POLICE DISRESPECTING THE LAW

Medical marijuana retailers, look out. You are not paranoid from a
contact high. They really are out to get you and will do their best
to put you out of business.

Your trade annoys and frightens some of our state's most dedicated,
loyal and respected law enforcement professionals. Any doubt of that
vanished Wednesday, after the Colorado Springs Police Department
conducted warranted searches of seven medical marijuana dispensaries.
The raids, which resulted in no immediate arrests, came one day after
the Colorado Legislature approved sweeping regulations to the medical
marijuana trade that go beyond the type of time, place and manner
restrictions that courts permit governments to impose on
constitutional rights of individuals. Included in the bill is an
unconstitutional provision that would allow cities and counties to
forbid medical marijuana dispensaries. Be assured that all city and
county officials in Colorado will come under pressure to outlaw dispensaries.

So what can you do, as the drama unfolds? Mostly you can live and do
business like the law-abiding, role-model citizens that most of you
are. Avoid stupid decisions and mistakes, pay taxes, defend your
rights and obey the letter of the law.

Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May, whose district includes
Colorado Springs and El Paso County, has made no secret of his belief
that marijuana dispensaries are illegal -- despite clear language in
the Colorado Constitution that protects the rights of individuals to
acquire and possess medical marijuana. That right necessitates the
free commercial trade of medical marijuana.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, like May, has professed his
disdain for Coloradans' constitutional right to buy, sell, produce
and consume medical marijuana.

Throughout Colorado, prosecutors and top law enforcement officials
have expressed concerns and taken actions to impede this right. For
their entire lives, marijuana has been an unlawful street drug
associated with crime and social degeneracy. They are certainly
correct in suggesting that people will abuse medical marijuana,
obtaining referrals in order to obtain the drug for recreational use.
They are correct in suggesting that widespread abuse of marijuana is
not healthy for our culture.

But we already have widespread marijuana abuse, and nothing the law
enforcement establishment has tried for the past half-century has
done much to curtail it. If anything, Colorado's flourishing medical
marijuana trade has taken a business that once prospered in the seedy
underbelly of the black market and placed it in the broad daylight of
Main Street and strip malls, where sellers pay taxes and obey laws
for all to see. That, ironically, is why police were able to conduct
seven easy searches Wednesday.

An above-board, regulated, lawful means of obtaining medical
marijuana is what a majority of Colorado voters had in mind when they
added Amendment 20 to the Constitution 10 years ago. Law enforcement
personnel and legislators who seek to eliminate retailers though
intimidation or local ordinances will restore the black market.

Just as medical marijuana retailers should obey the law, so should
law enforcement officials. They must enforce the Constitution as it
is written, not as they wish it were written. In Colorado, it
protects the free trade of medical marijuana from government
officials who can't stand it.