Cannabis News Students for Sensible Drug Policy
  California Cannabis Clubs Organize to Fight Feds
Posted by FoM on April 18, 2002 at 17:08:13 PT
By Ann Harrison, AlterNet 
Source: AlterNet 

medical In an effort to fight what they say is the targeting of the medical marijuana community by federal law enforcement, a California group called the Cannabis Action Network (CAN) has launched a campaign to revive the statewide movement that helped pass Prop. 215 -- the 1996 initiative that allows seriously ill Californians to use cannabis with a doctor's recommendation.

The campaign, called Americans for Safe Access (ASA), was sparked by a series of raids carried out in San Francisco by the Drug Enforcement Administration on Feb. 12.

The operation led to the indictment of four men under federal narcotics laws and the closure of the city's Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center medical cannabis club. The men, who are legal medical marijuana patients under California law, face cannabis cultivation and conspiracy charges -- that carry potential life sentences.

"We are completely committed to protecting patients who are very close to losing their access to medical cannabis," said CAN director Steph Sherer, who notes that a number of California patients have been arrested on federal drug charges. "We are talking about death, we are talking about AIDS patients who will not have access to medication to let them live. That is a reality."

DEA director Asa Hutchinson was in San Francisco the day of the raid, but he denied that the DEA was targeting patients or cannabis clubs. Federal prosecutors said the operation was in response to an alleged marijuana trafficking operation at Sixth Street which had been under surveillance for months.

"The marijuana clubs are not our primary priority; we could, but we have not, targeted them for investigations," said Richard Meyer, a special agent for the DEA's San Francisco field division. Meyer asserts that his agency is focused on investigating drug trafficking operations, no matter where it leads them. "We have heard people in the community saying that many traffickers are using the cannabis clubs as a smoke screen to engage in this business for profit and are not concerned with the sick. Any cultivation, possession, and distribution of marijuana is illegal under federal law. It is our job is to enforce those laws and we will."

The DEA rejected an appeal made in 2000 by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule One substance to Schedule Two of the Federal Controlled Substances Act. This would permit doctors to issue a cannabis prescription with medical oversight. Instead, the federal government wants to punish doctors who now recommend cannabis to their patients. The Justice Department is seeking to overturn a federal district court ruling, Conant v. McCaffrey, which found that stifling cannabis recommendations violated physicians' First Amendment rights. On April 8, judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals questioned Department of Justice attorneys who are appealing an injunction against sanctioning these doctors.

"Why on earth does an administration that's committed to the concept of federalism . . . want to go to this length to put doctors in jail for doing something that's perfectly legal under state law?" asked Judge Alex Kozinski at the hearing. U.S. Attorney Mark Stern argued that the government should be allowed to investigate doctors whose advice "will make it easier to obtain marijuana." But he had difficulty convincing judges that there was a distinction between discussing cannabis and recommending it.

It's unclear when the appeals court will issue a ruling in this case. But the cannabis clubs say they are bracing for more federal raids. The ASA campaign is trying to rally public opinion to support the clubs and understand "the futility of the war on drugs and the value of medical marijuana." ASA is encouraging supporters to sign a "letter of resistance" opposing Hutchinson and the Bush administration's medical cannabis policies.

"This is going to be ASA vs. Asa," says Sherer. "We are looking the Bush administration in the eye, the voters here voted for this and this country is a democracy, you are not going to take medical marijuana away from the state of California."

Allegations And Proposals

The ASA campaign is also attempting to build stronger ties between the cannabis clubs and their local communities. To support this effort, it is developing a set of recommended protocols for the operation of cannabis dispensaries. The guidelines include a mediation process that clubs can use to address the concerns of residents, city officials, or local law enforcement. The protocols are modeled on those which have already been used by the Alliance of Berkeley Patients to address a zoning dispute at a Berkeley club and two armed robberies at a second club. The Alliance represents five Berkeley cannabis clubs. "We are involving city government in the process so that if there is an issue or a situation with the city government or antagonism by the federal government, we have allies," says Sherer.

