by the federal government.
“This signals, in my mind, a true kind of federalism,” said Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “The federal government is allowing states to take chances, to take experiments and see what happens.”
California is one of 13 states, including Washington, that allows medical use of marijuana.
Over the past 2 1/2 years, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has raided at least 80 dispensaries in California, the majority in the Central District that extends from the Central Coast down to Orange County and includes Los Angeles.
Yet criminal charges have only been filed in several of those cases against the biggest distributors accused of breaking both federal and state laws, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California.
“What we have done in all of our narcotic cases is to focus on large-scale traffickers,” Mrozek said. “In terms of what happens in the future, the federal government will continue to enforce federal narcotics law.”
Medical marijuana advocates say the change in federal policy announced by Holder mirrors the spirit of the 1996 California ballot initiative that made it legal to sell the drug to people with a prescription.
“I think that if nothing else it gives people a sense of optimism that the federal government is going to back off,” said James Shaw, director of the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients. “But it’s not entirely clear to me if they are going to do that.”
Holder didn’t specify who would be exempt from future DEA raids. And one federal prosecutor said cases will still be filed against people who violate the law by selling marijuana for non-medicinal purposes and other actions.
