July 12, 2011 – Drug-policy reformers are worried about a new Obama administration memo instructing federal prosecutors on how to deal with the growing number of medical marijuana dispensaries.

The Justice Department memo, sent to U.S. attorneys around the nation, addresses a central problem with the growing number of states that have legalized medical marijuana: The drug remains illegal under federal law, whether used for medical purposes or not. The new guidance memo reiterates the illegality of medical marijuana and appears to encourage prosecutors to go after some marijuana dispensaries, particularly the large operations.

President Obama suggested during the campaign in 2007-08 that his Justice Department would not prioritize going after medical marijuana. To find out more about the new medical marijuana memo, and for an update on the broader drug war, I spoke to Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which lobbies for alternatives to the drug war.

Can you give an overview of the legal status of medical marijuana around the country?

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana either through the ballot initiative process or a state legislative process. The federal law remains that it is all illegal. Strictly speaking, marijuana remains a Schedule 1 substance. The DEA just issued an announcement Friday confirming that it still regards marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance with no legitimate medical uses and no margin of safety in its use — which is sort of an absurdity on its face. Marijuana remains entirely illegal under federal law.

And “Schedule 1″ means what?

Well, back in 1970, when Congress unified all the drug laws in the Controlled Substances Act, they divided drugs into a variety of schedules. Schedule 1 refers to drugs that supposedly have no legitimate medical use and have no margin of safety in their use. So heroin, LSD, and marijuana are in that category. Schedule 2 are drugs that have some substantial risk but also have some legitimate medical uses. So for example cocaine, opiates and stimulant drugs are in that category.

So medical marijuana is illegal in the eyes of the federal government. But what has the actual enforcement policy of the Obama administration been up till this week?

During the presidential campaign in 2008, Obama made a number of commitments, one of which was that federal law enforcement would not prioritize prosecution of medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state law. Then in summer 2009, the Justice Department issued a memo called the Ogden memo, which basically affirmed much of Obama’s promise. It affirmed the idea that marijuana is illegal under federal law, but then said that federal prosecutors should not prioritize the prosecution of medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state law. Drug policy reform advovates felt quite optimistic about that 2009 memo, even though it was a qualified statement. What followed was a proliferation of dispensaries in places like Colorado, and California, and Montana. There were growing concerns that this was going too far. I think the Justice Department was hearing from local federal prosecutors and others who did not like these developments.

So what does the new memo sent out to U.S. attorneys say?

It’s called the Cole memo. It reiterates that all marijuana is illegal under federal law. They say that clearly federal resources should not be used to go after patients and their caregivers. They also say that any very large-scale operations — multimillion-dollar operations — will be prosecuted even if they are operating legally under state law. So that represents a modest change in policy. What they are not clear on is what will happen with the midlevel dispensaries. They’re not multimillion-dollar operations, they’re operating legally under state law, and they seem to be serving a population that has medical marijuana recommendations from their physicians. With those operations we’re in a kind of wait-and-see mode as to what prosecutors will do state by state.

The language of the Cole memo is quite aggressive in saying to everybody, “You better watch out, because any one of you could be prosecuted.” On the other hand there are some other messages being sent saying, “Watch what we do, not what we say.” So the real test cases will be whether or not the feds decide to go after medical marijuana dispensaries that are operating legally under state law and are being responsibly regulated by state authorities. If they do that, then we’ll know they really seriously backtracked on the president’s commitment.

So from the beginning of the administration to the present, have they actually gone after dispensaries?

There was a proliferation of dispensaries in states like Colorado and California. So there have in fact been more raids under the Obama administration than there were under the Bush administration. It’s hard to say whether that’s a reflection of the proliferation of dispensaries or whether that’s a real change in policy. What’s also not clear is whether the feds are only targeting those facilities that are not clearly operating legally under state law. So the feds have really created a growing sense of confusion in the medical marijuana community about where the line is between what will be permitted and what won’t.

Stepping back from medical marijuana, has there been much of a shift from the Bush to Obama administrations with “drug war” policy more broadly?

I was pleasantly surprised by the first 18 months of the administration. Obama made three explicit promises during the campaign. He said the feds would not go after medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state law, and he appeared to make good on that. He said the crack-powder laws needed to be rolled back, and they got a major reform of that law last year. Third, he said he would support federal funding for needle exchange, and they did support the efforts in Congress on that. Since that time, it looks more and more like the drug czar’s office has been captured by the drug warriors and the anti-drug fanatics who dominated policy-making in the Clinton and Bush administrations. The rhetoric coming out of the drug czar’s office is almost indistinguishable from the rhetoric of past administrations. The personnel they’ve been hiring, and the people they talk to, are overwhelmingly those who have been associated with the failed drug war policies of the past. And meanwhile the Justice Department seems to be getting more and more engaged in enforcement of marijuana laws in ways that really make no sense as a matter of [the] responsible [use] of resources. By Justin Elliott. Source.