Prop. 215 offers no specific controls for the operation of medical cannabis clubs in California. Each club has its own regulations and each city and county negotiate their own medical marijuana laws. Sherer wants to encourage a set of statewide club guidelines, export the model to other cities, and network the Alliances together. "How do you police yourself when you are playing a fine line on the state level and illegal on the federal level?" asks Sherer. "Where do you go?"

The Alliance guidelines include membership restriction to qualified patients, the need to demonstrate patient eligibility and screening of members. Membership is not required but all the Berkeley clubs follow Alliance protocols. The Alliance investigates issues of non-compliance. "We don't provide cannabis to people that are not legally sanctioned to have it from their doctors and we won't provide more than they need for their personal use" said Debby Goldsberry, director of Berkeley Patients Group, a cannabis club which helped draft the Alliance guidelines.

Ed Rosenthal, one of the four men facing federal drug charges in connection with the DEA raid, agrees that common accounting standards could help thwart charges of club profiteering. He proposes that the city of San Francisco charter all its medical marijuana clubs and make the club employees officers of the city. The author of numerous books and articles on cannabis cultivation, Rosenthal also supports efforts to regulate cannabis quality and price. "I think patients have a right to expect a certain quality of product and the way to do that would be to standardize it," says Rosenthal.

Fred Medrano, the director of health and human services for the city of Berkeley, says the city has taken a low profile in regulating the medical cannabis clubs, leaving the responsibility of community coexistance to club operators. He says the Alliance guidelines are a useful way to set standards and mediate disputes. "Typically, in most communities, there is tension between the needs of patients to receive medical marijuana for medical purposes and the potential effects on the community living in the neighborhood," said Medrano. "There has to be acceptance and you can't have that unless you are willing to meet people and form relationships. This is a pretty good first step."

The importance of resolving community concerns became clear after the February DEA raid in San Francisco when it was revealed that accusations of trafficking by a city clergy member, had helped the DEA obtain search warrants. The complaint was brought by the Reverend Father Nazarin, who says he the presiding bishop of a breakaway faction of the Iraqi-based Assyrian-Chaldean Catholic Church. Nazarin was associated with another San Francisco cannabis club -- the St. Martin de Porres Chapel which he considered a department of his church. According to a DEA affidavit, Nazarin wrote a letter to the agency alleging that some of the medical marijuana dispensaries were "owned and operated by greedy, professional drug dealers who hide behind the shield of Proposition 215."

In a later statement, Nazarin further charged that the medical cannabis movement had been "hijacked" by profiteers who hid profits with fraudulent bookkeeping. Nazarin said staff members at the Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center club told him that another member of the staff, Rick Watts, was "operating an illegal drug market in the back room" and insisted that "the medical marijuana movement is either unwilling or unable to expel its criminal elements."

Watts, son of the philosopher Alan Watts, was one of the four men arrested in the DEA sweep. Neither Watts, nor his attorney, had any comment on the case.

Counter Charges And Court Rulings

Nazarin's allegations rocked the Bay Area medical cannabis community. The directors of the St. Martin de Porres Chapel say they were not aware of Nazarin's concerns before he sent his letter to the DEA. They reject Nazarin's charges and have banished him from the St. Martin club, which is being reorganized under a new name. St. Martin director Wayne Justmann, said that Father Nazarin grew cannabis as a patient caregiver under Prop. 215 and attempted to sell it to St. Martin at inflated prices. Both Justmann and Rosenthal say Nazarin is motivated by a financial interest in the Sixth Street club. "He wanted control over [St. Martin] and the Sixth Street facility," said Justmann. "He wanted to take over."

Nazarin vehemently denies that he sought to control the St. Martin or Sixth Streets clubs. He says he simply wants to alert authorities of club mismanagement, and wrote another letter to the DEA this month claiming that "a criminal element is moving to take control" of the Northern California clubs. Debby Goldsberry says she wishes there was an Alliance in San Francisco where Nazarin could put his issues on the table. Had Nazarin's charges been directed against a Berkeley club, Goldsberry said the Alliance would have investigated and reached a consensus solution satisfactory to all parties. At this point, Goldsberry says she is skeptical of Nazarin's allegations of mismanagement.

