In my first “On Marijuana” column, I described the need to refer to law enforcement as the “Arrest and Prosecution Industry.” While I didn’t plan to return to the same subject in my second column, recent events have compelled me to revisit the topic. My last column was theory; this one is practice.

Just over a week ago, a man named Chris Bartkowicz in Highlands Ranch, Colorado made a questionable (at best) PR move. He agreed to be interviewed by a local television station about his medical marijuana grow operation. Granted, he believed he was in compliance with state law and had no reason to fear prosecution. But, come on, dude. It’s one thing to make six figures growing marijuana in your home for patients; it’s quite another to advertise it on television. It’s like putting a “Home Invasions Encouraged” sign on your door.

What Bartkowicz wasn’t expecting—if he was really thinking things through at all—was that the DEA would show up the next day at his house, take all of his plants, and forward his case to the U.S. Attorney, who subsequently filed charges carrying a 5- to 40-year prison sentence. This, despite the fact that the Obama administration has instructed U.S. Attorneys not to prosecute individuals who comply with state medical marijuana laws.

Was Bartkowicz in compliance with state law? Maybe yes, maybe no. By the DEA’s admission, he was a caregiver for at least 12 patients, which would allow him to have 72 marijuana plants. The complaint—available on this page as a pdf—alleges that he had 224 plants, more than 100 of which were “clones” or “starter” plants; the others were “in various stages with root systems.” So what we are talking about here is a matter of degree. If someone can legally grow marijuana for patients, but exceeds the allowable number—perhaps for fear that some plants would not mature or perhaps because they felt more patients would need help before the plants matured—is it an intelligent use of taxpayer dollars to raid, prosecute and imprison this person for 40 years?

The truth is, as discussed in my last column, the DEA is not concerned with using taxpayer dollars intelligently. They are merely focused on using taxpayer dollars. Cases like this demonstrate that they are no better than ambulance-chasing lawyers. They see an “accident” on television and they run like two-dollar hookers to keep themselves busy and make a couple bucks. Why waste your time investigating people manufacturing meth when you can look up a medical marijuana grower on the Internet (which the DEA acknowledges in their complaint was a major part of their “investigation”) and raid his house?

And now the media is even helping the DEA advertise for clients. Inciting fears of possible house fires from marijuana growing, the DEA has launched a new campaign to fight this “menace.” In addition to dutifully reporting on this “danger,” the media helped steer business to the DEA by publishing this advice from George Morkovin, of the Denver Fire Department:

Morkovin said additional regulations are needed to protect residents from these marijuana fires, but until that happens, he recommends notifying authorities if someone believes a grow is taking place next door.

How convenient. With this information, the DEA won’t even need to waste time looking up an address. They can just use Google Maps and they’re on their way.

They no longer deserve to be called the Drug Enforcement Administration. They are simply the Drug Employment Administration, keeping themselves busy by raiding people who are not raising the ire of state authorities, but are merely trying to cultivate marijuana so that there is an adequate supply for the tens of thousands of registered patients in the state.

Fortunately, we have rock star advocates like Brian Vincente of Sensible Colorado calling out the DEA and the U.S. Attorney on their true motivations. (This is just one quote from Vicente in an interview in which he simply shreds law enforcement):

“I think the U.S. Attorney and the DEA view marijuana laws as a continuing employment act. It gives them something to do, and they’re afraid that if they were to recognize the will of the voters, they’d be out of work. So I question the motivation for prosecuting these kinds of individuals. I think it’s driven by their own need for job security.”

Word.

Steve Fox is the director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project and the co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink? (Chelsea Green, August 2009).

 
This article was originally published on <a href=”AlterNet.

At the end of last week, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske issued a public statement firmly declaring, “Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama Administration.” Earlier this year, he confessed to a certain lack of verbal acuity by admitting that the word “legalization” was not in his vocabulary.

Well, let me officially state here today – as the director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s largest organization dedicated to reforming our marijuana laws – that I agree with the Drug Czar. It is time for us to take marijuana “legalization” off the table.

Instead, we should join together in an effort to enact marijuana “regulation.”

“Legalization” is a term used by opponents of reform to overstate the goals of pro-reform organizations. It is intended to convey an image of wide open markets and widespread marijuana use by people of all ages.

People like me do not envision marijuana being “legalized” like pumpkins, which, as many of us observe this time of year, can be purchased from any farmer who tends to a patch and makes his pre-jack-o-lanterns available on his land before Halloween. Rather, we are fighting for a regulated market for marijuana, so that sellers and suppliers are licensed by the state and their product is subject to strict production and labeling requirements.

