Pubdate: Tue, 05 Jul 2011
Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA)
Copyright: 2011 Record Searchlight
Contact:  http://www.redding.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MARIJUANA MEMO IS STARK REMINDER: LAW IS UNCHANGED

Career lawmen and pot smokers don't normally pal around, but Redding 
Police Chief Peter Hansen has a surprisingly positive attitude toward 
the city's medical-marijuana collectives.

Nearly 20 co-ops operate under a city regulatory scheme that he 
oversees. And the chief publicly says they're mainly good businesses 
whose owners are trying to comply with the law.

And yet outlaws they remain.

A new U.S. Justice Department memo sent out last week was a stark 
reminder that, despite the industry's veneer of normality and even 
respectability - city licenses, full-color advertisements, Chamber of 
Commerce memberships  it remains very much at odds with federal law. 
A task force of drug agents could arrive tomorrow and put everyone 
involved in cuffs  and everyone involved might include not just 
collectives' managers and growers, but potentially even city officials.

Following up on a 2009 Justice Department memo that essentially said 
federal resources wouldn't be used to prosecute medical-marijuana 
users in compliance with state law, the new memo from Deputy Attorney 
General James M. Cole points to the explosion in open growing and 
sales of marijuana in the past two years. It adds that various cities 
have considered permitting "large-scale, privately operated 
industrial marijuana cultivation centers." Among those are notorious 
proposals that had city politicians' support in Oakland and the small 
Sacramento-area town of Isleton, but it could easily apply to 
Redding, whose zoning allows collectives to operate indoor nurseries 
in industrial districts.

The memo says growers or dealers of marijuana - medical or not - 
could face prosecution. So, it adds, could "those who knowingly 
facilitate such activities." Would that include the city's planners 
and police chief? As far as federal law is concerned, they're as good 
as in business with drug dealers.

It's hard to imagine DEA agents kicking down the doors of City Hall. 
Even so, it's a pointed reminder that even scrupulously trying to 
follow the law - as Hansen and other city officials have - can leave 
you leave you on the wrong side of the Controlled Substances Act.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom