|
| FILE - This Nov. 8, 2012 file photo shows marijuana plants flourishing under the lights at a grow house in Denver. President Barack Obama says he won't go after Washington state and Colorado for legalizing marijuana. In a Barbara Walters interview airing Friday on ABC, Obama is asked whether he supports making pot legal. He says, "I wouldn't go that far." |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- President Barack Obama says he won't go after pot users in Colorado and Washington, two states that just legalized the drug for recreational use. But advocates argue the president said the same thing about medical marijuana - and yet U.S. attorneys continue to force the closure of dispensaries across the U.S.
Welcome
to the confusing and often conflicting policy on pot in the U.S., where
medical marijuana is legal in many states, but it is increasingly
difficult to grow, distribute or sell it. And at the federal level, at
least officially, it is still an illegal drug everywhere.
Obama's statement Friday provided little clarity in a world where marijuana is inching ever so carefully toward legitimacy.
That
conflict is perhaps the greatest in California, where the state's four
U.S. Attorneys criminally prosecuted large growers and launched a
coordinated crackdown on the state's medical marijuana industry last
year by threatening landlords with property forfeiture actions. Hundreds
of pot shops went out of business.
Steve
DeAngelo, executive director of an Oakland, Calif., dispensary that
claims to be the nation's largest, called for a federal policy that
treats recreational and medical uses of the drug equally.
"If
we're going to recognize the rights of recreational users, then we
should certainly protect the rights of medical cannabis patients who
legally access the medicine their doctors have recommended," he said.
The
government is planning to soon release policies for dealing with
marijuana in Colorado and Washington, where federal law still prohibits
pot, as elsewhere in the country.
"It would be
nice to get something concrete to follow," said William Osterhoudt, a
San Francisco criminal defense attorney representing government
officials in Mendocino County who recently received a demand from
federal investigators for detailed information about a local system for
licensing growers of medical marijuana.
Assemblyman
Tom Ammiano said he was frustrated by Obama's comments because the
federal government continues to shutter dispensaries in states with
medical marijuana laws, including California.
"A
good step here would be to stop raiding those legal dispensaries who
are doing what they are allowed to do by law," said the San Francisco
Democrat. "There's a feeling that the federal government has gone rogue
on hundreds of legal, transparent medical marijuana dispensaries, so
there's this feeling of them being in limbo. And it puts the patients,
the businesses and the advocates in a very untenable place."
Obama,
in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, said Friday that federal
authorities have "bigger fish to fry" when it comes to targeting
recreational pot smokers in Colorado and Washington.
Some
advocates said the statement showed the president's willingness to
allow residents of states with marijuana laws to use the drug without
fear of federal prosecution.
"It's a
tremendous step forward," said Joe Elford, general counsel for Americans
for Safe Access. "It suggests the feds are taking seriously enough the
idea that there should be a carve-out for states with marijuana laws."
Obama's statements on recreational use mirror the federal policy toward states that allow marijuana use for medical purposes.
"We
are not focusing on backyard grows with small amounts of marijuana for
use by seriously ill people," said Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for
U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner in Sacramento. "We are targeting
money-making commercial growers and distributors who use the trappings
of state law as cover, but they are actually abusing state law."
Alison
Holcomb, who led the legalization drive in Washington state, said she
doesn't expect Obama's comment to prompt the federal government to treat
recreational marijuana and medical marijuana differently.
"At
this point, what the president is looking at is a response to marijuana
in general. The federal government has never recognized the difference
between medical and non-medical marijuana," she said. "I don't think
this is the time he'd carve out separate policies. I think he's looking
for a more comprehensive response."
Washington voters approved a medical marijuana law in 1998, and dispensaries have proliferated across the state in recent years.
Last
year, Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed legislation that would have created a
state system for licensing medical dispensaries over concern that it
would require state workers to violate the federal Controlled Substances
Act.
For the most part, dispensaries in
western Washington have been left alone. But federal authorities did
conduct raids earlier this year on dispensaries they said were acting
outside the state law, such as selling marijuana to non-patients.
Warning letters have been sent to dispensaries that operate too close to
schools.
"What we've seen is enforcement of
civil laws and warnings, with a handful of arrests of people who were
operating outside state law," Holcomb said.
Eastern Washington has seen more raids because the U.S. attorney there is more active, Holcomb added.
Colorado's
marijuana measure requires lawmakers to allow commercial pot sales, and
a state task force that will begin writing those regulations meets
Monday.
State officials have reached out to
the Justice Department seeking help on regulating a new legal marijuana
industry but haven't heard back.
DeAngelo said
Friday that the Justice Department should freeze all pending
enforcement actions against legal medical cannabis providers and review
its policies to make sure they're consistent with the president's
position. He estimated federal officials have shuttered 600 dispensaries
in the state and 1,000 nationwide.
DeAngelo's
Harborside Health Center is facing eviction after the U.S. attorney in
San Francisco pressured his landlord to stop harboring what the
government considers an illegal business.
"While
it's nice to hear these sorts of positive words from the president, we
are facing efforts by the Justice Department to shut us down, so it's
hard for me to take them seriously," DeAngelo said.
The dispensary has a hearing Thursday in federal court on the matter.
