Medical Marijuana

This new poll from New Hampshire casts further doubt on the rapidly unraveling notion that politicians must support harsh marijuana policies to get votes:

The Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed that 45 percent of residents said they were more likely to vote for a Senate candidate who supports legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The poll showed that 24 percent of residents said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. Another 26 percent said it would make no difference. [WMUR]

Clearly, supporting medical marijuana legalization is by far the safest choice for New Hampshire politicians. The margins are likely smaller in many states, but I bet you'd see a clear preference for pro-medical marijuana candidates throughout most of the country.

It's exactly this type of data that matters at this stage in our efforts. We've crossed a threshold in terms of educating our political culture about this issue. They know who we are and what we want. Our biggest challenge is demonstrating that political trends in fact favor reform decisively on certain issues and that opposition to something like medical marijuana will fairly reliably get you in trouble at the polls.

The numbers are already on our side, but I suspect we'll have to start being more aggressive to drive the point home. When we start launching vicious swiftboat-style attack ads accusing our opponents of wanting to arrest cancer patients, they'll suddenly become a lot more interested in what the polls say.

The legal plight of medical marijuana provider Charlie Lynch has provided a useful instrument with which to measure the new administration's commitment to respecting state medical marijuana laws. Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that only cases involving violation of state laws will be pursued, prompting the judge in Lynch's trial to request guidance from the Dept. of Justice before handing down the sentence. Here's what came back:

…in response to the Court's inquiries, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General has reviewed the facts of this case and determined that the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of defendant are entirely consistent with the policies of DOJ and with public statements made by the Attorney General with respect to marijuana prosecutions.

Huh!? That can only be true if Lynch violated California's medical marijuana laws, which hasn't been proven in court (he was only charged under federal law), and is entirely inconsistent with his well-documented cooperation with local authorities including the city council and chamber of commerce.

Charlie Lynch is exactly the sort of defendant we aren't supposed to be seeing anymore under Obama, and yet here he is, scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday and the new administration won't lift a finger to stop it. He'll likely receive a 5-year mandatory minimum for doing something the President has repeatedly said would not be prosecuted under his administration. It's just that simple.

On Thursday, we'll find out exactly how much Obama's campaign promises were worth. This won't go down quietly. Stay tuned.

Very unsettling:

Federal drug agents raided a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night.

The raid occurred at Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street. DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give many details.

"The documents relating to today's enforcement operation remain under court seal. Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well." [CBS]

By claiming the case involves violations of state law, DEA is able to maintain the appearance of abiding by the attorney general's pledge to respect state medical marijuana laws. We're left to wonder if that will now become their blanket justification, to be invoked each time they elect to move in on an established medical marijuana provider. No one was arrested in today's raid, so we'll likely be waiting a while to find out what the hell happened.

The skeptical interpretation is that nothing's changed, that the feds will simply be more careful with the wording they use to describe future enforcement efforts that target medical providers. A worst-case scenario would the adoption of a policy in which the full force of federal law is brought down upon any medical marijuana provider who is accused of even a minor violation of state law. Defendants facing only federal charges would have no means to contest the grounds on which they were targeted to begin with. The practical value of Obama's purported policy shift would be negligible.

However, even if that's DEA's gameplan (which wouldn’t surprise me at all), I doubt it could withstand scrutiny. The salient question of why DEA is usurping the responsibilities of state law-enforcement won't escape notice and press coverage of these events grows increasingly competent as the issue continues to boil.

Obama's position on medical marijuana owes a great deal to pure political pressure resulting from the deep unpopularity of the raids themselves. The public simply hates this and won't be satisfied with a fictitious shell-game solution that merely reframes what DEA is actually doing.

This is a potentially big development:

U.S. District Court Judge George H. Wu asked prosecutors for a written response from the Justice Department about its position on medical marijuana prosecutions in light of recent comments from Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.

Holder said last week that the Justice Department under President Obama had no plans to prosecute dispensary owners who operated within their state's law.

Wu said he did not believe that any change in policy would affect the conviction of Charles Lynch, 47. But the judge said he wanted to consider any new information about the policy before imposing sentence. [Los Angeles Times]

Even as the new administration moves towards ending federal interference with state medical marijuana laws, Lynch's prosecution remains a national controversy and a harsh reminder that the war on medical marijuana continues to claim casualties.

Attorney General Holder has only one logical choice here: tell Judge Wu to send Charlie Lynch home. It's the only option that would be morally and politically consistent with the administration's decision to respect state medical marijuana laws. Holder has been handed an opportunity to intervene and if he lets this man go to prison, he makes a mockery of everything he's said about medical marijuana policy.

This is yet another important test that will tell us a great deal about the new administration's commitment to cleaning up the mess created by a decade-long war against medical marijuana. Thus far, Obama's approach has been encouraging and I'm optimistic that justice will be done in the Lynch trial as well.

It should be abundantly clear at this point that the best way to avoid bad publicity with regards to medical marijuana policy is to support patients and providers.

Wow, it's almost hard to keep up. Here's yet another potentially major breakthrough on the medical marijuana front:

Days before President Bush left office in January, his administration fired a parting shot at Professor Lyle Craker's eight-year quest to cultivate marijuana for medical research by abruptly denying him a federal license despite a nearly two-year old Drug Enforcement Administration law judge's recommendation that he receive one.

But the new administration led by President Obama, who has publicly backed the use of marijuana for medical purposes to stave off pain, might reverse the decision and keep Craker's license application from going up in smoke.

A source familiar with the case said the White House will likely demand that the decision be reviewed.

