A Rude Federal Awakening From Medical Pot Dreams

[MedicalNeed]

The feds have come down — hard — on the Legislature's plans to expand medical marijuana far beyond the voters' original mandate. Marijuana enthusiasts have only themselves to blame.

Gov. Chris Gregoire did the state a favor Wednesday by trying to clarify how the U.S. Department of Justice might react to the free-wheeling dope industry many lawmakers having been pushing to legalize with a new bill.

The two U.S. attorneys who cover Washington quickly spelled out their likely response: fines, property forfeitures, lawsuits and possible criminal prosecutions. Individual state officials might be targeted if they licensed grow operations and dispensaries, as the measure proposes.

Later Thursday, Gregoire said she would veto the legislation as written.

Read the U.S. attorneys' letter and you'll see where they're coming from. The Justice Department, they said, isn't interested in pursuing "seriously ill individuals who use marijuana as part of a medically recommended treatment regimen in compliance with state law."

But marijuana profiteers — be they enabling doctors, retailers, wholesalers, processors or growers — are a different story.

In Washington and elsewhere, they have defied both state and federal law to turn medical marijuana into a commercial industry replete with marijuana shops, festive farmers markets and clinics that do nothing but prescribe marijuana — often quite loosely. The City of Tacoma alone has recklessly licensed 35 dispensaries, with seven more on the way.

Thumb your nose at the feds often enough and openly enough, and sooner or later you wind up in their cross hairs. It was foolish to extrapolate the Justice Department's sympathy for legitimate patients to a tolerance of any kind of trafficking that labeled itself "medical marijuana."

For lawmakers, it's back to the drawing board. Sick people who genuinely need marijuana should be able to get it, legally, without having to grow it themselves. Shared gardens, nonprofit dispensaries and co-ops might not have triggered federal scrutiny if big money hadn't been changing hands — and they would have reflected the spirit of the 1998 initiative that legalized medical marijuana under tight restrictions.

The state Senate would have addressed some of the federal concerns. Its version of the marijuana bill would have banned for-profit dispensaries and dope docs. It also wouldn't have forced dispensaries on unwilling cities and counties.

The House bill leaned more toward the Hempfest vision of medical marijuana; it would have licensed profit-driven dispensaries, let medical enablers keep on enabling and forbidden local communities from saying no.

Both bills envisioned large-scale commercial pot farms, which were never going to happen.

Congress ought to amend the Controlled Substance Act to permit bona fide therapeutic use of the cannabinoids in marijuana, which can help patients with a narrow range of medical conditions. But the Justice Department was already allowing such use in practice; it drew the line only after traffickers started operating as if they were immune from the law.

To the extent that "medical marijuana" reflects actual medical practices and controls, it's not likely to run into trouble. But if the industry walks and talks like a grand drug-dealing scheme, it shouldn't be surprised to find itself treated like one.


NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Author: thenewstribune
Source: thenewstribune.com
Copyright: 2011 Tacoma News, Inc.
Contact: Contact us - The News Tribune
Website: A rude federal awakening from medical pot dreams

 

[demp5294]

Our government is supposed to our protect our FREEDOM not to take it away.

 

[Jacob Bell]

So is Vermont going to get this same treatment? They are in the process of passing law that allows for the sale of cannabis just like WA state. If the Feds are picking on WA. then they need to stop. The 10th amendment allows the states to do whatever they want, and they Feds need to butt out. Like, NOW. This is ticking me off. It's ok that the DEA ALLOWS 4 BIG PHARMA COMPANIES TO GROW POT, but not ok for the States to allow individuals/companies to grow it?? That smells a lot like they are trying to have a monopoly. The Fed Gov better stop interfering with people's lives, or else they are gonna get a wake up call they sure won't like. The people of this country will only stand for so much persecution.

 

[demp5294]

I doubt that. They have been doing it for 80 yrs. There not breaking any new ground and the feds have power over states.

