“Yesterday, armed federal DEA agents raided Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic, a licensed medical marijuana facility in San Francisco. This action – seemingly at odds with the recent policy change announced by the U.S. Justice Department – drew the ire of San Franciscans, who overwhelmingly support medical marijuana access.

MPP, in an email, asked for folks to send an email to the President and AG of the U.S. to stop these raids. I sent one using the default text.

Copies went to:
President Barack Obama
Attorney General Eric Holder

During your campaign you made a promise to medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. You said that an Obama administration would not use “Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” But on March 25, the DEA did just that, raiding a medical marijuana collective in San Francisco.

This raid came only days after the attorney general reaffirmed your administration’s commitment to ending the Bush-era tactic of raiding medical marijuana collectives who comply with state laws.

Please let me know what actions you are taking to ensure that this never happens again.

Sincerely, Ken Klaser

“Well, certainly, I have seen in my own state of California people over and over voting a big majority the whole issue of marijuana and possession of that,” Sanchez said this morning on CNN. “So maybe it would be a good pilot program to see how that regulation of marijuana might happen in California since the populous, the majority of Californians believe maybe that should happen.”

I was most interested in the assertion that California outlawed marijuana in 1913, which is curious timing given that the creation of the Federal Reserve happened in the same year, which itself is directly related to a HUGE focus of Congress the last six months or so, and more recently President Obama’s administration.

“The county Board of Supervisors has refused to issue identification cards to qualified patients – a state law the county is challenging in the U.S. Supreme Court – and storefront dispensaries in San Diego and San Marcos have been raided repeatedly.“

I wonder what the world would be like if we all followed the county Board of Supervisors’ example?

This is the reason I’ve changed my opinion from being a Medical Marijuana supporter only, to an opinion for decriminalization and ultimately, legalization. The people supervising our county may be allowed to thumb their noses at California’s Medical Marijuana law, but what happens to us little folks when we thumb our nose at, say, a parking ticket fee, or perhaps the mandatory education of our children? Why it seems there’s an entire mechanism of bill collectors and or enforcers sent in to correct our errant ways, and we’re almost always allowed to challenge in court, but we better follow the existing law in the meantime.

This is a difficult hypocrisy to reconcile.

Here’s some relevant text of Proposition 215 which was passed:

(d) Section 11357, relating to the possession of marijuana, and Section 11358, relating to the cultivation of marijuana, shall not apply to a patient, or to a patient’s primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician.
(e) For the purposes of this section, ”primary caregiver” means the individual designated by the person exempted under this section who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person.

So, it’s been 12 years since passage of Proposition 215, and punishment is still given out to some folks in our county, because some other folks don’t like it.

Legalization, taxation, and regulation seems a better option given the Supervisors refusal. Of course they may still decide to refuse to cooperate, but then there’s the matter of messing with tax receipts which then might get the serious attention of entities bigger than them.

An additional benefit of marijuana legalization would be to all the farmers who may want to grow industrial hemp for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to paper and clothing. That seems like a greener Gaia. It makes more sense to me that paper be made from a crop which is annual, perhaps even more frequent, instead of old-growth trees, or even planted trees that are some years old.

For those who haven’t read the history of marijuana prohibition, it has been noted (by others) that some with investments in the paper industry played a rather large part in helping create the federal prohibition. I have tried to purchase hemp jeans at a competitive-to-cotton-jeans price, and been stymied in that effort. It’s my understanding that hemp fabric, of an equivalent fabric weight, is stronger and more durable than cotton.

Here are some excerpts from SB420, a 2003 law which also appears to have passed into law.

(d) The Legislature further finds and declares both of the following:
(1) A state identification card program will further the goals outlined in this section.
(2) With respect to individuals, the identification system established pursuant to this act must be wholly voluntary, and a patient entitled to the protections of Section 11362.5 of the Health and Safety Code need not possess an identification card in order to claim the protections afforded by that section.

snip

11362.71. (a) The department shall establish and maintain a voluntary program for the issuance of identification cards to qualified patients who satisfy the requirements of this article and voluntarily apply to the identification card program.
(b) Every county health department shall do all of the following:
(1) Provide applications upon request to individuals seeking to join the identification card program.
(2) Receive and process completed applications in accordance with Section 11362.72.
(3) Maintain records of identification card programs.
(4) Utilize protocols developed by the department pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (d).
(5) Issue identification cards developed by the department to approved applicants and designated primary caregivers.
(c) The county health department may designate another governmental or a nongovernmental entity or organization to perform the functions described in subdivision (b), except for an entity or organization that cultivates or distributes marijuana.
(d) The department shall develop all of the following:
(1) Protocols that shall be used by county health departments and their designees to implement the responsibilities described in subdivision (b), including, but not limited to, protocols to confirm the accuracy of information contained in an application and to protect the confidentiality of program records.
(2) Application forms that shall be issued to requesting applicants.
(3) An identification card that identifies a person authorized to engage in the medical use of marijuana and an identification card that identifies the person’s designated primary caregiver, if any. The two identification cards developed pursuant to this paragraph shall be easily distinguishable from each other.
(e) No person or designated primary caregiver in possession of a valid identification card shall be subject to arrest for possession, transportation, delivery, or cultivation of medical marijuana in an amount approved by the department pursuant to Section 11362.77, unless there is reasonable cause to believe that the information contained in the card is false or falsified, the card has been obtained by means of fraud, or the person is otherwise in violation of the provisions of this article.
(f) It shall not be necessary for a person to obtain an identification card in order to claim the protections of Section 11362.5.

So it appears the Supervisors may be hiding behind the words “voluntary program” in section “11362.71. (a)”, though I’m not certain that phrase was intended for the ID program to be voluntary for counties. Perhaps that is one way of narrowly interpreting it (I am not a lawyer or a judge), but I read it as a program that’s voluntary for patients but not the county. I wonder if there have been any rulings on that two-word phrase within the context of the entire text of SB420, and then even more broadly, within the context of Prop 215 itself.

I just find the hypocrisy of our laws fascinating: how little folks get tossed in jail so easily by the machine, and how our leaders seem to routinely escape this same fate. We as citizens get a law passed, feel like we’re doing good for the ill and sick, then find out years later that our local level of government has obstructed or hijacked our intent, ruining some good folks liberty and pursuit of happiness in the process.