Tag Archives: Federal

Harborside targeted by feds while Leader Pelosi stresses importance of federal action on medical marijuana

The Associated Press is reporting that Harborside Health Center, which has been called California’s largest non-profit medical marijuana dispensary, is being targeted by federal prosecutors in California. According to Harborside spokesperson Gaynell Rogers, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s office has threatened to seize the property on which Harborside’s two locations operate: one in Oakland and the other in San Jose.

Meanwhile, the ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and congresswoman for nearby San Francisco, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reaffirmed her support for the medical use of marijuana, telling a round table of bloggers that taking up and discussing federal legislation regarding medical marijuana would be “really important.” While she gave no firm promise to introduce specific legislation, her support for medical marijuana patients puts her at odds with the actions of President Barack Obama’s Justice Department.

President Obama would be wise to listen to his party’s ranking member in the House of Representatives as opposed to career drug warriors like DEA chief Michele Leonhart. While Leader Pelosi recognizes the real and growing evidence of marijuana’s medical efficacy, Agent Leonhart cannot even bring herself to admit that heroin is more harmful than marijuana. And if science isn’t something that the president and his circle are interested in listening to, they should at least listen to the 77% of the American public who support medical access to marijuana.

Compassion center legislation enacted in Rhode Island!

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Fourteen months ago, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee decided to withhold issuing certificates of operation to three prospective compassion centers (dispensaries) chosen by the governor’s own health department. This decision, made unilaterally by the governor, was Chafee’s reaction to a letter from Rhode Island United States Attorney Peter Neronha. The letter – one of several sent by United States attorneys across the country – reiterated the federal prohibition on marijuana, including for medical use. Additionally, it said Neronha’s office could prosecute people who violate the Controlled Substances Act. This stalled years of work done by the Rhode Island Legislature to give patients safe, regulated access to medical marijuana.

Needless to say, that day about 14 months ago wasn’t a good one around the MPP offices. MPP began lobbying to protect Rhode Island’s medical marijuana patients in 2004 and worked to allow compassion centers in the state since 2008. The legislature approved compassion center legislation in 2009, over then-governor Donald Carcieri’s veto. We watched with some frustration as the department needed two different application processes to determine who would operate the three compassion centers, but ultimately cheered the department when they finally approved the centers. We were on the verge of seeing compassion centers in Rhode Island, when Gov. Chafee received his letter. We were not pleased with Chafee or the federal government.

But then a funny thing happened up in Rhode Island: Chafee started feeling the heat of his decision. Patients would show up at his public events and hound him for restricting their access to a medicine that their physicians had recommended. Who is Gov. Chafee to refuse to implement duly enacted law anyway? Rhode Islanders demanded he reverse course. It was inspiring.

Over the course of the next months, MPP, along with our legislative champions, Sen. Rhoda Perry and Rep. Scott Slater, and patient advocates from the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, engaged Gov. Chafee and his staff. An open dialogue was created and ideas were offered from both sides. The governor recognized the legitimate need for regulated safe access to medical marijuana but feared the program as written — with the possibility of thousands of plants per center and millions of dollars of revenue — would draw the ire of U.S. Attorney Neronha’s office.

Last night, Gov. Chafee signed into law legislation that resulted from those good faith negotiations. To limit the size of the centers, the law has been amended to restrict the centers to cultivating a maximum of 150 marijuana plants, no more than 99 of which may be mature. Additionally, the centers may possess no more than 1,500 ounces of usable medical marijuana at a time. To ensure the viability of the centers, the law will allow medical marijuana patients and caregivers to sell their excess medicine to compassion centers, but caregivers must first attest that their patients have had their medical needs met.

We certainly disagreed with Gov. Chafee’s decision to halt initial implementation of the compassion centers, and we recognize that the compromise legislation is not perfect. However, the ball has been moved forward. The long arm of the federal government started shaking its sword and frightened a governor into inaction. With the help of logic, reason, sincere compassion, and dogged stick-to-it-ness by legislative leaders, Rhode Island has been able to move past the fear and pass legislation that will bring safe access to medical marijuana patients.

We’ve got one piece of advice for U.S. Attorney Neronha: voters will remember if you continue to bully those who provide medicine to the seriously ill instead of focusing on prosecuting real crimes. Be careful how you proceed next.

Tell Congress to Stop Federal Interference with Medical Marijuana States

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An amendment to the 2013 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations bill in the U.S. House that would effectively end federal interference in medical marijuana states is being considered today, and we need your help!

The Rohrabacher-Hinchey-Farr-McClintock Amendment would stop federal agencies from spending any funds to target individuals acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. This would include patients and providers, so long as those providers were following the law within their respective states.

