STATE, FEDERAL LAW CONFLICT CREATES MARIJUANA HAZE

It's hard to blame the Kern County Board of Supervisors for its
decision last week to take no action on the conundrum posed by
conflicting laws related to medical marijuana dispensaries. Almost
any action the supervisors might have taken would've run afoul of
someone or something.

Supervisors should have taken this step, though: Demand that our
state and federal elected officials provide some leadership in
getting the dilemma resolved.

California became one of 12 states to legalize marijuana use for
medical purposes when voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996. Like
many laws enacted through the initiative process, Proposition 215 is
full of loopholes and unforeseen consequences that make meaningful
state and county regulation challenging at best.

The biggest challenge of all lies in the fact that federal law
prohibits the sale and use of marijuana, period. The federal Drug
Enforcement Agency has been having a field day over the past several
months, arresting marijuana dispensary owners in possession of
legitimately obtained county permits.

Sometimes, as has been the case in Kern County, the local Sheriff's
Department is providing manpower support on DEA busts -- in effect,
helping arrest suspects for crimes committed with the sheriff's tacit approval.

Does that make Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood a co-conspirator
in a series of federal crimes? Clearly we've gone through the looking
glass on this one. No wonder Youngblood eventually opted to stop
issuing permits -- at the potential risk, we assume, of flouting state law.

We need to rectify this bizarre state of affairs by cleaning up the
inadequacies of the law created by Proposition 215. Those voluntary
medical marijuana ID cards need to be mandatory and foolproof, for
the protection of the user if nothing else. As it stands, less than 2
percent of medical marijuana users apply for the ID cards.

Prescribing physicians need to be held to higher standards so that
the fly-by-night quacks who travel up and down the state, renting
motel rooms from which they issue prescription "recommendations" --
often without demanding compelling evidence of medical need -- are
reined in. Regulations pertaining the dispensing of medical marijuana
should be as stringent as those pertaining to other pain medications
subject to abuse, such as OxyContin.

State law should also tighten the amount of marijuana a single
patient can possess at any one time. California law currently allows
much greater quantities than other states that allow medical
marijuana possession. The larger the quantity, the bigger the
likelihood that black-market abuse will take place, either among
dispensaries or patients.

But before any of those steps can meaningfully address reform of the
medical marijuana dispensing system, Congress must act to eliminate
galling conflicts.

Some in Congress, including Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington
Beach, and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., are getting behind a bill --
similar to 2005's failed Hinchey Amendment -- that would cut off
funding for the prosecution of medical marijuana patients in states
that have approved such programs.

Until Congress takes that step, nothing undertaken by California
voters, or by the state Legislature, can go anywhere -- except up in smoke.