TWO THINGS OBAMA COULD DO ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

During the campaign, President Obama said he would stop federal raids
of medical marijuana clubs in states (like California) that had
passed medical-marijuana laws. Yet federal agents raided
medical-marijuana dispensaries, including the Patient-to-Patient
Collective in South Lake Tahoe, two days after his inauguration. The
Tahoe Daily Tribune reported that agents seized between 5 and 10
pounds of marijuana.

The Marijuana Policy Project, which wants to legalize marijuana,
accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of "defying" Obama's
position on medical marijuana and "called on the president to
immediately replace Bush administration holdovers at DEA.

"During the presidential campaign," the press release continued,
"Obama repeatedly promised not to waste federal resources interfering
in states with laws protecting medical-marijuana patients from
arrest, and he told Southern Oregon's Mail Tribune editorial board on
March 28, 2008, 'I'm not going to be using Justice Department
resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.' "

So will Obama keep his word by directing federal drug agents to
concentrate on going after drug kingpins instead of sick people?

I understand that Obama has bigger issues on his plate, which
probably is why the White House has yet to respond to my Tuesday
query. That said, this issue is vital to many Californians with
health problems.

Item No. 2 for the Marijuana Policy Project: In the closing week of
Bushdom, the Drug Enforcement Administration rejected Administrative
Law Judge Ellen Bittner's decision to allow the University of
Massachusetts to grow marijuana for medical research. Until now, only
the University of Mississippi has filled that role - and not well,
according to critics.

Again, the Bush-DEA's action undermined the position of the incoming
administration. Obama also told the Mail Tribune, "I think the basic
concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the
same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors - I think that's
entirely appropriate."

Obama is right. Some doctors believe that marijuana has properties -
it can ease pain, is an anti-inflammatory and stimulates appetite -
beneficial to patients with AIDS, glaucoma and muscular dystrophy and
other chronic diseases, as well as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Aaron Houston, the Marijuana Policy Project's director of government
relations, said U. Mass. agronomy Professor Lyle E. Cracker has until
Friday to file a motion to reconsider the DEA's last-minute gambit,
which Craker plans to do. "We want (White House Chief of Staff) Rahm
Emanuel and the White House to do the same thing that the White House
did for the other actions" - that is, direct federal agencies to hold
off on rule-making on medical marijuana until the Obama folks take a
look at it.

Judge Bittner was highly skeptical of some of the claims made by
marijuana advocates who complained about the quality of medical
marijuana supplied by the University of Mississippi. But Bittner also
found that the National Institute of Drug Abuse has failed to make
marijuana "available to all researchers who have a legitimate need
for it in their research."

You could understand the institute's opposition to these projects if
marijuana were a rare and lethal drug. But it is impossible to take a
lethal dose, and marijuana is so prevalent that a 2005 National Drug
Threat Assessment reported that, in some areas, marijuana seems
"easier for youths to obtain than alcohol or cigarettes."

To the extent that federal officials have been slow to approve
medical marijuana research, you have to believe that their biggest
fear was that the research would be successful. That's right, it
might help people in pain.

Obama has made much of his commitment to "restore science to its
rightful place." Here's his chance.