JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WON'T TARGET LEGAL MARIJUANA CLINICS

Government To Go After Federal, State Violators

WASHINGTON - U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder announced that the
Justice Department had no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries
operating legally under state laws in California and a dozen other
states - a development that medical-marijuana advocates and civil
libertarians hailed as a sweeping change in federal drug policy.

In recent months, officials in President Barack Obama's administration
indicated that they planned to take a hands-off approach to such
clinics, but Holder's comments - made at a wide-ranging briefing
Wednesday for reporters - offered the most detailed explanation to
date.

President George W. Bush's administration targeted medical marijuana
distributors even in states that had passed laws allowing use of the
drug for legitimate medical purposes. Holder said the priority of the
new administration would be to go after egregious offenders operating
in violation of both federal and state law.

"Those are the organizations, the people, that we will target,'' the
attorney general said.

Medical-marijuana activists and civil libertarians embraced Holder's
statement as the most forceful affirmation of a landmark turnaround
from the Bush administration's policy of zero tolerance for cannabis
use by patients.

"Whatever questions were left, today's comments clearly represent a
change in policy out of Washington. He's sending a clear message to
the DEA,'' Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance, said Wednesday.

Cultivating, using and selling doctor-prescribed marijuana are allowed
in some instances under California law. But such actions are outlawed
under federal law, which supersedes state law. A dozen other states
have laws similar to California's, according to the Marijuana Policy
Project, an organization that supports legalization of the drug.

In the 13 years since California voters made the state the first to
legalize medical marijuana, federal officials have won all the major
legal battles, including one at the Supreme Court in 2001 that upheld
their right to prosecute marijuana sellers. Supporters of medical
marijuana have fought back on the political front, and Holder's
announcement is their biggest victory so far.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles already has been focusing on
egregious offenders such as those who sell drugs to minors, sell to
people with bogus prescriptions or sell away from their approved
location, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Thomas P.
O'Brien.

"In every single case we have prosecuted, the defendants violated
state as well as federal law,'' Mrozek said.

Despite the abundance of such facilities in Southern California,
Mrozek said prosecutors had charged only four operators and their
associates in the past seven years.

After Obama was inaugurated, the Drug Enforcement Administration
raided several dispensaries in the Los Angeles area and near Lake
Tahoe, in what appeared to be a continuation of policies enforced
under prior administrations. At Wednesday's briefing, Holder was asked
if the Justice Department planned to raid any more clinics.

"The policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and
state law, to the extent that people do that and try to use
medical-marijuana laws as a shield for activity that is not designed
to comport with what the intention was of the state law,'' Holder said.

A Justice Department official confirmed that Holder's comments
effectively articulated a formal Obama administration policy of not
going after such clinics.

"Before, he didn't really lay out the policy. Today he stated the
policy,'' said the Justice Department official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the
matter publicly.

"If you are operating a medical marijuana clinic that is actually a
front, we'll come after you,'' the official said. "But if you are
operating within the law, we are not going to prioritize our resources
to go after them.''

Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project said he still had some
concerns.

'The devil is going to be in the details of implementation," Mirken
said. 'I think you have to assume that there are people within the DEA
and some in local law enforcement who still don't like medical
marijuana and would like to find an excuse to continue making arrests
of law-abiding dispensary operators.