"I have been involved in these issues for 10 to 12 years and I haven't seen that kind of profiteering," she said. "It doesn't seem to me that he has any widespread experience with the movement, he is applying limited experiences in a broad and sweeping way and he is harming us all."

Medrano points out that without a forum for settling disputes, the potential for conflict will continue to exist. "Unless you create the vehicle for opportunities for relationship building and coexistence, you are basically left with a lot of unknowns and sometimes the unknowns can lead to hasty conclusions and prejudices," Medrano said.

For his part, Nazarin says the clubs should address allegations of mismanagement by working more closely with federal authorities. He proposes that club workers and volunteers undergo background checks. But he declined to provide any information about his own background or the activities of his breakaway church. The Assyrian-Chaldean Catholic diocese in the United States does not recognize him as a priest.

Nazarin further proposes that the DEA and the Attorney General of California designate non-profit organizations to cultivate and distribute medical marijuana to approved dispensaries that buy only from these sources. "I would ask the U.S. Attorney General to encourage faith-based organizations to assume the lead in this project," writes Nazarin.

DEA special agent Meyer says the agency is not ready to acknowledge that marijuana has any medicinal value or help to distribute it. "I think it is good that the clubs are concerned about people abusing the system," says Meyer. "But that does not change the fact that under federal law marijuana is illegal and we all know that federal law supersedes state law."

Federal legislation does not always trump state law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that medical necessity was not a defense against prosecution under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. But on April 19, the case will be heard again by a U.S. District Court judge who will decide whether the state or the federal government has jurisdiction over medical marijuana distribution inside California. The ASA campaign is planning street protests to mark the date.

Ann Harrison is a freelance writer in San Francisco.

Source: AlterNet
Author: Ann Harrison, AlterNet
Published: April 16, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Independent Media Institute
Contact: info@alternet.org
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
DL: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12884

Related Articles & Web Site:

Cannabis Action Network
http://www.cannabisaction.net/

DEA Raids Medical Marijuana Club
http://freedomtoexhale.com/raid.htm

Medicinal Cannabis Research Links
http://freedomtoexhale.com/research.htm

Pot Raids Stir S.F. Protests
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12001.shtml

DEA Chief Faces Protests After Agents Raid
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11998.shtml


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Comment #19 posted by dddd on April 20, 2002 at 03:56:11 PT
I'm gonna call my lawyer!
..".Oh yeah!,,,,,,who's your lawyer?"
...."I am represented by ElToonces!..El Toonces will destroy you in court.."..
..
..about a week later,,the opposing party shits their pants when they recieve a letter from;
The Law Office Of:"F.Lee El Toonces Cochran-Scalia-Allred"....

...dddd


[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #18 posted by el_toonces on April 20, 2002 at 00:59:51 PT:

FoM, thanks..
...for the link to the article about Terry. He is a great DA. I can't tell everyone how good it feels to be in a crowd of "cannabis consumers" (to use Mikki's new 'out of the closet' term) welcomed by the local DA! To walk around town and not worry about using your medicine! I am proud of being a lawyer when I can call people like Terry a colleague.

Be well.

el

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #17 posted by dddd on April 19, 2002 at 17:38:44 PT
..Once Again,,EJ brings up an excellent point..
..."So the fact that the DEA cares that the clubs care about people abusing the system means that the DEA does recognize that it is being used as a medicine."........
... ..This comment struck me somehow,,in that,, a recognition of medical Marijuana,by the DEA,and all the implicated ramifications of legally relevant acknowledgments,,would seem to be fodder for a robust legal inquiry ,concerning the medical values of Marijuana.....
....verbosely yours....dddd


[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #16 posted by mayan on April 19, 2002 at 17:19:41 PT
Thank You!!!
Hats of to Marc Emery, without him the cause wouldn't be the same.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #15 posted by 2Spooky on April 19, 2002 at 07:25:07 PT:

good news
As a former resident of Placer County, CA (under the iron fist of Don Nunes, former corrupt sheriff and his gang of thugs), and with my wife a member of the club where Lucy and Steve Tuck worked in Arcata, I am very aware of both of the histories involved.

