DEALING A HARSH BLOW

Because of a string of coverage on the medicinal cannabis issue early
in my tenure here at the Ledger Dispatch, I won the half-joking
reputation among at least one of my colleagues as the resident pothead.

The truth, if it matters, is that marijuana's effects are unappealing
to me. Grogginess and nagging hunger I can do without, and the stale
smell of sweat and manure that comes attached to the most
enthusiastic practitioners makes me hope Calvin Klein never comes up
with a scent called Herbal Cool - For Men.

That said, I do possess an admittedly liberal view of the drug, which
is less deadly than both alcohol and tobacco.

So when the Jackson City Council voted unanimously to repeal an
ordinance that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to operate,
I was disappointed, but not surprised.

Despite the decision 11 years ago by California voters to regulate
legal amounts of cannabis for medicinal use, the federal government
still considers the substance illegal and doesn't recognize
Proposition 215, also known as the state's Compassionate Use Act of 1996.

As a result, local municipalities that dare flaunt the national
decree in favor of their own state's laws can find themselves on the
wrong end of federal drug raids.

For the most part, DEA squads have been loosed on high profile areas
like San Francisco and Los Angeles in the hopes that their raids
won't go unnoticed by other local governments in California, and so
far they've been successful.

It hasn't helped that, as conceived, Proposition 215 provided scant
guidelines for law enforcement, local government and even health care
operators for the implementation of the people's will. Nor has the
seeming ease with which almost anyone can obtain doctors'
recommendations done any good to real chronic pain sufferers who
benefit from a drug that is less invasive and less addictive than
many legal pharmaceuticals.

But then it's difficult to find a rational middle ground in this
divisive arena. There is hyperbole from both sides, and the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration's position that support for medical
marijuana is "a tactical maneuver in an overall strategy to
completely legalize all drugs," as it says on the Department of
Justice's Web site, is inflammatory to anyone whose seen firsthand
the suffering caused by cancer and other diseases.

That's not to say marijuana is harmless. According to Outdoor Life,
the start of the hunting season also means outdoor recreationalists
have become increasingly concerned with happening upon armed
marijuana growers and stepping into their traps. As a reporter in El
Dorado Hills, state forest and drug enforcement officials told me
during an early morning raid of a marijuana plantation that growers
often hire poor migrant workers to tend the gardens and take the risk
of arrest. We found no men with guns that day as we crawled up steep,
wooded hills behind million-dollar neighborhoods, but we did find
abandoned campsites marked by ratty blue tarps and rusted cooking utensils.

The health effects, too, remain in doubt. There are few studies on
the benefits or drawbacks of the drug - most have been blocked or
watered down by those who would have cannabis remain illegal - but
anecdotal evidence suggests at least carcinogenic harm to those who
would smoke it.

But as many chronic pain sufferers with legitimate marijuana
prescriptions know, smoking is the less desired mode of ingestion.
Many serious pain suffers choose to cook with it instead, regulating
both the intensity and longevity of the drug's affects.

What becomes apparent as you delve deeper into the legal, health and
ethical aspects of the marijuana issue is that more honest appraisal
is needed. The DEA recently approved the University of California,
San Diego, to assess the safety and efficacy of treating certain
debilitating medical conditions with cannabis, the Justice
Department's Web site says, and one hopes those studies won't be as
diluted as those of the past.

One also hopes that the federal government and state of California
can resolve their territorial dispute so everyone else isn't caught
between the shifting gears. And if regulation is the people's desire,
it should follow without federal interference and with much greater
state oversight.

In effect, Monday's vote did little more than formalize the city's
opposition to a regulated dispensary. The original ordinance that was
repealed was so restrictive in its criteria that only one applicant
ever applied for a license to operate, an attempt that was ultimately
unsuccessful.

Patients with proper doctor's recommendations can cultivate and
possess small amounts of marijuana and the county still allows
residents to obtain identification cards that make lawful possession
less of a legal hassle, but that won't save anyone from the feds if
they choose to make a statement out of someone, as they have recently
in Sacramento.

But as a symbolic blow, the city council vote Monday in a nearly
empty civic center showed just how far federal intimidation can reach
and how deeply public apathy can sink.