GREELEY, Colo. — Health and law enforcement officials around the nation are scrambling to figure out how to regulate medical marijuana now that the federal government has decided it will no longer prosecute legal users or providers.

For years, since the first medical marijuana laws were passed in the mid-1990s, many local and state governments could be confident, if not complacent, knowing that marijuana would be kept in check because it remained illegal under federal law, and that hard-nosed federal prosecutors were not about to forget it.

But with the Justice Department’s announcement last week that it would not prosecute people who use marijuana for medical purposes in states where it is legal, local and state officials say they will now have to take on the job themselves.

In New Hampshire, for instance, where some state legislators are considering a medical marijuana law, there is concern that the state health department — already battered by budget cuts — could be hard-pressed to administer the system. In California, where there has been an explosion of medical marijuana suppliers, the authorities in Los Angeles and other jurisdictions are considering a requirement that all medical dispensaries operate as nonprofit organizations.

“The federal government says they’re not going to control it, so the only other option we have is to control it ourselves,” said Carrol Martin, a City Council member in this community north of Denver, where a ban on marijuana dispensaries was on the agenda at a Council meeting the day after the federal announcement.

At least five states, including New York and New Jersey, are considering laws to allow medical marijuana through legislation or voter referendums, in addition to the 13 states where such laws already exist. Even while that is happening, scores of local governments in California, Colorado and other states have gone the other way and imposed bans or moratoriums on distribution even though state law allows it.

Some health and legal experts say the Justice Department’s decision will promote the spread of marijuana for medical uses because local and state officials often take leadership cues from federal policy. That, the experts said, could lead to more liberal rules in states that already have medical marijuana and to more voters and legislators in other states becoming comfortable with the idea of allowing it. For elected officials who have feared looking soft on crime by backing any sort of legalized marijuana use, the new policy might provide support to reframe the issue.

“The fact that the feds are backing off is going to allow changes that are going to make it more accessible,” said Bill Morrisette, a state senator in Oregon and chairman of a committee that oversees the state’s medical marijuana law. Mr. Morrisette said he expected a flurry of proposals in the Legislature, including a plan already floated to have the state grow the marijuana crop itself, perhaps on the grounds of the State Penitentiary in Salem.

“It would be very secure,” he said.

Here in Greeley, anxiety and enthusiasm were on display as the City Council considered a ban on dispensaries.

Most of those who testified at the hearing, including several dispensary operators, opposed the ban and spoke of marijuana’s therapeutic benefits and the taxes that dispensary owners were willing to pour into Greeley’s budget, which has been battered by the recession.

But on the seven-member Council, the question was control. Mr. Martin, for example, said that he hated to see the spread of marijuana, but that the barricades had fallen. Still, he said he opposed a local ban on dispensaries.

“If we have no regulations at all, then we can’t control it, and our police officers have their hands tied,” Mr. Martin said.

Mayor Ed Clark, a former police officer, took the opposite tack in supporting the ban, which passed on a 6-to-1 vote.

“I think we do regulate them, by not allowing dispensaries,” Mr. Clark said.

The backdrop to the debate here in Colorado is a sharp expansion in marijuana dispensaries and patients, fueled in part by the State Board of Health decision in July not to impose limits on the number of patients handled by each marijuana provider.

The state attorney general, John W. Suthers, said the federal government’s retreat, combined with the growth in demand, had created a legal vacuum.

“The federal Department of Justice is saying it will only go after you if you’re in violation of state law,” Mr. Suthers said. “But in Colorado it’s not clear what state law is.”

In New Hampshire, by contrast, where the state legislature is scheduled to meet this week to consider overriding the governor’s veto and passing a medical marijuana law, government downsizing has colored the debate.

The state agency that would be responsible for licensing marijuana dispensaries has been battered by budget cuts, said Senator Sylvia B. Larsen, the president of the New Hampshire Senate and a Democrat. Concerns about the department, Ms. Larsen said, have made it harder to find two more votes in the Senate to reach a two-thirds majority that is needed to override a veto by Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.

An even odder situation is unfolding in Maine, which already allows medical marijuana and where residents will vote next month on a measure that would create a new system of distribution and licensing.

The marijuana proposal, several political experts said, has been overshadowed by another fight on the ballot that would overturn a state law and ban same-sex marriage.

The added wrinkle is that opponents of same-sex marriage, said Christian Potholm, a professor of government at Bowdoin College, have heavily recruited young, socially conservative voters, who by and large tend to not be concerned about medical marijuana expansion.

“The 18- to 25-year-old vote is going to be overrepresented because of the gay marriage situation, so overrepresented in favor of medical marijuana,” Professor Potholm said.

