FED POT CRACKDOWN HITS COLO. SHOPS NEAR SCHOOLS

DENVER-Federal
officials on Thursday began a California-style crackdown on medical
marijuana businesses in Colorado that targets those located near
schools. U.S. Attorney John Walsh said 23 dispensaries within 1,000
feet of schools have until Feb. 27 to shut down or face federal
penalties, which can include asset seizure or forfeiture of property.
The warning letters dated Thursday were being sent to dispensary
owners and their landlords. He said the letters were a first step and
prosecutors were looking for medical marijuana businesses to target
near schools. Walsh's office declined to release a list of targeted
businesses, saying they do not make public individuals under
investigation.

State regulations prohibit medical marijuana businesses within 1,000
feet of schools but grandfathered in those businesses already in
existence before regulations were passed last year.

Sixteen states have passed laws allowing medical marijuana, beginning
with California in 1996. Unlike California, Washington, and Montana,
where federal officials have cracked down on businesses sanctioned by
the state, Colorado's industry is heavily state-regulated. A ballot
measure is pending to make it legal for recreational use, and state
officials have asked the federal government to recognize the herb as
medicine.

"When the voters of Colorado passed the limited medical marijuana
amendment in 2000, they could not have anticipated that their vote
would be used to justify large marijuana stores located within blocks
of our schools," Walsh said.

Colorado's medical marijuana industry began its boom after a September
2009 memo by then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden that said
federal prosecutors should not focus investigative resources on
patients and caregivers complying with state laws. But faced with
dispensaries and states passing laws regulating medical marijuana,
Ogden's replacement, James Cole, in June issued another memo that took
a tougher stance and said state medical marijuana laws do not provide
immunity from federal prosecution.

He said commercial enterprises that sell or profit from marijuana
sales should be a priority. He reinforced that cancer patients and
caregivers shouldn't be targeted.

Colorado's attorney general, John Suthers?, who opposed regulations
under the argument that they legitimize an illegal enterprise under
federal law, said he long warned lawmakers of the clash between state
and federal law.

"I would expect the federal government having jurisdiction, to do what
they think is necessary to limit drug problems in the state of
Colorado," Suthers said in a recent interview with The Associated
Press. "I'm not going to oppose it."

Colorado has more than 600 retail shops, 900 cultivations and 230
infused product manufacturers operating under state law, according to
the state revenue department. A spokeswoman for the department's
Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division did not immediately return a
call Thursday.

Samantha Beckmann manages a dispensary across from a high school, with
the school's baseball fields on the other side of a crosswalk of a
busy street. She said the U.S. attorney's action is discriminatory
because it singles out certain dispensaries.

"We will move. We will make it happen," she said. "If they're going to
do anything, they should shut everyone down. They shouldn't
discriminate."

Outside the Colorado state Capitol, about three dozen marijuana
activists rallied as Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper gave his annual
State of the State address. The governor did not mention pot, though
he signed a marijuana regulation law last year and his administration
recently joined other states in asking the Drug Enforcement
Administration to reclassify marijuana so that it could be considered
a medical treatment.

A community organizer at the marijuana rally said he wasn't surprised
by the crackdown. He blamed state authorities and the state's larger
marijuana businesses for setting up elaborate rules for how medical
marijuana can be bought and sold.

"They set up all these rules and now they're coming back to pinch them
in the butt," said Miguel Lopez of The Denver 4/20 rally, which
attracted 20,000 people last year. Lopez favors full legalization for
the drug, not Colorado's system of dispensaries regulated by the state
Department of Revenue.