GIVE IT BACK!

The Government's Pot Club Raids Are Cruel, and the Confiscation of Medical
Records Is Just Plain Wrong

Most people living in the United States today are in a state of perpetual
anxiety. Daily we're told to expect terrible things--poisoning, bombing,
nuclear attacks--nothing seems too awful to imagine.

This state of uncertainty has left many Americans groping for something to
believe in, and our leaders have been, largely, the beneficiaries of this
need to feel safe, with polls showing consistently high support for both the
president and government in general.

All that public support seems, unfortunately, to have given some government
agencies the sense that they can do no wrong. This surely must be what
prompted the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to plan and carry out a
raid on the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center (LACRC) on Oct. 25.

The DEA raided the LACRC despite the fact that Californians passed
Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the use of marijuana for medical
reasons. Several other raids have taken place in recent months.

The Department of Justice, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, believes
that cannabis clubs create a loophole in federal drug laws. Despite the fact
that they are legal in several states, the federal government is able to
raid the clubs thanks to a Supreme Court ruling prompted by the Clinton
administration.

The LACRC operated openly, with support from the state attorney general,
L.A. district attorney, local sheriffs and the West Hollywood City Council.
Among its patients were many people with AIDS who need marijuana in order to
stimulate their appetites and to help with pain relief.

When they raided the club, the DEA confiscated pot plants, gardening tools,
and, most frightening, the computers that held files on the center's clients
and their doctors.

What will the government do with the files?

And why did they raid in the first place?

The center was operating in a very open way, bringing law enforcement on
tours to make clear that it was not some sort of drug-running operation.
It's difficult to imagine that the some 960 clients using the LACRC posed
much of a threat to anyone.

According to Bob Barr, a notoriously conservative representative from
Georgia, medical marijuana is just the first step in some nefarious,
left-wing plan to legalize all drugs.

Barr's theory makes one wonder if the government's opposition to marijuana
is not part of an effort to support large pharmaceutical companies.

Regardless of the merit of Barr's or any other theories, the fact is the
people of California voted to make medical marijuana legal. Period.

A comparatively liberal state, California became the home of many gay men
and lesbians over the last several decades. When a plague called AIDS hit
us, we rose to the occasion and took care of our own in a thousand different
ways. Among our chores was to help with the relief of pain caused by
AIDS-related illnesses and drug treatments. We took care of our population
in a way that was appropriate and just. But our sensible solution seems to
undermine the power of the federal government and that, apparently, is not
acceptable.

In a second blow to both individual rights and states' rights, on Nov. 6
Ashcroft issued an order to stop Oregon physicians from prescribing drugs
that would help patients take their own lives. This despite Oregon's
physician-assisted suicide law, which voters passed in 1994 and which went
into effect in 1997. According to the Los Angeles Times , Ashcroft is a
strong opponent of physician-assisted suicide.

The actions of conservatives like Ashcroft are particularly upsetting when
one hears them tout the principles of individual and states' rights.
Unfortunately, that's an irony we've grown accustomed to: no government
intervention if it means spending money, lots of government intervention if
it means telling people how to live their lives.

Why is the government doing this right now, when, as so many have argued,
gathering and actually sharing information on terrorists would be a much
better use of time? It's hard not to wonder if the DEA raided the club
because right now, it can.

The country is mourning, worried, tired, distracted and, most importantly,
needing to believe in our government. In some cases, the wish to be
"united," has created outright intolerance of dissent. The media helps
propagate this, doing story after story about the wondrous state of unity in
the country, touting the "lack of partisan bickering" in Congress. The very
term "bickering" reduces important political debate into bitchy infighting.

Disagreement is what America is all about--people of all different
ideologies discussing and debating. And "partisan bickering" happens to be
the very happy result of democracy. Those of us who voted Republican,
Democratic, Independent, or for any other party, certainly continue to hold
our views and would like our elected politicians to express the views for
which we elected them.

Note the scant level of debate and the passage of the bill granting the
government more power to engage in wire-tapping and searches.

To our elected officials we say, please start bickering again.

To the Department of Justice we say, please stop looking at medical
marijuana as an attempt to get away with something illegal or to test the
authority of the federal government.

To the DEA we say, please give back the medical records and allow the LACRC
to help those who need marijuana to cope with their pain.

And to our readers we say, don't let anyone call you unpatriotic for
criticizing the government. In fact, it is your silence in the face of so
much wrong that would be shameful.