Pubdate: Tue, 24 Sep 2002
Source: Naples Daily News (FL)
Section: Guest Editorial
Copyright: 2002 Naples Daily News.
Contact:  http://www.naplesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/284
Note: Note: Publisher prints several newspapers - please indicate which 
newspaper in LTEs.
Author: Sacramento Bee

FRIENDS OF METH?

wit once defined a fanatic as a person who redoubles his effort just as he 
loses sight of his objective. That wit must have been thinking of U.S. 
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administrator Asa 
Hutchinson.

Their objective is supposed to be chasing drug traffickers who sell 
dangerous drugs such as methamphetamines and heroin to children. Instead, 
they are raiding plots that supply medical marijuana to grandmothers with 
cancer under the terms of California's Proposition 215.

The state's growing anger over Ashcroft's fanaticism crystallized this 
month after DEA agents raided a medical marijuana cooperative in Santa Cruz 
that operates responsibly with the support of local officials and police. 
Santa Cruz city officials gathered the other day with doctors, lawyers and 
patients to openly distribute medical marijuana in defiance of federal 
officials.

And they are right to be angry. As California Attorney General Bill Lockyer 
spelled out in a recent letter to Ashcroft and Hutchinson, the raids, 
conducted without consulting local and state authorities, are doubly 
outrageous.

For one thing, they are unethical abuses of law enforcement power. Lockyer 
points out that the raids are being conducted without any expectation that 
the targets can or will be successfully prosecuted. There's not a jury 
anywhere in California that would convict someone operating a medical 
marijuana cooperative that state authorities have sanctioned under 
Proposition 215. The raids are punishment being meted out without 
conviction or trial.

Even more important, every hour a federal agent spends chasing medical 
marijuana is an hour not available to California's more serious drug 
problems. Medical marijuana, Lockyer correctly noted, "represents little 
danger to the public and is certainly not a concern that would warrant 
diverting scarce federal resources away from the fight against domestic 
methamphetamine production, heroin distribution or international terrorism."

Every time Ashcroft and the DEA go after medical marijuana users, life gets 
a little easier on traffickers in methamphetamines and heroin. That's 
something even a fanatic should be able to understand.
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