DEA DEPREDATION

As the federal Drug Enforcement Administration carries forward its campaign
against medical marijuana patients, the pattern that seems apparent is that
the DEA is using federal enforcement activities to make null and void the
state law authorizing patients to use marijuana medicinally that California
voters approved way back in 1996. Fortunately, some California communities
are resisting federal hegemony.

What the DEA is doing may be technically legal, but it is politically and
morally reprehensible. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that federal
law does not provide a medical exception to marijuana prohibition. But it
did not rule that federal law trumps the state law and makes it invalid. It
simply said that in this area, as in some others, state and federal law
differ. State authorities are bound to uphold state law and federal
officials enforce federal law.

In the past, the feds left relatively small-scale plantings for
recreational use to local officials, filing federal charges only when 1,000
plants or more were involved. Lately, however, it has gone after prominent
leaders in the medical-marijuana movement, perhaps in the belief that
punishing them will intimidate other patients.

Thus it raided the Los Angeles cannabis club and seized all its plants, but
filed no charges. It raided a prominent grower in Ventura and did file
charges. It raided Ed Rosenthal, a patient in Oakland and former writer for
"High Times" magazine and has filed charges. It raided the Santa Cruz
cannabis co-op, handcuffing at least one person in a wheelchair and
destroying plants but filing no charges.

Last week, after previously seizing the 20 plants he has openly grown
(behind a high fence) in his yard, it arrested Steve McWilliams, a patient
and caregiver in San Diego who has served on the city's medical cannabis
task force developing local guidelines for implementing Prop. 215.

In Santa Cruz, city officials protested and made City Hall available for
distribution of medical marijuana. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
protested and asked the DEA to desist. In San Diego, far from being
intimidated, a City Council committee approved guidelines allowing patients
to possess up to three ounces of cannabis with a city ID card. Medical
marijuana patients and advocates held a rally at the state Capitol.

The stage is set for a classic test of federalism. Federal agents can claim
they are just enforcing the law. State officials can say that if there is
no interstate commerce the feds should butt out.

We think the feds should come out from behind their camouflage outfits and
fight fair. If they want to invalidate California's law, let them challenge
it in court rather than through selective enforcement and intimidation.