Lexington, KY – In the previous installment of this series on the potential of industrial hemp cultivation in Kentucky, I took issue with gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett’s indirect association with a local head shop, Botany Bay. Some consider the concept of guilt by association to be unfair in this case, but to me, such questions regarding guilt or fairness are irrelevant. Guilt by association exists. When a prominent political name pops up in the same news-story paragraph as words such as “bongs” and “guns,” it just doesn’t look good, and even a casual reinforcement of the supposed link between industrial hemp and recreational marijuana doesn’t do the pro-hemp movement any favors.

This was not to suggest that Moffett is an unsuitable candidate for governor, or that Scott and Ginny Saville, the owners of the Botany Bay, are unsavory people. I’m also not passing judgment on whether or not the movement to legalize recreational marijuana, though quite different from the industrial hemp cause, is a worthy enterprise. The argument is simply that the cultural conditions in our area, and in most of the United States, are such that our elected and would-be leaders, to appease their constituencies and/or their own consciences, cannot afford to be seen as soft on illicit drugs. Likewise, the mere appearance of impropriety is often damaging, even when no actual impropriety exists.

Like it or not, these are the cultural conditions in which we live ― which we’ve constructed, in fact. And as concerns recreational marijuana, these conditions are perhaps hypocritical, when one considers that, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Kentucky is one of the six largest producers of outdoor-grown marijuana in the United States and most of that crop, per the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is sold and consumed locally. Some estimates even suggest that revenue from marijuana sales in Kentucky exceed revenues from tobacco, corn and soybeans combined.

In short, Kentuckians grow a lot of pot, and we smoke a lot of it, too.

Despite this, we arrest and incarcerate marijuana offenders at a spectacular rate. In 2009, there were more than 22,000 marijuana-related arrests in the commonwealth, a number four times higher than arrests for heroin and cocaine/crack and two-thirds as high as the number of arrests for everything else combined.

So why bring this up, when it seems very important for supporters of industrial hemp to distance their cause from the pro-pot crowd? Because a glance at the cultural conditions in those industrialized democracies that have recently legalized industrial hemp cultivation, in particular Canada and the United Kingdom, suggests that a country’s attitudes toward recreational marijuana may have much to do with the likelihood of federal legalization of industrial hemp.

In Canada, which legalized industrial hemp cultivation in 1998, laws prohibiting possession and cultivation of recreational marijuana have been on the books since the 1920s. In many parts of the country, however, those laws are rarely enforced, especially when offenders are in possession of relatively small amounts, suitable only for personal use. In the past decade, several firms have surveyed the Canadian public, and while the quality of these surveys varies widely, they do show that at least half of all Canadians support the outright legalization of recreational marijuana, and slightly more are in favor of decriminalization. Finally, a paper delivered in 2005 to the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba suggested that about 44 percent of Canadians had used marijuana at least once.

So despite recent attempts by the conservative government to increase penalties for marijuana offenders, one might characterize the Canadian attitude toward recreational marijuana as being one of tolerance, if not complete acceptance. In the United Kingdom the situation is similar. While only about 30 percent of the English public admitted to using marijuana in a 2004 survey by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, England experimented with decriminalization in that same year when it reclassified marijuana from Class B to Class C, making possession a non-arrestable offense. In 2009, marijuana was again reclassified to Class B, but public opinion, as in Canada, is mixed.

The process of legalizing industrial hemp in Canada and the United Kingdom came about in a similar way. In both cases, a single, enterprising farmer applied for and received permission to cultivate an “experimental” plot of the plant, using provisions in the laws of both countries allowing for such uses. Within a few years, having demonstrated the commercial viability of their crop and compliance with THC-content restrictions, both farmers received licenses for large-scale hemp cultivation.

All it takes is one, obviously. As outlined in the first installment of this article, the United States already has a procedure in place for hemp permitting, but the DEA’s unwillingness to grant those permits seems to be a permanent roadblock to cultivation on any scale.

Why there, and not here? The difference may well be cultural. Americans smoke pot at nearly the rate as Canadians: ―42 percent, according to the World Health Organization, but we’re much more willing to arrest and incarcerate users when they get caught. So while industrial hemp supporters should still look to our elected officials at the federal level for help with the DEA problem, and state-sovereignty champions like Phil Moffett should explore all possibilities for nullification of federal authority within the commonwealth, we should also, perhaps, take a look at the way we regard and treat marijuana offenders. While industrial hemp and recreational pot are issues that should remain separate, our hard stance on the latter may be damaging the chances of the former succeeding. Source.