Some legal scholars said the federal government, by deciding not to enforce its own laws (possession and the sale of marijuana remain federal crimes), has introduced an unpredictable variable into the drug regulation system.

“The next step would be a particular state deciding to legalize marijuana entirely,” said Peter J. Cohen, a doctor and a lawyer who teaches public health law at Georgetown University. If federal prosecutors kept their distance even then, Dr. Cohen said, legalized marijuana would become a de facto reality.

Senator Morrisette in Oregon said he thought that exact situation — a state moving toward legalization, perhaps California — could play out much sooner now than might have been imagined even a few weeks ago. And the continuing recession would only help, he said, with advocates for legalization able to promise relief to an overburdened prison system and injection of tax revenues to the state budget. Source.

July 11, 2009 – In New Hampshire today, Governor John Lynch (D) exercised his veto power over the state’s medical marijuana bill, which had been passed last month by New Hampshire’s legislature with a vote of 232-108 in the House and 14-10 in the Senate. Clearly the majority of the People of New Hampshire, presuming the state legislators vote with some latent desire of keeping their jobs, have indicated their approval of the medical use of marijuana for patients in their state. Apparently however, Governor Lynch cares less about the People of New Hampshire than he does about keeping his job. Maybe he is thinking Sarah Palin made that commercial fishing look good. I am sure many Americans would readily agree with him, at least on that point.

Now it is up to the New Hampshire’s legislators to step back up to the plate and speak loudly for their constituents. With Governor Lynch’s veto, a House vote of 267 in favor is now required, with 16 votes now needed in the Senate. Looks like a few more “public servants” in New Hampshire are going to have to toe the line for the People. Otherwise, another clear message is sent that those in power too often exercise their personal agendas over the rights of the People.

Here in Tennessee, this past legislative session produced two companion bills for medical marijuana in both bodies of the Tennessee legislature. Both were essentially tabled to be resumed at a later time. One can only hope the break will give its sponsors time to put some real teeth into the resolutions and provide help and hope for those suffering from non-life threatening illnesses known to be quite treatable with medicinal cannabis.

Over a dozen states now permit medical marijuana patients to obtain this herbal treatment that has been a medicinal staple of mankind for at least four thousand years. California, after several years of medical cannabis proliferation, despite the recently reduced federal harassment that went with it, is now seeing so much benefit that serious contemplation of full legalization is being considered as an economic aid desperately needed by the state’s government.

One only needs to research our history to see that legal cannabis in America would not be unprecedented. Many are unaware that in addition to being legal in America on more than one occasion, at one time, you could even pay your taxes with cannabis/hemp. They say that money doesn’t grow on trees. Well at one time in America, it did. Even more interesting, is that today, the United States is the only country in the civilized world to ban its farmers from growing industrial hemp. It is certainly no secret that hemp itself has been a staple of mankind since the dawn of agricultural cultivation. Some even suspect that hemp may have been the first member of our botanical world to be cultivated by man. Yet American farmers continue to be driven off of the land many of their families have farmed for generations, unable to compete against Big Ag in more traditional markets and banned by law from pursuing profits growing a product less harmful than tobacco.

Yet today, here in America, land of the free, home of the brave, where you and I are free to peruse any number of “legalized sin” from alcohol and tobacco to strip tease and bunny ranches, God’s most perfect botanical wonder (yes, I actually wrote God’s name like He has something to really do with all of this) is withheld from the People of the United States, due in no small part to the misguided dark fantasies about a drug many like Governor Lynch have no personal use or desire for. The People aren’t asking for a law that mandates all Americans must now start using cannabis. Just abolish the laws that prohibit those who do have good and viable uses for it. Most importantly, as with other vices allowed by law to legal adults today, allow the People the freedom to choose for themselves.

The state by state marijuana debate provides just one example of the myriad of resources and strategies that could and have been successfully implemented right here in America to build our economy and our nation. Why then, does the government, consistently at every level across the country, continue to make decisions that, when measured by common sense, repeatedly fail to measure up? Why, despite the outcries of growing numbers of angry citizens, do our so-called leaders continue to make choices like Governor Lynch, choices that oppose the clear desires of the People?

Cap & Trade, gay marriage, just war, fiscal irresponsibility, too big to fail. When will the men and women who claim a legacy of “public service” actually serve the public?

Legislators from Nashville to Sacramento to Washington DC and everywhere in between need to return the power to its rightful owners and serve selflessly, casting aside their personal agendas. If they can’t do that, maybe they should consider a job with MSNBC. Source.

By MsRedEye