 

[servantof7]

So what doesn that mean inEnglish, can we still get medial at our Local Dispensarie or not? Arnold Schwartzzzz,etc. made an ounce or les a traffic ticket....what does this all mean now? The Feds should go back to Prohibition with Alcohol/DUI's, I never heard of any MUI's!!!...loll....Friggin Gov....

 

[demp5294]

It's like the little dutch boy trying to stop the leak in the wall the more leaks we can make. The pressure can break it open.

 

[Son of Stimpy]

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people."

There isn't one single clause in the Constitution that could be construed as delegating the power to prohibit cannabis use to the federal government. It is therefore left to the states, but you'd never know it from the way the feds act.

The big flaw in our Constitution is that when citizens break the law they get busted, but when the government breaks the supreme law of the land, the worst that can happen to them is years later the judicial system might ask (but can't force) them to stop, and when that happens, like any hardened criminals who aren't punished, they just go on violating the Constitution anyway.

Barack Obama, former constitutional law professor has learned his most important lesson from a guy who has never bothered to read our Constitution, GWB: "It's just a god-damned piece of paper!"

 

[jdizzle22]

I feel this article was poorly written in that it seems to be more angry with people trying to make marijuana more freely available (like it should be) than the government for restricting it and making it even harder for people to get it (absolutely unconstitutional). Sure there are people in the industry that are screwing everyone else over, but this article was written as if everyone involved was screwing it up.

And what the hell was wrong with the farmers market? its not like anyone could attend and get goods

 

[Weed420]

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people."

There isn't one single clause in the Constitution that could be construed as delegating the power to prohibit cannabis use to the federal government. It is therefore left to the states, but you'd never know it from the way the feds act.

The big flaw in our Constitution is that when citizens break the law they get busted, but when the government breaks the supreme law of the land, the worst that can happen to them is years later the judicial system might ask (but can't force) them to stop, and when that happens, like any hardened criminals who aren't punished, they just go on violating the Constitution anyway.

Barack Obama, former constitutional law professor has learned his most important lesson from a guy who has never bothered to read our Constitution, GWB: "It's just a god-damned piece of paper!"

And this has been the root of the problem for a long time. Laws are only for the little people. So many laws have been written that violate the constitution and more importantly the bill of rights, that I fear there is no going back to freedom.

 

[Blaze62]

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people."

There isn't one single clause in the Constitution that could be construed as delegating the power to prohibit cannabis use to the federal government. It is therefore left to the states, but you'd never know it from the way the feds act.

The big flaw in our Constitution is that when citizens break the law they get busted, but when the government breaks the supreme law of the land, the worst that can happen to them is years later the judicial system might ask (but can't force) them to stop, and when that happens, like any hardened criminals who aren't punished, they just go on violating the Constitution anyway.

Barack Obama, former constitutional law professor has learned his most important lesson from a guy who has never bothered to read our Constitution, GWB: "It's just a god-damned piece of paper!"

Then Obama is a Hypocrite. If the constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and he say's he believes that then how can he have his justice dept pick and choose what laws they want to abide by? Either it is or it isn't.

 

[demp5294]

Even though we were taught as little children and passed the lie on to our children. (honesty is best policy) This is one of the places poltics differ deception and lies work better.

 

[norteno]

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people."

There isn't one single clause in the Constitution that could be construed as delegating the power to prohibit cannabis use to the federal government. It is therefore left to the states, but you'd never know it from the way the feds act.

Actually it doe's allow for the regulation of cannabis. Do Not Get me wrong, I disapprove of the current legal situation but they do have the legal authority to do so. Under the sweeping power's of the commerce clause and taxation clauses. There is no law against the consumption of heroin, cannabis, or what ever you choose. The prohibition is on the possession of a regulated product.

Article 1 Section 8 Clause 3:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;.

Clearly allows for the regulation of cannabis as it doe's tobacco, the car you drive or the clothes on you're back. It's a very sweeping power that has and will continue to be used to prohibit cannabis. And legitimately if not in the spirit of the constitution's commerce clause.

 

[demp5294]

Power to the people not against the people.