FEDS ARE BUSTING THE WRONG 'DRUG RING'

Whew! Californians can rest easy these days, secure in the knowledge that
the U.S. Justice Department has mobilized a crack team of enforcers to
protect them from the danger their midst.

The Bush administration has instructed federal agents in the state to weed
out a secret society of lawbreakers whose malfeasance is particularly
insidious because they look so ordinary.

They look like grandmas and promising young men and moms and dads and the
girl next door. And they look like that because that's who they are.

But the ones the feds are going after are sick. Not like "California
sickos" (now that would be a project for the government to tackle), but
sick as in cancerous, as in AIDS-afflicted. Sick as in throwing up after
every bite, shaking, crying, excruciatingly painful chemo death- wish sick.
The only thing that relieves their suffering--and there's precious little
argument on this--is marijuana.

A few puffs can bring blessed relief, it can mean a respite from pain, a
meal digested.

The problem is that these folks aren't exactly into hanging out on street
corners trading Cheech and Chong jokes and anteing up for a nickel bag. So
what they have done is form cooperatives to grow their own stuff or join
medical marijuana clubs to keep the price down and to keep the sick and the
dying off the streets.

The whole thing is so wholesome that one club in Los Angeles, providing
marijuana for 900 patients, is a member of the local Chamber of Commerce.
Or was--until last month, when federal agents raided the joint.

This was along about the same time they physically uprooted a garden of
plants owned by patients, like some perverse cross between Carrie Nation
and Martha Stewart run amok.

So here we are, in the middle of a war against terrorists the government
can't seem to find, puzzled and scared by a spreading and potentially
deadly bacteria the government can't seem to stop and reeling from a
recession the government still is denying.

What's a federal agency to do? Go after dying people smoking pot! Kind of
makes me wonder if they are looking for a fight they can win.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department told The New York Times that the
raids in California are proof that "we have not lost our priorities in
other areas since Sept. 11." Well, that's a relief.

I'd hate to think the most devastating attack on this country in its
history might have put the medical marijuana raids on the back burner.
Wonder what's next on the priority list? How about a mass closing of
homeless shelters that aren't up to code?

Meanwhile, as the feds are busting up medical marijuana groups that are
legal, even encouraged, in some states, Republicans in the House were able
to hold the line against federal agents manning security at the nation's
airports.

That would be Big Government. That would be an unwarranted intrusion into
the private sector.

How much more private can you get than the doctor-patient relationship? How
much bigger can government get than ordering its agents to run roughshod
over a state's right to do what it thinks best for the health and
well-being of its citizens?

And California isn't alone.

Seven other states have legalized medical marijuana; Nevada went so far as
to say that the state has to make sure patients can obtain the drug. So now
Nevada is asking the federal government to provide the state with the stash.

What if they'd put that provision in the law legalizing prostitution? It's
an image I don't wish to entertain.

But talk about coordination: It's now altogether possible that Nevada could
get its marijuana from, say, the Food and Drug Administration and then the
Justice Department could go in a confiscate it. Sort of like the CIA and
the FBI work together now. Oh, and if federal agents are so keen to bust up
drug rings, I know a few street corners they could hang around in Chicago.