MEDICAL POT NEEDS STRICT ENFORCEMENT

Now that both a federal and a state judge have each told Gov. Brewer
she lacks a legal reason to delay implementing the Medical Marijuana
Act, it's time to focus on how to put meaningful rules in place and
enforce them.

By meaningful, we mean rules that will ensure that only patients who
need marijuana for medical reasons receive it and that limits in the
act on cultivation, possession and distribution are strictly enforced.

The opposite is occurring in Colorado and Montana, where there's such
a backlash to the explosion of recreational marijuana use far beyond
medicinal needs that lawmakers and civic groups are seeking to repeal
the enabling laws in those states.

The worry is that, by flouting the law, the medical marijuana
industry is setting up young people for illegal drug use, encouraging
the misuse of other drugs, and setting the stage for gang-style drug crimes.

The drafters of the Arizona law contend they built in numerous
safeguards to the overcommercialization of medical pot, including
exclusion zones near schools and tougher standards for physician
exams that lead to medical marijuana cards.

Other backers go further, contending that marijuana should be
legalized just like alcohol, with impairment, not possession, the new
standard for enforcement. And legalizing it, they say, would all but
eliminate the crime problem, along with subjecting pot to a tax that
would beef up state and local coffers.

The law, however, is the law, and right now possession and
distribution of marijuana under federal law is a crime. States with
medical marijuana laws -- there are more than a dozen -- have avoided
federal crackdowns as long as their programs focus on patients
suffering chronic pain and on limiting the amount of marijuana grown
and distributed for that purpose.

In California, where the limit is 99 plants at a time, federal agents
have raided several pot farms and confiscated crops well in excess of the cap.

But at this point, no state employee anywhere has been federally
prosecuted for administering state medical marijuana programs.

Doctors are caught somewhat in a bind -- their right to prescribe
federally licensed drugs depends on not running afoul of restrictive
federal rules governing medical marijuana prescriptions. Because
medical marijuana states want less red tape and paperwork, they have
written laws that call for physician "recommendations" not subject to
federal prescription oversight.

But that still shouldn't result in physicians endorsing medical
marijuana cards for anyone who complains of a stiff neck. Arizona's
rules require an examining doctor to check a database listing other
prescription drugs a patient is using -- and perhaps abusing. There's
also the expectation that a physician will give a patient complaining
of chronic pain a thorough exam before deciding on marijuana as the
preferred treatment.

Yet state records to date suggest those rules aren't being observed.
Of 10,000 physician recommendations for medical pot, nearly half have
been issued by just eight doctors. Even though they are not issuing
formal prescriptions, these practitioners should be subject to
disciplinary standards by state medical boards, and several bills
have been introduced to do just that.

As for what patients are supposed to do with their cards until state
permits for dispensaries are issued, dare we suggest that they simply
wait until the full system is implemented. Instead, several
entrepreneurs, including one in Flagstaff, have set up medical
marijuana "exchanges" that don't involve a direct exchange of cash,
using fees paid to intermediaries instead.

This might sound like a creative stopgap measure while the dispensary
system is being set up. But, once again, the law is the law, and
Flagstaff police would be fully within the law to shut down such
exchanges until formal dispensaries are in place. Proponents of
medical marijuana do their movement no favors by letting their
impatience result in a skirting of the law that risks a voter backlash.