NO ONE'S TOLD DRUG-WAR SOLDIER ABOUT PEACE BREAKING OUT

The Obama administration has pledged to end federal interference in
states that have legalized medical marijuana. But in Colorado, it has
failed to call off one of its dogs.

A Coloradan who works for the president's drug-policy office is
leading efforts to undermine the state's constitutional amendment
allowing cannabis for medical use. On the federal dime, Tom Gorman,
director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
program, is lobbying state lawmakers to gut the Colorado law.

Either Gorman didn't get the memo about changes in federal drug
policy, or he's going rogue. Whichever the case, no one in D.C. seems to mind.

"I'm not about to stand back and let federal drug laws in this
country continue to be violated," Gorman says.

Since President Barack Obama took office a year ago, the Justice
Department has taken the stance that pot-smoking patients and
sanctioned suppliers shouldn't be targeted for federal prosecution in
states that allow medical marijuana.

Gorman has spent years lobbying against Amendment 20, which
Coloradans approved in 2000. If Obama has shifted direction on
medical marijuana, the 66-year-old veteran of three administrations'
drug wars obviously hasn't followed. Pot smokers are gaming the
system, he complains, and addiction, chaos and moral decay no doubt
will ensue. He's trying to convince lawmakers that they'd be
sanctioning drug trafficking by passing a bill that would set
specific rules on growing and selling pot, even for medicinal use.

"If Colorado state leaders elect to legitimize and try to regulate
dispensaries, that action would be in violation of Federal Law . .
.," he threatened in a memo that's being passed around the state Capitol.

"Dispensaries aren't what Coloradans had in mind when they approved
the amendment," adds Gorman, who, in addition to his expertise on
drugs, apparently has his finger on the pulse of the electorate.

Gorman has a contract that funnels $150,000 a year in federal money
through a regional grant administered by Doug las County. Though he
runs an arm of the National Drug Control Policy office in four
Western states, he parses that he doesn't work for the feds.

"Technically, if you ask me who I represent, it's the Colorado Drug
Investigators Association," he tells me, oddly.

That technicality exempts him from longstanding federal laws
prohibiting federal workers from lobbying, he claims. Meanwhile, he's
lobbying without having registered as a lobbyist, and says he's doing
so with the nod of his bosses.

They wouldn't comment.

Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief in
Colorado, says Gorman isn't so much lobbying as educating.

"It's not uncommon for us to weigh in at the statehouse," he says.
"It's a part of the guy's job to share his expertise."

Whether for or against medical marijuana, you'll probably agree that
government has no business paying functionaries to work in
contradiction to its own policies.

"There's certainly something wrong when the Obama administration, on
one hand, states that it's going to respect state laws, but on the
other hand sends in an official to try to make those laws as
restrictive as possible," says Steve Fox of the national Marijuana
Policy Project.

Gorman seems curiously unconcerned about the security of his
government-sponsored crusade. Drug trafficking is drug trafficking,
he says, no matter what you call it.

And a lobbyist is a lobbyist, no matter which government agency
happens to be laundering his paycheck.