MORE MEDIPOT CONFUSION THAN EVER

Maybe it's because growers of medical marijuana are sitting ducks,
not nearly as hard to find or as nasty to deal with as the Mexican
drug cartels that run many large marijuana farming operations deep in
forests on federal- and state-owned land, in parks and forest reserves.

Maybe it's because of the enduring contradictions between state and
federal laws - about to become more severe if Californians next year
pass a pending initiative to flat-out legalize marijuana.

For despite his campaign statements, President Obama has not ended
confusion on the medipot front, dashing some hopes of patients,
growers and operators of the medical marijuana dispensaries that have
proliferated in many California cities. (Sure, some of those
patients and dispensaries are phonies out for nothing but a high or a
profit, but there are also plenty of legitimate medical users.)

More than six months after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised
twice (sort of) to stop federal raids on state and locally sanctioned
medical marijuana operations, raids continue. Not as many as under
ex-President George W. Bush, but still some.

And federal prosecutors show few signs of ceasing efforts to convict
and imprison cannabis defendants arrested before Obama became president.

Holder, of course, was never very specific in his promises. "What the
president said during the campaign will be consistent with what we're
doing in law enforcement," he said.

Here's one thing Obama said while running for office: "We will not be
using Justice Department resources to circumvent state laws." Here's
another: "Whether I want to expend a whole lot of political capital
(on marijuana issues) is not likely." He also observed that he has
"problems with mom and pop shops...because that becomes difficult to
regulate." But he also said that "If it's an issue of doctors
prescribing or recommending marijuana, I think that should be
appropriate."

That's enough to let Holder and the Drug Enforcement Administration
that answers to him do pretty much what they like.

So, in late summer and early fall, the DEA made several raids on
medipot growers in California and elsewhere. One netted five persons
in Lake County, north of San Francisco, where 154 pot plants were
confiscated.

The grower, a local contractor, had a doctor's recommendation to use
medical marijuana and was a designated supplier to several others
with similar recommendations. That seemed to meet terms of
California's 1996 Proposition 215, which allows use and supply of
medipot when doctors' recommendations are involved.

The raid apparently resulted from official suspicion that the grower
was involved in pot sales beyond the medical realm, making a raid in
line with Obama's observation about regulating small operations.

If all this sounds confusing, it is. That's one reason the state
Senate by an eight-vote margin in late summer passed a non-binding
resolution urging the federal government to end medipot raids of all
kinds - on growers, dispensers and users alike - and to "create a
comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and
legal access to any patient that would benefit from it.'

This may be a sensible sentiment, but Obama gave notice while a
candidate that he would not devote energy to such an effort. Which is
one reason a bill co-sponsored by the ultra-liberal Massachusetts
Democrat Barney Frank and the ultra-libertarian Orange County
Republican Dana Rohrabacher to do just what the state resolution
suggests is going nowhere in the House.

As a result, there is still plenty of fear in the medipot community.
Maybe not as much as before Ho lder's rather equivocal commitment not
to bother medical users and their suppliers, but still plenty of
uncertainty. Cities and counties are confused, too. Los Angeles is
one example: City council members appear ready to authorize continued
operations by many of the medipot dispensaries now open there, while
the city attorney and district attorney both insist they are illegal
because federal law trumps any state initiative. Both threaten raids.

There's also still the possibility that if you use medipot and live
in federally subsidized housing, you can be evicted anytime - even if
you're in compliance with state and local laws and regulations.
That's why the pro-pot group Americans for Safe Access recommends on
its Web site that patients in such housing not smoke pot in their
apartments, but try to use only edible pot concoctions or vaporizers
when at home.

Still, there's no doubt the Obama administration has been - as
promised - less eager that its predecessor to flout state laws and
insist on the primacy of federal drug regulations over Proposition
215 and similar laws in other states.

But if you're a cancer patient who legitimately needs relief, if
you're the grower supplying that patient and others with aches and
pains for which doctors recommend pot as the safest palliative, the
uncertainty that still remains is unsettling, at best.