As my co-authors and I explain in the final chapter of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?, a regulated marijuana market would limit where and when marijuana could be sold. And, of course, it would limit who could purchase the drug. Specifically, as with alcohol, there would be an age limit so that people under a certain age could not buy it.

Currently, none of these regulations exist. Anybody – including teens – can purchase marijuana whenever they want. In fact, it is probably easier for a teen to find and buy marijuana than an adult. And the strength and quality of the marijuana purchased is basically unknown. These are problems associated with an unregulated market – and it is what people like the Drug Czar are defending.

So in the spirit with which I have joined the Drug Czar in taking marijuana legalization off the table, I hope that he will join me in taking an unregulated marijuana market off the table.

The time to regulate marijuana is now. We should all be able to agree on that.

Earlier this week, President Obama’s Department of Justice told the 50 states in our great union to feel free to make marijuana legal. The media reported that this was the administration’s new policy for “medical marijuana.” But the administration may have inadvertently opened up a loophole through which we can drive a truck-full of recreational marijuana.

Now before I get started here, let me make one thing clear. This is not a “camel’s nose under the tent” argument about how medical marijuana should be used as some kind of scam to pave the way for recreational use. No, medical marijuana is a completely legitimate issue on its own – and it is a completely legitimate medicine, for that matter. In the political debate about whether marijuana should be legal, it is completely rational to support medical marijuana, but oppose the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes.

So what I am talking about here is not some “slippery slope” from medical marijuana to recreational marijuana. My purpose is to shed a little light on the laws involved and on state-federal relations.

Let’s start with the basics. States have controlled substances laws, as does the federal government. These laws co-exist, in the sense that both state and federal authorities have the ability to arrest and prosecute individuals for violating them. In most instances, individuals are in violation of both state and federal law when it comes to controlled substances and it simply becomes a question of under which laws a person will be prosecuted. But if a state law is silent with respect to a certain controlled substance, the federal government still has the ability to arrest and prosecute individuals for possession or sales of that substance within that state.

The new Justice Department guidance does something somewhat unusual. It essentially defers to state controlled substances laws. In a memo to all US Attorneys, the Deputy Attorney General wrote: “As a general matter, pursuit of these [anti-drug] priorities should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

Sure, this seems like a rational and compassionate move. And perhaps it is even politically smart, as approximately three-quarters of Americans support the medical use of marijuana. What makes this directive especially interesting, however, is the fact that the federal government does not recognize marijuana as a medicine. Marijuana, under the federal Controlled Substances Act, is listed under Schedule I, a schedule reserved for substances with “no accepted medical value.” In other words, “medical marijuana” doesn’t exist in the eyes of the federal government; there is only “marijuana.”

This means there are two ways of looking at what the Obama administration has done. First, it has acknowledged that marijuana has an “accepted” medical value in this country. Accordingly, it should immediately takes steps to have marijuana re-scheduled, which would help facilitate much-needed research on the therapeutic benefits of the drug. It would also allow individuals prosecuted by the federal government for marijuana-related crimes to introduce evidence in court that they were acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. Such evidence is currently not permitted in federal court.

The second way of looking at it is even more interesting. Since the federal government does not recognize that marijuana has medical value, the administration has basically told the states that they can enact their own laws related to marijuana and the federal government will not interfere. If you think this sounds far-fetched, read this excerpt from the memo to the US Attorneys:

“Finally, nothing herein precludes investigation or prosecution where there is a reasonable basis to believe that compliance with state law is being invoked as a pretext for the production or distribution of marijuana for purposes not authorized by state law.”

There you have it. As long as the production or distribution of marijuana is authorized by state law, then there should be no prosecutions. Note, as well, the use of “purposes” — plural — which could be inferred as covering more than just medical reasons.

So let’s get to it. It is time to lobby the states to make marijuana legal for all adults. There used to be a fear in some quarters that such a change in the law would not be a worthwhile endeavor because the federal government, in theory, would eventually get in the way. But unless the administration wants to admit that “medical marijuana” exists, it looks like the states are free to change marijuana laws in whatever way they deem necessary to protect the health and safety of their citizens.

Establishing regulated systems for the production and distribution of marijuana would do just that.

 
Steve Fox is the co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink? (Chelsea Green, August 2009) and the director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project.