FRIENDS OF METH?

Medical Pot Raids Help Drug Traffickers

Some wit once defined a fanatic as a person who redoubles his effort just
as he loses sight of his objective. That wit must have been thinking of
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administrator Asa
Hutchinson.

Their objective is supposed to be chasing drug traffickers who sell
dangerous drugs such as methamphetamines and heroin to children. Instead,
they are raiding plots that supply medical marijuana to grandmothers with
cancer under the terms of California's Proposition 215.

The state's growing anger over Ashcroft's fanaticism crystallized this
month after DEA agents raided a medical marijuana cooperative in Santa Cruz
that operates responsibly with the support of local officials and police.
Santa Cruz city officials gathered the other day with doctors, lawyers and
patients to openly distribute medical marijuana in defiance of federal
officials.

And they are right to be angry. As California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
spelled out in a recent letter to Ashcroft and Hutchinson, the raids,
conducted without consulting local and state authorities, are doubly
outrageous.

For one thing, they are unethical abuses of law enforcement power. Lockyer
points out that the raids are being conducted without any expectation that
the targets can or will be successfully prosecuted. There's not a jury
anywhere in California that would convict someone operating a medical
marijuana cooperative that state authorities have sanctioned under
Proposition 215. The raids are punishment being meted out without
conviction or trial.

Even more important, every hour a federal agent spends chasing medical
marijuana is an hour not available to California's more serious drug
problems. Medical marijuana, Lockyer correctly noted, "represents little
danger to the public and is certainly not a concern that would warrant
diverting scarce federal resources away from the fight against domestic
methamphetamine production, heroin distribution or international terrorism."

Every time Ashcroft and the DEA go after medical marijuana users, life gets
a little easier on traffickers in methamphetamines and heroin. That's
something even a fanatic should be able to understand.