MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW IN NEED OF CURE

When Michigan voters overwhelmingly made medical marijuana legal in
2008, they certainly intended well. Terminally ill patients would
have official access to the natural palliative, voters thought.
Chronic pain sufferers and their growers would no longer live in fear
of arrest and imprisonment, supporters promised.

Reality hasn't cooperated.

. On Sept. 15 in a 30-page opinion, Michigan Court of Appeals judge
Peter O'Connell told lawmakers to clarify the state's law. He said
the law is so confusing, with sections contradicting public health
codes, that users "who proceed without due caution" could "lose both
their property and their liberty."

. On July 6, DEA agents raided the Saginaw County home of a couple
who were licensed by the state to use marijuana. The couple and law
enforcement disagree over whether they were following the state law.

. In August, deputies raided medical marijuana dispensaries in
Dryden, Ferndale and Waterford, closing the dispensary in Dryden and
seizing patient medical records.

. Last week, Summit Township in Jackson County joined several other
municipalities in imposing a six-month ban on dispensaries because of
unresolved legal issues and zoning questions.

Yet while Berkley Mayor Marilyn Stephan said the law has become an
enforcement nightmare, the problems were actually very predictable.
And there are partial remedies Michigan officials should pursue. For
starters, lawmakers must resolve conflicts between existing health
codes and the new law. Otherwise, users can carefully follow the
medical marijuana law and still have their lives turned upside down
by law enforcement officers carefully following health statutes.

Second, the state must address dispensaries as well as
patient-to-patient marijuana transfers. The 2008 amendment did not,
much as it generally did not lay out a legal supply chain to obtain
cannabis. That's dumped the issue onto local governments.

As we stated in 2008, however, so long as marijuana possession
remains a federal crime, state rules can only offer an illusion of
immunity. According to the Supreme Court, state marijuana laws cannot
nullify the federal ban. Assurances by Attorney General Eric Holder
that federal agents would stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries
have not stopped the raids. In fact, FBI data showed 2009 featured
the second-most marijuana arrests in history. Of those arrests, 88
percent (758,593) were for possession only.

Legal limbo confuses citizens and frustrates them with the legal
system in general. The real answer has always been for Congress to
review federal law. Polls show popular support shifting toward
legalizing marijuana. Congress should ease the federal prohibition,
even if only for medically prescribed pain relief.

Good intentions, after all, are no substitute for laws that actually
provide relief.