TOP PROSECUTOR, ADVOCACY ATTORNEY DEBATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sparks flew Wednesday as Northern California's top
federal prosecutor squared off in a debate against a national medical
marijuana advocacy group's attorney.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello and Joe Elford, chief counsel of
Berkeley-based Americans for Safe Access, agreed on little, often
challenging each other on the history of the federal marijuana ban and
pressing each other for details of how best to reconcile that ban with
California's law allowing medical use of the drug.

"We are not interested in users. "... We're not even interested in
people who have a legitimate claim to being compassionate providers,"
Russoniello said during the hourlong forum at the University of
California Hastings College of the Law. "But we differentiate between
those people who are claiming such conduct and those who are
cultivating, who are distributing, who are trafficking marijuana for
profit."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said in recent weeks that
federal agents will no longer raid medical marijuana distributors who
are in compliance with state laws, and Russoniello agreed "there is
little likelihood that federal enforcement efforts will be focused on
them." But "if you're in the business of selling marijuana for profit,
you're in harm's way."

Elford retorted "a 'little likelihood' gets us somewhere, but it
doesn't get us to where we need to be," especially in an atmosphere in
which a federal prosecutor's judgment Advertisement of whether a
marijuana cooperative violates state law will land that cooperative's
officials in federal court -- where state law doesn't apply.

Elford said in many California locales, local law enforcement agencies
that disagree with the voters' will in enacting Proposition 215, the
Compassionate Use Act of 1996, often call in federal authorities to
bust cooperatives that are abiding by state law. In some cases, these
raids result in seizure of marijuana and other property, with no
arrests ever made or charges filed.

Russoniello acknowledged, "Local law enforcement may have its
prejudices."

"It may even have a cynical view of Proposition 215, and I share that
cynical view -- I make no bones about it," the prosecutor said, making
clear his opinion that the medical marijuana debate is nothing more
than a stalking horse for decriminalizing recreational use of the drug.

Russoniello criticized the often slapdash manner in which people
obtain doctors' recommendations to use marijuana as medicine; Elford
replied the federal government -- by ignoring past research and
stonewalling new studies that could lead to loosening the federal ban
- -- ensures marijuana can't be obtained through the traditional
prescription process.