Pubdate: Sat, 01 Oct 2011 Source: Record Searchlight (Redding, CA) Copyright: 2011 Record Searchlight Contact: http://www.redding.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360 FIREARM LETTER HIGHLIGHTS ABSURD GAP IN POT LAWS We don't know when the clash between federal laws barring any marijuana use or sale and the increasingly permissive state and local polices allowing "medicinal" use of the drug will reach its absurd climax. But it's getting closer with the recent open letter to gun dealers from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives clarifying that, Proposition 215 protections notwithstanding, marijuana users are not allowed to buy or even possess a firearm under federal law. It's not that ATF is wrong. Marijuana remains a "Schedule 1" drug under federal law, which means that a user might as well be a crack addict or heroin junkie. We sensibly try to stop those latter abusers - - whose minds are dangerously addled by hard drugs - from buying guns. But the federal government makes no legal distinction between them and the casual marijuana user or even the bona-fide patient using cannabis under a doctor's advice. The upshot is that state law can allow a person to use marijuana, the county sheriff can sell a user a "zip-tie" permit to grow marijuana (as a local ordinance provides in Mendocino County), the chief of police can even license the collective where a user buys marijuana (the case in Redding) - but if that otherwise law-abiding user tries to buy a rifle to go hunting or a handgun for personal protection, that person will either be turned away for telling the truth on purchase forms or commit perjury. And the need for self-defense isn't academic. As numerous recent robberies show, legal medical-marijuana gardens or cooperatives are tempting targets for criminals. Let's be clear, the head-shop vibe of most collectives makes a mockery of the notion that most users are seeking actual medicine. At this point, it'd be more honest and less of an insult to Californians' intelligence to just legalize the stuff. But even if society is never ready to go that far, the federal government - and really, that's Congress - cannot go on much longer without addressing the ever-widening gulf between what is in the United States Code and the reality we see in the dozen-plus states with loose "medical" marijuana laws. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom