THANKS FOR ADVICE, BUT . . .

The Issue: U.S. Attorney Rebuffs Letter From Two Top State
Officials

Our View: For Good Reason

The acting U.S. attorney has rightly refused to ally himself with an
effort by the governor and attorney general to frighten potential
participants in the state's medical marijuana registry into thinking
that they might become targets of federal prosecution.

"We in the U.S. Attorney's Office are truly grateful to Governor Owens
and Attorney General Salazar for sharing their problem with us,"
Richard Spriggs said in a prepared statement issued late last week.
"We, however, are not the solution to their problem."

Spriggs' surprisingly blunt statement occurred one day after Bill
Owens and Ken Salazar had urged the acting U.S. attorney, in a public
letter of their own, "to prosecute to the fullest extent of the
federal drug laws those who would sell, distribute or cultivate
marijuana in Colorado." Now, that might seem like remarkably
gratuitous advice -- not much different from a U.S. attorney urging
the governor in all seriousness to keep the gates locked on the
state's prisons -- except that it came one day before the state
medical marijuana registry opened for business. As we read their
statement, Owens and Salazar were signaling their desire to see
federal agents go after Coloradans with registry cards -- so long as
the registrants could be caught breaking federal law by growing
marijuana plants.

If that was not the intent of Owens' and Salazar's joint letter to
Spriggs, then there doesn't seem much point in it. After all, the
selling and distribution of marijuana remains as illegal under state
law as it is under federal statute. If the state's two top elected
officials had intended to urge a crackdown, say, on drug dealers, they
would have directed their advice to local law enforcement officials.
The only thing legalized under state law by the medical marijuana
initiative was the possession and limited cultivation of marijuana by
sick or debilitated people who possess registry cards -- and Spriggs'
office truly is the only place left that might pursue them.

We're happy to see Spriggs isn't scrambling to lead such a pointless
and vindictive hunt. People who register under the state's new medical
marijuana program and then use pot to alleviate pain or nausea may
indeed be breaking federal law, but a majority of state voters have
explicitly given them the green light to do so. That green light will
amount to no more than moral support should the federal government
ever choose to charge a registrant with a federal crime, but how often
do most lawbreakers get to claim even that much in the way of public
backing?

We make these points not out of any affection for the medical
marijuana program, which we opposed and which makes no more sense to
us today than when it was proposed. Most registrants aren't going to
grow their own pot in order to comply with the state program -- and
perhaps couldn't if they tried -- and yet there is something absurd
about a policy that throws sick and pain-racked patients onto the
illegal drug market, there to deal with criminals.

There is also something absurd, however, about the idea of targeting
them for prosecution, or even indulging in political rhetoric that
elevates prosecution to a possibility. That was what was wrong with
the letter of the governor and attorney general, and why Spriggs was
right to rebuff it.