MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRESS

State Guidelines for Dispensaries Are Helpful

When we read the first headlines, we were concerned that California
Attorney General Jerry Brown had become part of the campaign to
subvert California's medical marijuana laws by recommending that
police go after so-called medical marijuana dispensaries more
aggressively. Having read the actual guidelines, however, we believe
they are not perfect but potentially useful - at least to state law
enforcement people who want to do their job properly rather than
seeking to nullify the law.

Our main problem with Mr. Brown's guidelines has to do with his
contention, as stated in the summary, that the "guidelines affirm the
legality of medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives, but make
clear that such entities cannot be operated for profit." Proposition
215, the initiative approved by voters in 1996, does not ban profit,
and that law can only be changed by a vote of the people, not by a
legislative enactment or a set of guidelines from the attorney general.

That issue will no doubt be settled through litigation, as have many
of the issues that created the circumstances that made it advisable
for the attorney general to issue guidelines to clarify the legal
climate. California courts have already affirmed, for example, that
limits on the number of plants a patient may possess amount to an
illegitimate amendment of Prop. 215 and therefore have no legal
standing. The stipulation in the attorney general's guidelines that
dispensaries must be nonprofit cooperatives or collectives rather
than profit-making enterprises is likely to suffer the same fate.

That quibble aside, Mr. Brown's guidelines are useful and
constructive. They make it clear that California law permits patients
with a valid recommendation from a physician to possess, use and
acquire marijuana, and that dispensaries that keep proper records and
exist to serve patients rather than being fronts for illicit drug
distribution are also legal. Kris Hermes of the patient advocacy
group Americans for Safe Access says he thinks most dispensaries
already follow Mr. Brown's guidelines, and some that don't will
require only a few tweaks to be completely legal.

The main problem is that marijuana is still completely prohibited by
federal law, and federal agents still have the power to enforce that
law. As the U.S. Supreme Court and several lower courts have
acknowledged, however, the fact that federal law is still utterly
unreasonable has not invalidated California law. State and local
officials are duty-bound to enforce state law, not federal law.

Attorney General Brown's guidelines should make this admittedly
sometimes confusing task a little easier. Now it is up to local law
enforcement agencies to follow them in good faith and leave federal
law enforcement to the feds.