Medical Marijuana

A massive DEA operation featuring dozens of heavily armed agents and at least four helicopters ended with the arrests of five people in California's Lake County last week. According to California NORML, the arrests are believed to be the first since the Obama administration announced it would not persecute medical marijuana providers in states where it is legal unless they violated both state and federal law. The DEA seized 154 marijuana plants from Upper Lake resident Tom Carter, and arrested him, former UMCC dispensary operator Scott Feil and his wife, Steven Swanson, and Brett Bassignani. Carter is a registered medical marijuana patient and provider, and his wife, Jamie Ceridono, told the Lake County News he was growing for several patients and his grow was legal under state law. The genesis of the bust appears to lie with an alleged May deal between a DEA informant and Bassignani to purchase marijuana. According to documents filed by Carter's federal defenders late last week, the informant claimed to have arranged to buy marijuana from Carter and to have left a voicemail message for Carter to set up the deal. That same informant allegedly made a deal to buy marijuana from Bassignani. In the document, the federal defenders said prosecutors made no claim that Carter ever heard the phone message the informant allegedly called and that they set out no evidence linking Carter and the informant. "All the complaint says is that another individual, Mr. Bassignani, called the informant, claimed he worked for 'Carter Construction,' and arranged a marijuana deal," Carter's defense attorneys wrote. "The deal later took place, and the only other reference to Mr. Carter is the conclusory claim that the informant 'had agreed on the price with Carter.' No context, no specifics, and no other information is provided in the complaint which indicates that Mr. Carter in fact talked to the informant, arranged a marijuana deal, and indicated that he (Carter) was knowingly involved in a marijuana transaction." Moving that the two felony counts of marijuana trafficking against Carter be dismissed, the attorneys added: "This complaint is sadly deficient with regard to whether Mr. Carter has done anything to indicate that he conspired to break the law. It should be dismissed accordingly." It is unclear why Feil and his wife were arrested. They are neighbors of Carter and his wife. Carter and Feil are being held in Oakland, where they are set to have initial detention hearings today and tomorrow. Federal prosecutors have asked that Carter be held pending trial "on the basis of flight risk and danger to the community." Carter is a long-time resident of Upper Lake, prominent construction contractor, and community benefactor. "California already has enough federal marijuana criminals," said CANORML coordinator Dale Gieringer, "It's time for concrete changes in federal law." While the Obama administration has announced it would no go after law-abiding medical marijuana providers, the DEA has conducted at least two raids against providers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, although there have been no arrests in those cases. The administration has not announced any changes in federal laws or regulations around medical marijuana, and Bush appointees continue to serve in the DEA and the US Attorney's Office of Northern California, which is prosecuting the case.

Medical marijuana patient Will Foster is en route to prison in Oklahoma after being picked up Friday by Oklahoma law enforcement officials. He had been held at the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa, California, for the past 15 months as he fought bogus marijuana cultivation charges there--he was a registered patient with a legal grow--and, after the California charges were dropped, on a parole violation warrant from the Sooner State. Foster had been arrested and convicted of growing marijuana in Oklahoma and sentenced to 93 years in prison in the 1990s. After that draconian sentence focused national attention on his case, he was eventually resentenced to 20 years in prison. He later won parole and moved to California, where he served three years on parole and was discharged from parole by California authorities. That wasn't good enough for vindictive Oklahoma authorities, who wanted to squeeze more years out of Foster. He refused to sign Oklahoma paperwork requiring him to return there to serve out the remainder of his sentence. He also refused to sign paperback that extended his original service. Oklahoma authorities issued a parole violation warrant, and the governors of both states signed it. Foster had sought to block extradition by filing a writ of habeas corpus--he had won a similar writ against Oklahoma earlier--but that effort failed on Friday, and Oklahoma authorities were there to whisk him away. Foster is scheduled to be held at the Tulsa County Jail before being assigned to a prison in the Oklahoma gulag. Efforts by Foster supporters to secure his release continue and are now focusing on Oklahoma parole authorities and the state governor. For more information about the Foster case, see our Chronicle story here and at Ed Rosenthal's blog here. Drug War Chronicle will continue to follow the Foster case. Look for a feature article next week.

Legal medical marijuana has been around for more than a decade now, but that certainly hasn't stopped bitter law-enforcement spokespeople from conjuring horrific doomsday fantasies about it. Police in Rhode Island are still struggling to understand the issue, it seems:

State police Lt. Col. Steven G. O’Donnell said there is nothing prohibiting caregivers from lacing their marijuana with phencyclidine (PCP) or other powerful drugs. [Providence Journal]

No, no, no, you misunderstand, sir. It's medical marijuana that's legal in Rhode Island, not PCP. Got it? Medical m-a-r-i-j-u-a-n-a. You can still arrest people for PCP.  I doubt this will be an issue though, because for some reason, medical marijuana laws don't seem to result in increased use of PCP. It's awesome.

But O'Donnell still doesn't get it. There's something bothering him about marijuana policy, but he can't quite figure out what it is:

"It’s very unregulated," he said. "It makes no sense to us. We regulate hamburger and food, but we do not regulate medical marijuana. There are no checks and balances."