"Basically they want to do an autopsy of what occurred and have it go through a proper review," the source said. [National Journal]

Anonymous sources can be misleading, so I called Aaron Houston at MPP, who told me the story is true and graciously did not request anonymity.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the administration's review ultimately results in reversal of the research blockade, but the fact that they're looking into it is a very positive indication. It should prove difficult to examine this issue without seeing it for what it is: a prolonged and transparently dishonest effort to obstruct medical marijuana research by preventing researchers from producing marijuana and denying them access to existing sources.

Given yesterday's reaffirmation of Obama's pledge to respect state medical marijuana laws, it seems that a positive pattern has emerged here. The new administration is re-evaluating the issue from multiple angles and finding that medical marijuana has been mishandled at the federal level in more than one way. It's tremendously encouraging to see the executive branch taking interest in corrupt political obstructionism at the DEA. I'd encourage them to expand the inquiry beyond just medical marijuana.

At a press conference yesterday:

U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that the Justice Department has no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries that are operating legally under state laws in California and a dozen other states -- a development that medical marijuana advocates and civil libertarians hailed as a sweeping change in federal drug policy. [Los Angeles Times]

This should remove doubt once and for all about the direction the new administration is heading with regards to medical marijuana. There's been some confusion about this, but Holder himself has been consistent in maintaining that medical marijuana providers operating legally under state law will be left alone.

The biggest remaining question is what will become of unresolved criminal cases initiated during the Bush administration. Charlie Lynch, whose recent federal conviction has become a national controversy, will be sentenced next week. Lynch and others like him are lingering casualties in a war that's been called off at the highest levels of government. The president and attorney general are on the right track, but the job isn’t done until the innocent victims of the war on medical marijuana are set free.

NORML's Paul Armentano has a piece at reason marking the 10th anniversary of the government-funded Institute of Medicine report, which proved beyond any doubt that marijuana is medicine. The debate should have ended right then, but our opponents adopted a desperate strategy of claiming that the report said something other than what it clearly said.

Fortunately, the American people took matters into their own hands we've made tremendous progress over the past decade towards increasing patient access and changing the tone of the debate. Our opponents have almost entirely conceded marijuana's medicinal value and now resort to the pathetic fallback position of saying that smoking is bad and patients should take THC pills instead.

We've been proven right morally, scientifically and even politically. But it's still amazing to think that only a few short years ago our opponents were still claiming that marijuana wasn't medicine. Now that everyone knows those people were dead wrong, it's worth considering how phenomenally irresponsible it really was to withhold the truth about a medicine that could have helped people.

Paul makes an important point that after years of legal medical access in several states, anyone can plainly see that opponents of medical marijuana weren't just wrong about science. They were wrong about every single bad thing they said would happen if medical marijuana became legal. Many of those people are still considered experts on drug policy. They shouldn’t be.

I was taking this online poll at The Chicago Tribune about medical marijuana and the wording got me thinking:

Do you support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes?

Naturally, over 90% said yes because only a small number of really difficult people still have a problem with medical marijuana. But what do these people even mean that they don't "support the use of marijuana for medical purposes?" There are FDA approved medications with the same active ingredient as marijuana. Saying "marijuana isn't medicine" isn't an opinion, it's a factual error.

Really, the poll question might as well read: Do you support the use of medicine for medicinal purposes?

Via MPP, another example of the daily idiocy that will continue until medical marijuana use is protected throughout the country:

Laura Llanes does not regret buying her aunt marijuana, even though it has cost her a job as police dispatcher.

She was stunned, nevertheless, when she was fired last week after admitting she bought the marijuana to help relieve her aunt's suffering through breast cancer and chemotherapy.

Marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal with a prescription in 13 states; Illinois is not one of them.

Llanes, 28, of Lake Villa remains adamant she did the right thing, saying her biggest mistake was telling a few co-workers what she had done: "They ratted me out."

Her aunt, who lives in Aurora, was "sick constantly, not eating, not having an appetite. She is diabetic. She has to eat. She was whittling away to nothing," said Llanes.

"I thought I will get her some marijuana so it would get her to eat. It worked. She did get the munchies." [Chicago Tribune]

It's a sad story to be sure, but if there's a bright side, it's that this entire story in The Chicago Tribune makes opponents of medical marijuana sound like monsters. There's a bill in the Illinois legislature to end this madness once and for all. I hope the state's legislators read the paper today, because this story tells you everything you need to know about why medical marijuana laws are needed.

I'm hearing a lot of discussion about this odd story from the LA Times:

The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles sent a confidential memo to prosecutors last week ordering them to stop filing charges against medical marijuana dispensaries, then abruptly lifted the ban on Friday, according to sources familiar with the developments.

So he initially orders everyone to completely back off of medical marijuana cases, then for unknown reasons, reverses course and tells prosecutors to proceed as they have in the past. It's creepy and plays right into the suspicions of those who thought the Feds wouldn’t back off without a fight.

Nonetheless, I'm leaning towards the assumption that the initial memo was just a little bit premature, but that we'll ultimately see a policy along those lines. I contacted Caren Woodson at Americans for Safe Access for a more informed analysis. Here's what she has to say:

I think it's confusion --- it's important to remember that we aren't even close to having the appropriate Obama officials seated at this point.  We expect, per the White House's comments, review of the policy as these people are formulating new policy. Keep in mind Deputy AG Ogden hasn't been sworn in yet.

At this point there has been no new movement; no new raids or new indictments. We are, however, still concerned about what becomes of the individuals still undergoing prosecution or waiting federal sentences... And I think that will require a deeper, more comprehensive discussion with the Obama Administration...once we have a better sense of who will be staying and who will not!

In other words, don’t freak out, at least not yet. The new administration has said the raids will end and that's what we're expecting.