We send our best wishes and support to you guys, and a big thank you to Marc Emery.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #14 posted by Lehder on April 19, 2002 at 04:27:22 PT
thank you, DdC
Perpetuating the war is what feeds fascism. I can't be apart of that...I am not a cannabis legalizer, I am an antifascist knowing WoD feeds my enemy.

I like the message of your comment as a whole and maybe I should not extract one note from a song, but...thanks.

Cannabis can be used generally for good health, mental and physical. It's not necessary to be an environmentalist or a terminally ill cancer victim to benefit from it. The categorizations "med" and "rec" and "hemp" seem to me to trivialize cannabis: it's more than all of those.



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #13 posted by Toker00 on April 18, 2002 at 21:15:25 PT
DdC
I concur, Bro.

Thanks once again, for your unselfish actions, and joints not returned. And for your NEVER TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Cannabis. Cannabitionist. Cannabism. Cannabitionary. Cannabology. Cannavisionary. Cannabiologist. Cannanuerologist. Cannacrat. Cannapublican. Cannagreen. Cannabertarian. Cannaphysiologist. And so on...

Peace. Realize, then Legalize.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #12 posted by Dan B on April 18, 2002 at 20:22:12 PT
bon=bond
I missed the "d" key. No, I really do not think Marc Emery offered the authorities bon bons in exchange for getting both Steves out of custody.

: )

Dan B

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #11 posted by Dan B on April 18, 2002 at 20:20:25 PT:

Thanks for the info, idbsne1.
Good news is always great to hear. I think the telephone/email blitz had a positive effect, in addition to the bon put up by Marc Emery, so thanks to Marc and thanks to everyone who pitched in by making phone calls and sending emails.

By the way, a positive aspect of all this is that it got a lot of us off our butts and into other people's faces with this issue. And, a lot of people now know more about medical marijuana than they did before this began.

There is still much to be done. In three weeks there will be a hearing, and we should not let up on letting the officials in Canada know how much we are opposed to sending either Steve back to America. It's time for round 2 to begin.

Dan B

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #10 posted by FoM on April 18, 2002 at 19:52:53 PT
Hope Check This Link Out! Can't Post It -SFC
I can post it on my personal page though.

San Francisco Chronicle Article On Conference

Marijuana Advocates Cheer on Hallinan

D.A. calls pot good medicine, part of religious experience

Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Copyright: 2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 7

San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, preaching to the choir, told 200 marijuana advocates this morning that marijuana is not only good medicine but "unquestionably part of religious experience."

The chief law enforcement officer of San Francisco said "thousands of people are being locked up for their religious beliefs" for smoking marijuana.

In a half-hour address to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Hallinan said prosecution for marijuana possession makes no sense and reiterated his policy opposing prison sentences for any marijuana conviction.

Complete Article: http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/nc.htm

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #9 posted by Hope on April 18, 2002 at 19:51:25 PT
Amen, FoM!
My sentiments exactly. I've been so worried about them and could barely think of anything else.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #8 posted by Hope on April 18, 2002 at 19:47:12 PT
DdC
True words, DdC.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #7 posted by FoM on April 18, 2002 at 19:46:20 PT
Yes, Thank You Marc Emery!
Thank goodness for people who will do something when they know they should.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #6 posted by idbsne1 on April 18, 2002 at 19:29:24 PT
Tuck and Kubby...
I know it's late, but incase you don't knmow...Both Steve's are back home and safe. They have a hearing in three weeks, but thank God are safe now. Marc Emery put up the lawyers and the bond. Thanks Marc.

idbsne1

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #5 posted by DdC on April 18, 2002 at 18:58:52 PT
Maybe we should rethink this... ¶8)
As a hospice HHA trying to help people get cannabis the last 20 years. I believe, as do the families that it is for medicinal reasons and comfort, not profits. I have also enjoyed cannabis on a personal level over 30 years and I am quite familiar with the hardrugs and booze and there is no question cannabis is in a totally different catagory. Benign and the only real danger is prohibition. In those 30+ years I have also befriended good caring cannabis growers supplying a demand as true public servants. As an environmental concernist I see the value and less toxins involved by replacing the nonrenewable crude oil, cotton, trees, meat and nukes with the natural food, fuel and fiber that built this country-hemp.

