Pubdate: Fri, 14 May 2010
Source: Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
Copyright: 2010 The Gazette
Contact: http://www.gazette.com/sections/opinion/submitletter/
Website: http://www.gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/165
Author: Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial 
board. Friend him on Facebook

POLICE DISRESPECTING THE LAW

Medical marijuana retailers, look out. You are not paranoid from a 
contact high. They really are out to get you and will do their best 
to put you out of business.

Your trade annoys and frightens some of our state's most dedicated, 
loyal and respected law enforcement professionals. Any doubt of that 
vanished Wednesday, after the Colorado Springs Police Department 
conducted warranted searches of seven medical marijuana dispensaries. 
The raids, which resulted in no immediate arrests, came one day after 
the Colorado Legislature approved sweeping regulations to the medical 
marijuana trade that go beyond the type of time, place and manner 
restrictions that courts permit governments to impose on 
constitutional rights of individuals. Included in the bill is an 
unconstitutional provision that would allow cities and counties to 
forbid medical marijuana dispensaries. Be assured that all city and 
county officials in Colorado will come under pressure to outlaw dispensaries.

So what can you do, as the drama unfolds? Mostly you can live and do 
business like the law-abiding, role-model citizens that most of you 
are. Avoid stupid decisions and mistakes, pay taxes, defend your 
rights and obey the letter of the law.

Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May, whose district includes 
Colorado Springs and El Paso County, has made no secret of his belief 
that marijuana dispensaries are illegal -- despite clear language in 
the Colorado Constitution that protects the rights of individuals to 
acquire and possess medical marijuana. That right necessitates the 
free commercial trade of medical marijuana.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, like May, has professed his 
disdain for Coloradans' constitutional right to buy, sell, produce 
and consume medical marijuana.

Throughout Colorado, prosecutors and top law enforcement officials 
have expressed concerns and taken actions to impede this right. For 
their entire lives, marijuana has been an unlawful street drug 
associated with crime and social degeneracy. They are certainly 
correct in suggesting that people will abuse medical marijuana, 
obtaining referrals in order to obtain the drug for recreational use. 
They are correct in suggesting that widespread abuse of marijuana is 
not healthy for our culture.

But we already have widespread marijuana abuse, and nothing the law 
enforcement establishment has tried for the past half-century has 
done much to curtail it. If anything, Colorado's flourishing medical 
marijuana trade has taken a business that once prospered in the seedy 
underbelly of the black market and placed it in the broad daylight of 
Main Street and strip malls, where sellers pay taxes and obey laws 
for all to see. That, ironically, is why police were able to conduct 
seven easy searches Wednesday.

An above-board, regulated, lawful means of obtaining medical 
marijuana is what a majority of Colorado voters had in mind when they 
added Amendment 20 to the Constitution 10 years ago. Law enforcement 
personnel and legislators who seek to eliminate retailers though 
intimidation or local ordinances will restore the black market.

Just as medical marijuana retailers should obey the law, so should 
law enforcement officials. They must enforce the Constitution as it 
is written, not as they wish it were written. In Colorado, it 
protects the free trade of medical marijuana from government 
officials who can't stand it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom