MEDICAL MARIJUANA FIGHT WASTES FUNDS

Even as California's massive budget deficit prompts new cuts to
Medi-Cal's drug benefits for HIV/AIDS patients, county officials here
waste precious resources in doomed legal challenges to state medical
marijuana laws designed to help many of those very patients.

For more than two-and-a-half years, San Bernardino and San Diego
county officials sought somebody - anybody - in the courts who might
entertain their convoluted arguments against obeying state medical
marijuana laws requiring an identification card system for qualified patients.

And twice - first in 2006 and then just last week by the 4th District
Court of Appeals - the courts have quickly dismissed their arguments.

Despite coming up empty, the two county boards of supervisors must
now decide whether to appeal their case one last time to the
California Supreme Court. Whether out of respect for the rule of law,
compassion for suffering medical marijuana patients or simply
acknowledging the waste to taxpayers, the choice should be easy: It's
time for county officials to drop their challenge, obey the law and
move on to more important matters.

As a former San Bernardino sheriff's deputy and a licensed medical
marijuana patient who was permanently injured in the line of duty,
the counties' hell-bent opposition to providing qualified patients
with some means of easily identifying themselves to police defies logic.

In fact, most local law-enforcement officers I know would welcome a
system that allows them to easily verify valid patients. For them,
time wasted investigating legal medical marijuana patients is time
that could be spent pursuing actual crimes.

However, county officials' attempts to avoid their obligations under
California law likely has less to do with legitimate legal
disagreements than it does with sheer ideology and a knee-jerk
reaction against medical marijuana patients.

As private citizens, board members are certainly entitled to their
own opinions, but as public officials, they have an obligation to
respect the rule of law, just as I did as a peace officer. The courts
have made it clear that the counties' central argument - that federal
law prevents the counties from establishing medical marijuana ID card
programs - lacks merit.

By acknowledging this unavoidable reality, San Bernardino County
officials wouldn't necessarily be abandoning their principles -
misguided as those principles may be. They would merely be
demonstrating that they understand the law and respect their
constituents enough to devote their limited resources to more
meaningful, urgent matters.

To do otherwise is cruel, arrogant and childish. With the state
facing a $17.2 billion budget deficit, county residents - regardless
of their personal views on medical marijuana - deserve better.

David Herrick is a former San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and
resident of Riverside. He holds a county-issued medical marijuana ID card.