But that isn't what I experience trying to gather people for the MMM march a few years ago, and have since washed my hands of it. Or on these and other boards. Vested ignorance in the ranks? Hampsters against medcanners against rec and religious and the "professional environmentalist" shunning cannabis with the farmworkers and Black Caucus stigmatized by Hearst. Accepting the fossil fuel poisons sprayed in the fields, also shunning cannabis. The medcanners got my support when I passed the initiative for signatures, unpaid. Yet still shun "stoners" as giving a bad name to the "cause". Hey schmucks, it was the rec users who turned you on in the late 70's in the first place!!! Or when I have one on ones with the physicians and families but I will not sign my name to any organization that distinguishes between re-creation, hemp and medicinal again. To think it justified to incarcerate anyone for using cannabis for any reason is grossly apauling. I wear hemp because I like it, but I find the hampsters not wanting to join because they worked hard building a solid reputation of closet users and straight people or boozers not so called "stoners". Afraid the wod junkie customers might not buy? Hey get a grip, they ain't buying now. And shunning rec users only shows the hypocrisy, the same hypocrisy as the merchants of D.E.A.th. No bystanders. Us or them, not some of us against them and each other.

I've even had some recreational users tell me they're against "stoners", knowing the false antimotivation myth, still in reality siding with the asaholes blaming them for using cannabis and giving the movement a bad name. I'm disgusted with giving people "Too much" information, even though its been repressed from the public eye over 65 years I'm still told its overload or the reason is what the D.E.A.th claim or I should sell it as one would sell a car and leave out pertinent info like fascism and racism and profits on prohibition. So lets summerize...

I don't have a problem getting it or do my patients. 32 countries grow hemp so that won't be a problem getting material or fabricated clothing.

Growing small patches I keep cost minimal, even lower than if it was legal. risk? Lifes a risk...

I don't sell it for profit, only at cost, or the thousands of joints I've loaned and never got paid back, but outside of sticking my neck out for sick and dying people or advocating it as an alternative to the greed machine...Knowing the difference between schwagg and ganja and adulteranted ditchweed...With no criminal record by being careful...I really have minimal risk and according to this societies dysfunctions...Compassion is not good business. Why do it? Spirit is unproven, unscientific and lame in the greed world of self preservation. Why should I try to legalize? Whats in it for me?

1/2

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #4 posted by DdC on April 18, 2002 at 18:58:13 PT
Maybe we should rethink this... ¶8) 2
So, because Steve Kubby may die in jail, a Libertarian against air quality controls like Hairy Browne rivers? A loving husband and father, but hey so was Tom and Rollie and the countless other victims. Especially those without private doctors to write state initiative permission slips. Because kids will get asthma from the pollutants eliminated by using renewable resources without sulfur or lead or PCB's and POP's and because in reality over 70 million Americans know in their hearts from personal experience that profits drive prohibition and politico's not held accountable will do very damaging things, and continue them until the people stand together and stop perpetuating the war on some drugs Bush doesn't sell. Just look at the NYC mayors hypocrisy.

Now I'm going to burn one illegally as I've done since 69...

And contemplate if I should help take huge profits from my friends growing, or side with suffering people's clubs who shun the remaining parts or the plant or with hampsters shunning the flowering parts or the food people siding with the D.E.A.th that they are right in outlawing any traces. You know who you are and now you know all of the products I've bought from you over the years will never happen again. That your customers are the very same you shun when 735,000 get arrested each year. The clothing will be made from now on and not purchased by American corporate minded hampster prohibitionist. I'll buy from countries with sense enough to grow hemp and only my patients and those asking me will get support in the form of ganjameds. Perpetuating the war is what feeds fascism. I can't be apart of that...I am not a cannabis legalizer, I am an antifascist knowing WoD feeds my enemy. And that cannabis is the statistics to perpetuate wod.