If this passes, providers will no longer have to live in fear that the businesses they worked hard to build and keep in compliance with their state and local laws will be arbitrarily raided and destroyed by federal agents. Patients will no longer be forced to buy inferior medicine from dangerous criminals at the whim of U.S. attorneys. States will finally be free to determine the marijuana policies that work best for the seriously ill among their residents.

We need your help to make this happen. Please follow this link and call your member of Congress TODAY! Tell them that they need to support this amendment and make the federal government stop wasting its time and resources on medical marijuana.

Broken Promises: The Obama Administration and Medical Marijuana

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President Obama owes a debt of gratitude to the medical marijuana community for his election in 2008 — a debt that patients, providers, and businesses hoped would be fulfilled by the president following through on the promises he made to respect state medical marijuana laws.

As you can see in this recent op-ed in the Washington Post by MPP’s Rob Kampia, not only has the administration failed to keep its promise of respecting states’ rights on this issue, it is now the most hostile administration in U.S. history towards medical marijuana!

More than three out of four Americans support legalizing medical marijuana for serious medical conditions. With an approval rating of less than 50%, Obama needs to recognize the political ramifications of these continued attacks on the medical marijuana community. If he wants to hold on to the White House this fall, Obama needs to keep the promises he made four years ago, and end the crackdown. As his attorney general said a few days ago, all he has to do is say the word.

Six National Drug Policy Organizations Call on President Obama to End Unnecessary Assault on Medical Marijuana Providers

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In the wake of recent attacks on medical marijuana providers and patients by multiple branches of the federal government, including Monday’s raids on Oaksterdam University in Oakland, CA, a coalition of six national drug policy reform organizations is appealing to President Obama and his administration to follow its own previously stated policies respecting state medical marijuana laws. In the letter, posted in full below, the organizations call on the Obama administration to bring an end to the federal government’s ongoing campaign to undermine state efforts to regulate safe and legal access to medical marijuana for those patients who rely on it.

The Obama Administration’s National Drug Control Strategy Report 2012, reportedly being released in the coming days, is expected to cling to failed and outdated marijuana policies which further cement the control of the marijuana trade in the hands of drug cartels and illegal operators, endangering both patients in medical marijuana states and citizens everywhere. The members of this coalition stand together with members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, current and former Latin American leaders whose countries are being ravaged by drug cartels, state officials from five medical marijuana states, and tens of millions of Americans in their call for a more rational approach to marijuana policy.

THE LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA:

April 4, 2012

President Barack Obama

The White House

Washington D.C. 20500

Via Fax: 2024562461

Dear Mr. President:

Our coalition represents the views of tens of millions of Americans who believe the war on medical marijuana patients and providers you are fighting is misguided and counterproductive. As your administration prepares to release its annual National Drug Control Strategy, we want to speak with one voice and convey our deep sense of anger and disappointment in your lack of leadership on this issue.

Voters and elected officials in sixteen states and the District of Columbia have determined that the medical use of marijuana should be legal. In many of these states, the laws also include means for providing medical marijuana patients safe access to this medicine. These laws allowing for the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana actually shift control of marijuana sales from the criminal underground to state-licensed, taxed, and regulated producers and distributors.

Instead of celebrating – or even tolerating – this state experimentation, which has benefited patients and taken profits away from drug cartels, you have turned your back as career law enforcement officials have run roughshod over some of the most professional and well-regulated medical marijuana providers. We simply cannot understand why you have reneged on your administration’s earlier policy of respecting state medical marijuana laws.

Our frustration and confusion over your administration’s uncalled-for attacks on state-authorized medical marijuana providers was best summed up by John McCowen, the chair of the Mendocino County (CA) board of supervisors, who said, “It’s almost as if there was a conscious effort to drive [medical marijuana cultivation and distribution] back underground. My opinion is that’s going to further endanger public safety and the environment – the federal government doesn’t seem to care about that.”

The National Drug Control Strategy you are about to release will no doubt call for a continuation of policies that have as a primary goal the ongoing and permanent control of the marijuana trade by drug cartels and organized crime. We cannot and do not endorse the continued embrace of this utterly failed policy. We stand instead with Latin American leaders, members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the vast majority of people who voted you into office in recognizing that it is time for a new approach on marijuana policy.

With approximately 50,000 people dead in Mexico over the past five years as the result of drug war-related violence, we hope that you will immediately reconsider your drug control strategy and will work with, not against, states and organizations that are attempting to shift control of marijuana cultivation and sales, at least as it applies to medical marijuana, to a controlled and regulated market.

Sincerely,

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA)

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)

cc: Eric Holder, Attorney General, Department of Justice

James Cole, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice

Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy