cannabisnews.com: Movement On Medical Marijuana!





Movement On Medical Marijuana!
Posted by FoM on July 08, 1999 at 06:44:20 PT
Source: Map Inc.
Several news stories in the past few days have described drafts of California's Medical Marijuana Task Force, appointed in March by Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The details - a voluntary patient registry that issues identification cards, with further guidelines to be worked out - are about what we reported June 21, after editorial writer Alan Bock interviewed Mr. Lockyer. The final report could be issued as early as next week. Apparently, the attorney general, who favored the medical marijuana initiative Prop. 215 and now aims to implement it, wants to present as united a front as possible next week and is cultivating support among some of the most skeptical members of the law enforcement community. "When the final report is really issued, it will be in a formal setting after getting all members on board and all the i's dotted and the t's crossed," Nathan Barankin of Mr. Lockyer's office told us. "Mr. Lockyer wants a proposal that will work not just in concept but in practice," he said. "That's why he's working so hard to make sure law enforcement organizations can support the final version." We can and do tut-tut about the solicitude paid to some law enforcement officials who have essentially ignored the voters' wishes on medical marijuana since November of 1996 when Prop. 215 passed with a significant 56-43 majority. The proposition itself has not been challenged in court. Ideally, law enforcement officials are supposed to find ways to uphold the law as the people pass it, not dictate the terms of enforcement. But, law enforcement organizations have political clout and the ability to put people in jail for trying, ad hoc and perhaps imperfectly, to implement Prop. 215, as happened to Orange County resident Marvin Chavez and others. Efforts by a few California cities to try to implement Prop. 215 have been scattered and incomplete. Some members of the public are still wary. So it is prudent for Mr. Lockyer to be concerned about getting law enforcement support for his task force proposals. Once the task force report is issued and implementation is attempted, however, Mr. Lockyer could face a challenge from the federal government, which prohibits sale of marijuana and still places marijuana on Schedule I, reserved for uniquely dangerous drugs with no known medical uses. Mr. Lockyer could make a stand for states' rights on the matter and he could join forces with the attorneys general of other states to file a brief on behalf of a petition by John Gettmann of Virginia to reschedule marijuana, making medical research easier, among other things. He and other state officials could also join Pearson v. McCaffery(sic), in which a coalition of doctors, scientists and patients contend that the federal government has no authority to invalidate state medical marijuana laws when there is no evidence that implementation would involve interstate commerce. A workable plan to implement Prop. 215 will be welcome. But if California patients also need protection from the federal government, Attorney General Lockyer should put himself in a position to provide it. 
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