Federal Govt to Leave Medical Marijuana to Locals

This really is a remarkable development. From CNN:

Patients in the 13 states where medical marijuana is legal can now light up without fear of federal reprisal, but they may still have to answer to local authorities.

The Justice Department this week announced that it will no longer seek to prosecute people using, prescribing, or distributing pot for medical purposes, as long as they're in compliance with local law. However, regulations in some medical marijuana states remain murky.

For example, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley recently announced a plan to crack down on all illegal medical marijuana dispensaries in his jurisdiction, arguing that they are illegal. In California, as well as several other medical marijuana states, laws governing distribution vary from city to city and county to county. Matters are simpler in Rhode Island and New Mexico, which formally license medical marijuana providers.

Nevertheless, advocates hail the news as a step in the right direction. They say the move will likely encourage more doctors to consider prescribing medical marijuana in states where it's legal. And more patients may try using the drug, which can be prescribed for chronic pain, nausea, and other conditions.

The federal move could also embolden other states to make their own laws allowing medical marijuana use, they say.

"This is a very significant development," says Bruce Mirken, the director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates the full-scale legalization of marijuana. "This is the most significant and most positive development on federal medical-marijuana policy since the Carter administration." Medical marijuana policy move sparks cautious optimism

Anybody who thinks about it realizes that marijuana is much safer in every way than alcohol, which is legal. Why are our prisons full of marijuana users and dealers? Maybe it has something to do with race relations in the 1930s, maybe it has to do with the desire of cotton farmers to wipe out the hemp industry, nobody knows why marijuana use is considered such a terrible crime, but for some reason possession, use, or sale of that common weed is enough to send somebody to prison for a long time.

I had a friend in California once who was busted smoking a joint sitting in his car and ended up in the cell next to Charlie Manson.

Turns out pot has a lot of beneficial effects, and some states and municipalities have legalized marijuana for medical use, but the Bush administration cracked down on providers, enforcing antiquated federal law. When Obama came in he said he was not going to enforce those laws, but the DEA still busted people selling medical marijuana, it was one of those campaign promises that were not kept. But now it looks like the policy is changing for real. No law needs to be changed, all they have to do is kill the budget for enforcement.

This is a change at the federal level, and conservatives should be dancing in the streets celebrating this reduction of federal control and empowerment of states. Just a minute, let me look out my window. Hmm, I don't seem them dancing out there.

I wonder, is anybody opposed to this? Is there anybody who really does believe that possession of marijuana needs to be a federal crime?

Wow, this is interesting. The blog of the Office of National Drug Control Policy had said that in San Francisco there were more medical marijuana outlets than Starbucks. That's pretty impressive -- there must be a Starbucks on every streetcorner, especially in a city like San Francisco. But ... turns out the feds were exaggerating. The S F Chronicle's City Insider looked closely at the data and found that the government's map contained a lot of fiction. It appears now that the government's statement has been removed from the Internet.