Sometimes it’s helpful to shift focus from California to other states, if only to see the same issues from a fresh perspective. From the Fort Collins Coloradoan comes this excellent editorial, which laments the federal government’s mixed signals about whether dispensaries risk federal prosecution. (Special kudos to the writer for using “moratoria” correctly.)
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Colorado communities face significant challenges as marijuana attempts to move from an underground drug to a legitimate medicinal business.
Conflicting messages from the federal government aren’t helping.
As the Coloradoan documented in a three-day series concluding today, medical marijuana dispensaries have rapidly expanded in Northern Colorado, as they have along the entire Front Range. Early sales-tax figures indicate medical marijuana is already a $6 million annual business in Fort Collins, Loveland and Windsor.
All three communities currently have in place moratoria on new dispensary licenses so city governments can craft regulations that can allow safe and controlled operations of new dispensaries. All three city governments are involved in good-faith efforts to allow dispensaries to operate, unlike other communities that have banned them.
Colorado voters in 2000 approved a constitutional amendment to allow marijuana to be used in treatment of certain chronic illnesses. Until last year, the medical marijuana business was largely the purview of home-based caregivers who grew a limited number of plants for patients.
That all changed last year when the Justice Department reversed previous policy and advised federal law enforcement agents wouldn’t target people using medical marijuana in compliance with state laws. Dispensaries and grow operations proliferated across the state.
But Jeffrey Sweetin, the top Drug Enforcement Administration official in Colorado, said Friday that “every dispensary in the state is in blatant violation of federal law.” He said the DEA would soon target dispensaries for arrests and seizures. The DEA last week arrested the operator of a high-profile Highlands Ranch growing operation.
The recent DEA actions have added to the uncertainty about medical marijuana, just as the state and local communities were taking steps to regulate voter-approved medical treatment.
State and local governments should continue with their regulatory efforts, but the federal government needs to clear up the ambiguity in its approach. How can the federal government say on one hand that it won’t interfere with patients using medical marijuana in compliance with state law, while at the same time targeting the dispensaries that provide those patients with their medicine?
The conflict between state and federal laws on medical marijuana has created confusion and uncertainty for years. Things seemed to be getting a bit clearer in recent months, but recent actions and statements by the DEA have further muddied the situation.
Colorado needs clarity from the federal government on the medical marijuana issue. Attorney General Eric Holder and the various Justice Department agencies need to provide that clarity.
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