HIGHER GROUND: POT'S NEW COLD WAR

Obama Administration Heightens Tensions Over Medical Marijuana

It was great to see my dear comrade Ed Rosenthal with Larry Gabriel
in last week's Higher Ground. One of the greatest developments in
American jurisprudence, in my experience, was when the San Francisco
jury that was instructed to convict Ed for growing marijuana found
out after the trial had ended that he had been cultivating the weed
under contract to the city of Oakland.

I happened to be in San Francisco for the Rosenthal verdict, and was
truly amazed the next day when the jury held a press conference to
denounce the judge and prosecutor. Had they known the facts, seven
members of the jury told the media, they would never have convicted
the defendant. We need to hear this more often!

This week's column examines some other bizarre twists and turns in
the battle against the War on Drugs. First, my readers will be happy
to hear that opposition to the Dutch government's plans to bar "drug
tourists" from the nation's 750 coffeeshops is starting to grow.
DutchNews.nl reports that the city council of Tilberg has instructed
the mayor "not to accept the system unless the government makes it compulsory."

This pleasant little university town, best known for its imaginative
music festivals, has now joined Breda, Den Bosch and Eindhoven in
opposing the legislation, along with the city councils of the Hague,
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Maastrich - a good sign that the
present system will prevail.

The report concludes that "Tilburg, like the other cities, is worried
that turning coffeeshops into closed clubs will lead to an increase
in street dealing." Duh!

Closer to home, the rabid new "tough nerd" government of Michigan and
its crusading General of Attorneys William Schuette - leader of the
unsuccessful opposition to the medical marijuana law - is using his
post to undermine the law any way he can and is currently attempting
to get it overturned in court, claiming the state law is pre-empted
by federal law.

Rather than simply accepting the will of 63 percent of the voting
public, Schuette keeps picking away at what he sees as weaknesses in
the statute and is now teamed up with equally hostile legislators to
force through measures to compromise patients' privacy, severely
restrict when and where patients may cultivate, and take away the
legal rights of patients to challenge overly restrictive ordinances.

The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee has already approved Senate
Bill 377, which would require medical marijuana patients' names and
addresses to be sent to a database accessible by the Department of
State Police with or without a warrant. This bill treats patients
like criminal suspects and allows police agencies to go fishing for
suspects without probable cause.

A second measure, SB418, is designed to prevent individuals from
suing to overturn municipal ordinances that violate state law, like
the local ordinances passed by several Michigan cities that prohibit
"any activity that violates federal law."

Menwhile, Eartha Jane Melzer reports in The Michigan Messenger that
the Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases in which
people have been charged with crimes for their medicinal use of marijuana.

In the first case, from Shiawassee County, a registered medical
marijuana patient was charged with drug crimes when police found pot
growing outside his home in a dog kennel.

The second, from Oakland County, centers on the question of whether
someone registered as a marijuana patient must have consulted a
doctor after the law was passed and not before. In both cases, drug
charges were dismissed by trial judges but restored by the Michigan
Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, several municipalities have passed ordinances to regulate
medical marijuana dispensaries and conditions of personal use. Some
maintain that the state law should address the means by which
marijuana may be made available to patients, while members of the
criminal law section of the State Bar of Michigan have gone an extra
step forward in recommending that Michigan allow commercial grow
operations and regulate the industry.

Now, back to General Schuette and his contention that Michigan's
state marijuana law is pre-empted by the federal narcotics laws. In
the latest ugly twist from our nation's capital, and in a political
environment where Democrats and Republicans have found little common
ground, Attorney General Eric Holder has abruptly reversed the Obama
administration's hands-off stance toward states with medical marijuana laws.

"The medical marijuana movement is reeling," Phillip Smith reports in
the Drug War Chronicle, "after the Obama Justice Department released
a memo declaring that it might prosecute large-scale medical
marijuana cultivation operations and dispensaries even in states
where they are operating in compliance with state laws."

The memo, written by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, is a
masterpiece of sophistry worthy of Harry Anslinger, the godfather of
the War on Drugs, noting that "Congress has determined that marijuana
is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of
marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of
revenue to large scale criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels."

The Justice Department's commitment to this twisted concept has been
evident in the increased federal marijuana raids - purported to be at
twice the rate of the Bush administration - and a recent round of
what Smith calls "threatening letters from local U.S. Attorneys to
governors and legislators in states considering or implementing
medical marijuana distribution programs."

Cole's memo takes pains to point out that there has "been an increase
in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of
marijuana for purported medical purposes. For example, within the
past 12 months, several jurisdictions have considered or enacted
legislation to authorize multiple large-scale, privately operated
industrial marijuana cultivation centers. Some of these planned
facilities have revenue projections of millions of dollars based on
the planned cultivation of tens of thousands of cannabis plants."

Cole's memo stresses that the Justice Department "never intended to
shield such activities from federal enforcement and prosecution, even
where those activities purport to comply with state law. Persons who
are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing
marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in
violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law."

"Relations between the medical marijuana movement and the Obama
administration are starting to feel like the Cold War," Smith writes,
going on to quote Dale Gieringer of California NORML on the current
state of the conflict:

"They want to put a stop to any large-scale distribution of medical
marijuana, but all they're doing is prolonging the conflict between
federal law and reality. We have to put pressure on Obama," Gieringer
insists. "He owes us an explanation of his waffling on this issue,
and certainly his failure to address rescheduling.

Why indeed? Legalize marijuana and all this horseshit goes away and
our pitiful economy gets a huge boost from a thriving cannabis industry.

- -Amsterdam