A MISDIRECTED EFFORT TO LEGALIZE MED POT

San Diego's medical marijuana collectives have unveiled a proposed
ballot initiative that tries to ensure that dispensaries "operate as
good, responsible neighbors" and that seeks to mollify City Hall with
the promise of fees to cover regulatory costs and new sales taxes to
help the city's beleaguered budget. Nice try. But as long as
marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and as long as
dispensaries throughout the state flagrantly abuse it, this
initiative is a waste of effort.

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug
defined as having the greatest potential for abuse and no accepted
medical use and is against federal law for all purposes. California
voters in 1996 approved an initiative legalizing medical marijuana
and, for most of the years that followed, the feds largely kept their
distance, leaving local authorities to keep the dispensaries
reasonably in check.

But as dispensaries mushroomed, so did the abuses. In October, U.S.
Attorney Laura Duffy, whose territory includes San Diego and Imperial
counties, and her other California colleagues, launched a concerted
effort to shut the dispensaries down.

There is zero indication that the federal enforcement effort will be
halted certainly not by a local ballot initiative. If proponents of
medical marijuana want it legalized, they need to start with the
government that has long made it illegal. Good luck with that.