FIREARM LETTER HIGHLIGHTS ABSURD GAP IN POT LAWS

We don't know when the clash between federal laws barring any
marijuana use or sale and the increasingly permissive state and local
polices allowing "medicinal" use of the drug will reach its absurd climax.

But it's getting closer with the recent open letter to gun dealers
from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
clarifying that, Proposition 215 protections notwithstanding,
marijuana users are not allowed to buy or even possess a firearm
under federal law.

It's not that ATF is wrong. Marijuana remains a "Schedule 1" drug
under federal law, which means that a user might as well be a crack
addict or heroin junkie. We sensibly try to stop those latter abusers
- - whose minds are dangerously addled by hard drugs - from buying guns.

But the federal government makes no legal distinction between them
and the casual marijuana user or even the bona-fide patient using
cannabis under a doctor's advice.

The upshot is that state law can allow a person to use marijuana, the
county sheriff can sell a user a "zip-tie" permit to grow marijuana
(as a local ordinance provides in Mendocino County), the chief of
police can even license the collective where a user buys marijuana
(the case in Redding) - but if that otherwise law-abiding user tries
to buy a rifle to go hunting or a handgun for personal protection,
that person will either be turned away for telling the truth on
purchase forms or commit perjury.

And the need for self-defense isn't academic. As numerous recent
robberies show, legal medical-marijuana gardens or cooperatives are
tempting targets for criminals.

Let's be clear, the head-shop vibe of most collectives makes a
mockery of the notion that most users are seeking actual medicine. At
this point, it'd be more honest and less of an insult to
Californians' intelligence to just legalize the stuff.

But even if society is never ready to go that far, the federal
government - and really, that's Congress - cannot go on much longer
without addressing the ever-widening gulf between what is in the
United States Code and the reality we see in the dozen-plus states
with loose "medical" marijuana laws.