All victims of chemicalization, globalization, corporatism, pollution, jail or disease have a plant that will help their causes. Solidarity or perpetuation, that is the choice... ...and only perpetuation profits fascism, not ending the war on cannabis, the Keystone of WoD. And only solidarity will remove hemp and ganja meds and an alternative to booze and street Pharmaids from its immoral if not illegal position of schedule#1
Peace, Love and Liberty or we keep D.E.A.th!
DdC

Excerpted from THE DOPESTERS OF LA-LA LAND
July 17 2001 (No addy available)

We don't know whether to laugh or cry. Hollywood North could more accurately be described as Miami North, or worse, Bogota North. Thousands of people -- as many as 150,000, according to the OCA -- depend on marijuana for their livelihood. It's impossible to calculate the economic spinoffs, but they must be, um, high.

MG's Note: There are approximately four million people living in B.C. The Greater Vancouver area is home to some two million residents. BOGOTA?! Well, the U.N.'s International Narcotics Board did refer to us as "British Colombia" in their last report. A typo, I'm sure. )

To someone who's not smoking the local product, it's obvious that Grow Busters are fighting a losing battle. It doesn't help that marijuana is getting great press as a pharmacological Mother Teresa, effective in relieving suffering from arthritis to AIDS. According to a researcher at the recent Banff conference of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, "is probably one of the safest compounds on Earth." Notice they always have these conferences at high altitudes.

So relax, folks, roll up a spliff and take a deep drag. Inhale if you like, and enjoy the medicinal benefits of one of the safest compounds on Earth. Of course, the very success of the pot lobby will mean the end of the underground gravy train. How long before the cultivation of medical-quality marijuana is taken over by the big drug firms, and all these local entrepreneurs are reduced to selling Chia Pets and velvet paintings at the side of the road?

In a word, Watson, pot. While the Rest of Canada teeters on the brink of another recession, the OCA reveals that marijuana puts $6-billion into B.C.'s underground economy. We're high and dry.(MG's Note: $1 billion? $2 billion? $4 billion? $6 billion? TEN billion dollars? Let's legalize already and get us some more ACCURATE figures.)

(MG's Note: Last I heard, it wasn't too easy for a pharmaceutical company to get its hands on a patent for an entire species of plant that grows worldwide. By the way, that "Chia Pet" statement probably just helped somebody here in B.C. spawn a new idea, if ya know what I mean. )

Then we'll have something to worry about. Compared to the cultivation of the politically correct miracle drug of the 21st century, the unlicensed flogging of irredeemable kitsch is a real crime.

DEA special agent Meyer says the agency is not ready to acknowledge that marijuana has any medicinal value or help to distribute it.

Get Over It
http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/35/35917.gif

"In a civilised society, it is the duty of all citizens to obey just laws. But at the same time it is the duty of all citizens to disobey unjust laws."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed."
Thomas Jefferson, 1776.


[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #3 posted by mayan on April 18, 2002 at 18:06:08 PT
OOPS!
I menat to say Republicrats,not Democrats.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #2 posted by mayan on April 18, 2002 at 18:05:14 PT
EJ...
They might grab it, but will they wear it? I doubt it. They will fight the cannabis plant until they are simply forced to accept it. The Democrats & their binding CFR decided a long time ago that cannabis would never be a part of their platform or agenda.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on April 18, 2002 at 17:27:51 PT
Asa be a man and have out with it now!
DEA special agent Meyer says the agency is not ready to acknowledge that marijuana has any medicinal value or help to distribute it. "I think it is good that the clubs are concerned about people abusing the system," says Meyer.

The DEA is treading water haha.

If there were in fact no medicinal value to marijuana, then by definition, EVERYONE would be abusing the system.

So the fact that the DEA cares that the clubs care about people abusing the system means that the DEA does recognize that it is being used as a medicine.

So when will they be "ready" to acknowledge it?

I know!

The moment it becomes politically advantageous for Bush to strike a major blow against some enemy of his by doing so.

It would be a good way, actually, to smack Gore down.

Well Bush did accomplish a medical marijuana smackdown of Gore in 2000 when Gore lied about the IOM report, and Bush countered by faking concern for states' rights.

It's so silly, with 73% public support in the Pew poll, it's such a nice shiny brass ring, why aren't both parties grabbing for it at once?

The one that grabs it first will get elected in 2004.



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