6 Reasons To Be Skeptical Of Feds’ New Medical Marijuana Policy
Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to US Attorneys in the 14 states with medical marijuana laws laying out a new policy–that the feds will no longer seek to prosecute medical marijuana patients and medical marijuana suppliers, as long as they are in compliance with their state’s medical marijuana laws. Under the Bush Administration, the feds had ignored states’ rights to declare marijuana legal for certain medical purposes and had set about busting medical marijuana suppliers and patients, especially in California where that state’s above-ground dispensary system was seen as an affront to federal authority.
I’ll come to why this is important in the mental health world in a second.
Holder’s move is certainly a small victory for states’ rights, but from the perspective of someone who’s reported on medical marijuana in the Pacific Northwest–Oregon and Washington both have medical marijuana laws–over the last decade there are still reasons to be skeptical of what the outcome will be over time. Although anything that ends raids where the feds win up arresting people in wheelchairs is welcome.
1. Each of the 14 medical marijuana states has laws different enough that it will prove confusing to patients and law enforcement to sort out, especially where a patient might be crossing state lines.
2. The new federal policy cannot address problems within medical marijuana states with local police and local governments, often with their own creative interpretations of of their state’s medical marijuana laws. There are cops in Washington State who’ve busted patients and raided their homes, all the while telling said patients that there is no medical marijuana law in this state when their clearly is. Patients aren’t exaclty in a position to argue with cops who pretty much take the law into their own hands this way with Glocks drawn and AR-15s locked and loaded.
3. The new policy will do nothing to address or undo the Bush Administration’s policy of having the DEA block almost all medical research of marijuana. At this time, there are enough cases reports in the medical literature of marijuana’s therapeutic properties for a host of ailments (and enough anecdotal evidence of the same) to where it ought to be researched formally (as in clinical trials). After all, NIMH has already researched the depression-fighting properties of Ketamine (it’s apparently pretty useful), which isn’t exactly the most benign drug on the planet. What’s more, I’ve heard that in California–where doctors can recommend medical marijuana for anything they choose, unlike most other medical marijuana states–a good 30 percent of all medical marijuana use is for depression and anxiety. That would seem to indicate something worth researching, but it’s certainly nothing the feds’ new policy does anything to address.
4. No research means certain branches of the federal government will still be able to claim that marijuana has no medical value. A bogus claim, but one such agencies will still be able to make with a straight face.
5. I don’t trust the DEA to pay much attention to Holder. During the first few weeks of the Obama Administration, the DEA was still running around raiding clinics in California even though Holder made it clear from the get-go that he (and President Obama) didn’t want any more use of federal resources to arrest and prosecute people following state laws. The DEA was, in effect, a rogue agency for a few weeks. Even though the DEA doesn’t have prosecutorial powers, it’s staffed by the most ardent drug warriors in the federal government and they can easily still go around and arrest people and seize property and whatnot and, then, submit the evidence to the local US Attorney, who won’t prosecute under the new federal policy. The DEA will be able to say it was just enforcing the law, its agents will have fun ripping peoples’ homes apart and the big charade will continue. Sure, the AG will shut down such activity sooner or later, but in the meantime it’d be a big problem for all concerned.
6. Holder’s new policy would allow federal prosecution of people in medical marijuana states who use medical marijuana laws as a cover for growing pot for commercial purposes. I agree with this aspect of the policy. But it’s been a dirty little secret in the medical marijuana world for a long time that some medical marijuana growers do divert a fair amount of product to the underground commercial market out of sheer greed. Depending on the state and the “system” there, a grower could get as much as a 100 percent more per ounce of pot by selling it commercially than by selling it to patient dispensaries (which try to keep costs down, at least in Washington, for often low-income patients). I fear enough diversion will continue to go on and enough busts will be made that Holder can revert to the old way of doing things.
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