Here, lets try that line again, but this time without the word "medical." I think we're onto something here. If we could all just agree that marijuana – medical and otherwise – needs to be monitored for quality and sold by licensed professionals, maybe we can finally put this whole mess behind us.

Last month, Obama's drug czar raised eyebrows by claiming that "marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit."  Though not an unusual remark for a drug czar to make, the comment came as a surprise given the new administration's stated policy of respecting state medical marijuana laws.

Well, it looks like someone in the administration had a little talk with the drug czar, because he's already backtracking:

Asked if he regretted what he said, Kerlikowske said, "Sometimes you make a mistake and you work very hard to correct it. That happens. I should've clearly said 'smoked' marijuana and then gone on to say that this is clearly a question that should be answered by the medical community." [KOMO News]

Of course, this is still utter nonsense given the abundance of scientific evidence that medical marijuana works. But it's remarkable to hear the drug czar acknowledge making "a mistake." As false and obnoxious as his corrected statement may be, it's nice to know that the word "mistake" is in his vocabulary.

Some interesting news from New Mexico:

On June 30, 2009 in the Federal District Court of New Mexico, Assistant US Attorney John Anderson agreed, on the record, to Honor the Medical Marijuana Recommendation of Charles Smith of Shasta Lake, California. Federal District Court Magistrate Judge Lorenzo Garcia further agreed to accept the State’s proposed recommendation of a Conditional Discharge upon provision of Mr. Smith’s Medical Marijuana Recommendation to the US Attorney’s office. This historic moment occurred during the federal Government’s prosecution of cases related to the Annual Rainbow Gathering that occurs in different states around the country and involves a large Federal Law Enforcement presence.
…
This is the first time in modern history, in which it is known that the US Attorney and the Federal District Court agreed to accept medical marijuana recommendations and licenses in order to dismiss marijuana possession charges.

And the universe didn’t collapse. Not only that, the story has gotten no press whatsoever. Often, when the government refrains from doing something cruel to someone, there isn't much of a news story left to report. This just goes to show how silly it is to assume that there's a political imperative requiring us to continue aggressively enforcing bad drug laws. There isn’t.

See how easy it is to just leave patients alone? Next time, try not arresting them in the first place.

Is there anything it can’t do?

A fifty-five year old man has confessed to using marijuana in order to sexually please his wife.

Bal Birju was charged with possession of thirty grammes of marijuana.

In court he said he preferred to use the marijuana rather than the popular Viagra which can be dangerous. [i995fm]

Makes sense to me. Unfortunately, we're reminded once again of the one indisputable risk associated with using marijuana: they'll put you in jail for it.

Dr. Jocelyn Elders ignited a firestorm when she proposed studying the merits of drug legalization while serving as Surgeon General under President Clinton. It was a bold move back then and she's still eager to speak out in favor of reform:

You’re also a vocal proponent of medical marijuana. Why?

I have been speaking out about it for a long time. I’m a member of the board of advisors of a medical marijuana group. To me, it’s not nearly as toxic for our bodies as tobacco or alcohol. It should be legalized. As far as we know, it doesn’t cause lung cancer, it doesn’t cause people to go out and drive drunk and commit crimes. If it helps reduce the nausea and vomiting and reduce leg cramps, make patients feel better, what’s wrong with that? We should make it available to people who need it. I feel if people want marijuana, they could get a prescription. Then we can tax it and know who is getting it. I don’t think it is a drug that is doing harm to this country. By arresting people, putting them in jail for crimes related to marijuana, we’re spending millions on drug enforcement and it causes more problems. Young people are convicted of a crime, they can’t get money to go to school, we have over 2 million prisoners and many related to drug use—it is a vicious cycle and one we created. [New America Media]

She gets it. In fact, she got it a long time ago.

Anyone applying for a job at the Drug Enforcement Administration must answer this question:



That's funny, I thought there was no such thing as "legally prescribed" marijuana under federal law. Either this is an idiot test for prospective applicants, or we've come so far that the DEA is beginning to lose track of its own ideology.

I got the following comments published as a Letter to the Editor in both the online and print versions of my local newspaper, the Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com/ ---

An interesting article from Workforce Management:

Now that more states are legalizing the sale of the marijuana used solely as a medicine, the next hurdle for reformers who say the drug is more cost-effective than pharmaceuticals is getting those who pay for health care—insurers and employers—to reimburse patients for its use.
…
Reimbursing patients who use it could push them away from otherwise costly drugs that some advocates say are not as effective. Employers, as payers of health care, should champion the legalization of medical marijuana as a potential cost-saving tool, advocates say.

It's certainly the case that many patients can effectively treat specific conditions with marijuana at a lower cost than the pharmaceutical alternatives. For starters, marijuana is vastly cheaper than Marinol, which contains the same main ingredient. It would be interesting to see some research into how medical costs for marijuana patients compare overall to those of patients treating the same conditions with other drugs. While you're at it, it would worth investigating which group is happier with their medicine.

To whatever extent medical marijuana offers savings on health care costs, it's another example of the massive often-invisible expenses created by the insane federal prohibition of medical marijuana. It's presently illegal under federal law for health care providers to cover marijuana-related expenses, which just goes to show how DEA raids were just one dimension of the government's continuing war on medical marijuana.