CA: Next President might be gentler on pot clubs

Next president might be gentler on pot clubs

San Francisco, CA -- Ever since California voters became the first in the
nation to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, the state has faced unyielding
opposition from the federal government, which insists it has the power to
prohibit a drug it considers useless and dangerous.

That could all change with the next presidential election.

As the candidates prepare for a May 20 primary in Oregon, one of 12 states
with a California-style law, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has become an
increasingly firm advocate of ending federal intervention and letting states
make their own rules when it comes to medical marijuana.

His Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is less
explicit, recently softening a pledge she made early in the campaign to halt
federal raids in states with medical marijuana laws. But she has expressed
none of the hostility that marked the response of her husband's
administration to California's initiative, Proposition 215.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, has gone
back and forth on the issue - promising a medical marijuana patient at one
campaign stop that seriously ill patients would never face arrest under a
McCain administration, but ultimately endorsing the Bush administration's
policy of federal raids and prosecutions.

Political battles over exempting medical patients from marijuana laws have
been fought mostly in statehouses and at ballot boxes since 1996, when
California voters repealed state criminal penalties for those who used the
drug with their doctor's approval. But the federal government has played an
important role in limiting the scope of those state laws, and their
effectiveness over the next four years may be determined by the next
president.

Bill Clinton's position

President Bill Clinton's administration opposed the California law from the
start and won a court case allowing it to shut nonprofit organizations that
supplied medical marijuana to members. Clinton's Justice Department also
tried to punish California doctors who recommended marijuana to their
patients by revoking their authority to prescribe any drugs, but federal
courts backed the doctors.

The Bush administration has gone further, raiding medical marijuana growers
and clinics, prosecuting suppliers under federal drug laws after winning a
U.S. Supreme Court case, and pressuring commercial property owners to evict
marijuana dispensaries by threatening legal action. The administration has
also blocked a University of Massachusetts researcher's attempt to grow
marijuana for studies of its medical properties.

Since 2001, federal prosecutors have won convictions in at least 28
California drug cases where defendants claimed they were supplying or using
medical marijuana, according to the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws. Prosecutors have filed charges in 22 more cases, and
authorities have raided 10 growers or dispensaries without filing charges,
the group says.

The presidential candidates haven't discussed the issue in speeches or
debates, but medical marijuana advocates regularly questioned them in Iowa
and New Hampshire. The most sweeping changes were proposed by second-tier
candidates - Democrats Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd and
Republican Ron Paul called for repealing federal criminal penalties for
marijuana - but of the remaining contenders, Obama has been the friendliest
to advocates of medical marijuana.

At a November appearance in Audubon, Iowa, Obama recalled that his mother
had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed
morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He said he would be open to
allowing medical use of marijuana, if scientists and doctors concluded it
was effective, but only under "strict guidelines," because he was "concerned
about folks just kind of growing their own and saying it's for medicinal
purposes."

Obama went a step further in an interview in March with the Mail Tribune
newspaper in Medford, Ore. While still expressing qualms about patients
growing their own supply or getting it from "mom-and-pop stores," he said it
is "entirely appropriate" for a state to legalize the medical use of
marijuana, "with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors."

In response to recent questions from The Chronicle about medical marijuana,
Obama's campaign - the only one of the three contenders to reply - endorsed
a hands-off federal policy.

"Voters and legislators in the states - from California to Nevada to Maine -
have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and
serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve
their pain and suffering," said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

"Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this
choice - though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to (U.S.
Food and Drug Administration) regulation like other drugs," LaBolt said. He
said the FDA should consider how marijuana is regulated under federal law,
while leaving states free to chart their own course.

Obama would end DEA raids

LaBolt also said Obama would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids
on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws.

Those raids have been the focus of Hillary Clinton's comments on the issue.
At a July campaign event in Manchester, N.H., she told a medical marijuana
advocate that she would end the federal raids, according to Granite Staters
for Medical Marijuana, which recorded the exchange.

But the candidate was less absolute in a more recent interview with the
Willamette Week newspaper in Hillsboro, Ore.

"I don't think it's a good use of federal law enforcement resources to be
going after people who are supplying marijuana for medicinal purposes,"
Clinton said in the April 5 interview. But when asked whether she would stop
the raids, she replied, "What we should do is prioritize what the DEA should
be doing, and that would not be a high priority. There's a lot of other,
more important work that needs to be done."

Clinton has also said she opposes repealing criminal penalties for
marijuana, but told advocates in October that the government should conduct
more research "into what, if any, medical benefits it has."

McCain has taken a variety of positions, according to comments recorded by
medical marijuana advocates.

At an April 2007 campaign kickoff event, when asked if he would end federal
raids, he said, "I would let states decide that issue." But less than two
months later, he said he would not end the raids. Then, in November, he
promised a man who described himself as a seriously ill marijuana patient
that he would "do everything in my power" to make sure the man was never
arrested for using the drug.

No policy paper

While maintaining that medical experts considered marijuana ineffectual and
potentially dangerous, McCain promised at the same November event in New
Hampshire to consult with experts and issue an "in-depth policy paper" on
the topic within a few days. McCain's campaign has not responded to media
inquiries, and marijuana advocates say the policy paper was never issued.

He was also asked during a November conference call whether the federal
government should override the will of the people in states with medical
marijuana laws. "Medical marijuana is not something that the, quote, people
want," McCain replied.

Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project,
said he remains hopeful that the federal climate will improve, no matter who
becomes president.

"All it takes," he said, "is for the Justice Department to say, 'Leave these
states alone.' "

Online resources

Statements and videos of the presidential candidates can be viewed at a Web
site maintained by a pro-medical marijuana group, the Marijuana Policy
Project. The Web site is www.granitestaters.com/candidates.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws' list of federal
medical marijuana cases in California is available at links.sfgate.com/ZDHH.


This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
Monday, May 12, 2008

They or he needs to get the DEA out of our doctors offices. I just had my pain medication cut off, because I smoke pot. Why are we being pissed tested in our own doctors offices? My doctor does not have a problem with me smoking pot. He would still prescribe my pain medication. But the federal government knows whats better for me than my own doctor. end of rant.