THE MEDICAL-CANNABIS CRACKDOWN

Seattle Times Editorial Columnist Bruce Ramsey Chronicles The
Crackdown on Medical Marijuana.

"Green Hope Open," says the handmade sign along Aurora Avenue North in
Shoreline. The business itself has no sign. Tucked between Johnny S.
Lee, dentist, and James Park, chiropractor, it displays a commercial
modesty unusual for Highway 99.

It is the Green Hope Patient Network, and it sells marijuana. Its
customers are 500 people who qualify under state law because they have
AIDS, cancer, Crohn's disease, chronic pain or other conditions.

Green Hope opened in November 2009, one month after the Obama
administration said it would not enforce federal law on medical use of
cannabis in the medical-marijuana states. Now the policy tightens. Why
is not explained.

Maybe the too-eager flowering of commercial cannabis alarms Obama's
re-election team. Threatening letters from Obama-appointed U.S.
attorneys have gone out in Montana, Oregon, Arizona and other states.

The Obama people, it turns out, are not so different from the Bush
people.

In Spokane, U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby threatened landlords with
seizure of their properties and cannabis sellers with prosecution.
Some 40 dispensaries -- imagine Spokane having that many! -- have now
closed. Seven that stayed open too long were raided and their
proprietors arrested.

Frank Cikutovich, an attorney representing the Spokane sellers,
reflected on the change. "We had a two-year free-for-all when it was
like Amsterdam around here," he said. Now his clients are out on bail,
waiting to see if they will be indicted on federal charges.

"We're holding our breath," he said.

Things have been more civilized this side of the mountains. Still, the
regime has been tightening since the Obama people leaned on Gov. Chris
Gregoire to veto large parts of the Legislature's medical-cannabis
bill. The full bill would have licensed and regulated dispensaries,
but the surviving parts, which go into effect July 22, appear to
forbid them.

On Monday, Charles Lambert, director of the Evergreen Holistic Center
in Kent, received a letter from the city declaring that his business
will be illegal as of July 22, and that he will be subject to
forfeiture of assets.

In Shoreline, Green Hope is at risk. Formerly a stay-at-home mom,
founder Laura Healy, 42, is running her first business. She is trying
to follow the rules, and seems about as far removed from a criminal as
you could imagine.

"I don't ever want to go to jail," she said. "I've never even had a
speeding ticket."

She has had a business license for six months. Now the city has
received a threatening letter from an insurance pool, and has notified
her that her license is revoked. She has appealed. On Monday night she
appeared at City Hall with patients, who argued that simple plant
products have made them less reliant on drugs.

"I was on Oxycodone," said one man who replaced his opiate-based
painkillers with cannabis cream, with fewer side effects.

A woman with bipolar disorder said marijuana allowed her "to get off
some pretty heavy-duty psych meds."

A muscle man with tattoos said prescription painkillers made him mean,
and that cannabis cream allows him to get along with people.

The council members expressed sympathy -- and uncertainty. City
Attorney Ian Sievers said Green Hope can stay open until July 25, when
the city has a hearing on the license suspension.

And still the sign reads, "Green Hope Open."