MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS HERE TO STAY

San Diego County has adopted an official head-in-the-sand policy on
medical marijuana: Sit back and hope the courts outlaw it.

But an ostrich strategy won't work. Doctors will continue to
recommend it, patients will continue to use it, and the law is clear:
the judiciary will not overturn California's medical marijuana in
favor of federal prohibition. To do so would violate centuries of
legal precedent firmly establishing the boundaries between state and
federal power. Instead of pursuing baseless litigation, San Diego
County should implement the law and work with the rest of the state
to find practical ways for law enforcement and others to distinguish
between legitimate patients and those who would abuse the system.

Our nation is built on the principle that states do not have to march
in lock-step with all federal policy decisions. It is true that
Congress could have chosen to make the federal government solely
responsible for making and enforcing criminal drug laws. But it has not.

The Controlled Substances Act is the federal statute that identifies
marijuana, among other drugs, as a "Schedule I" substance prohibited
for all uses. The CSA explicitly provides that states can implement
and enforce their own drug laws using state-level resources and
manpower. Even if state laws differ from federal laws, the federal
government cannot trump or invalidate them.

No doubt economic reality has much to do with this. The federal
government undertakes less than 2 percent of marijuana arrests and
prosecutions nationwide and has neither the resources nor the will to
expand that to a full 100 percent.

Can the federal government arrest and prosecute people under federal
law who use medical marijuana in California even though it is legal
under state law? Yes.

Can the federal government force California to make medical marijuana
illegal under state law and to arrest and prosecute medical marijuana
patients? No.

The California attorney general and the attorneys general of other
medical marijuana states all made this clear in legal opinions issued
after the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the federal
government's ability to prosecute medical marijuana patients.

Despite this, San Diego County has filed a lawsuit (at great cost to
its taxpayers) against the state of California based on the mistaken
theory that federal law preempts state medical marijuana laws. This
doomed legal argument also serves as the rationale for San Diego's
refusal to issue identification cards to medical marijuana patients
as required by state law.

But the courts are not going to solve San Diego County's predicament,
nor should they. It is the responsibility of the San Diego County
Board of Supervisors and local government to develop a workable, fair
way to limit use of marijuana to legitimate medical patients.

California voters passed these laws in response to the growing
realization that science had proven the medicinal benefits of
marijuana and that people whose doctors recommended it to them should
not fear arrest for following that advice. Passage of Proposition
215, California's medical marijuana initiative, did not give rise to
the medical use of marijuana; it simply protects the sick and
suffering from prison. Since then, the legislature has expanded
Proposition 215 to include an identification card system that helps
law enforcement identify legitimate patients, protecting them from
arrest and allowing law enforcement to focus its resources on criminals.

San Diego County's refusal to implement that ID card system defies
logic. If limiting marijuana use to legitimate patients is the goal,
then why would the county be so loathe to take steps toward proper regulation?

Some critics of the card program argue that the system would not
fully prevent abuse. It is true that the identification card system
is not perfect, just as the 21-year age limit for purchasing alcohol
is not perfect, but it is a much-needed step in the right direction.

While any system of regulation over otherwise illegal goods is open
to abuse, San Diego County's refusal to implement the state-required
identification card system ensures as much. Legitimate patients are
denied a safe and effective means to access medicine, and police are
denied a means to identify legitimate users, making appropriate
enforcement virtually impossible.

Anyone who has ever had a loved one with a complicated or persistent
illness knows the challenge of managing medications and especially
their side-effects. Doctors and patients must have options, including
medical marijuana, because when you are trying to get better, you
care about science and how you feel, not politics.

It is time for San Diego County's supervisors and local officials to
find compassion, pull their heads out of the sand, and start making
sensible, responsible policy decisions.