Pubdate: Fri, 18 Nov 2011
Source: News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA)
Copyright: 2011 Tacoma News, Inc.
Contact: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/submit/
Website: http://www.thenewstribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/442
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

WELL-AIMED POT RAIDS HIT TRAFFICKERS, NOT THE SICK

Two numbers get to the heart of this week's federal-local raids on 
Puget Sound marijuana merchants:

Pot operations reportedly busted, 19 - out of well over 100 "medical 
marijuana" outlets known to be operating in King, Pierce and Thurston counties.

Patients arrested, 0.

After the coordinated regional raids, U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan 
repeated what the Obama administration has been saying all along: The 
Justice Department doesn't have the least interest in prosecuting 
genuinely sick people whose doctors have recommended the use of 
marijuana. Just the criminals.

Big-time profiteers typically claim they're in the trade for the sake 
- - cue the violins - of dying cancer victims and pain-racked patients.

But as Durkan said, "State laws of compassion were never intended to 
protect brash criminal conduct that masquerades as medical treatment."

Some dispensary owners may not be in it for the money, but a whole 
lot are. Some of their customers are bona fide patients, but a whole 
lot are recreational users. The problem is, you can't tell the 
difference. The industry is so rife with bogus "green cards" and 
traffickers posing as humanitarians that it all looks like a grand charade.

The raids carried out by federal, state and local law enforcement 
agencies were conspicuously judicious. Although all marijuana sales 
are illegal under both state and federal laws, investigators appear 
to have targeted only the most flagrant scofflaws.

According to the Seattle Times, probable cause for one search warrant 
included an allegation that the Seattle Cannabis Co-op had sold a 
police informant five pounds of marijuana for $11,000. Although that 
claim would have to be proved in court, it backs up the Drug 
Enforcement Agency's assertion that it was aiming at serious criminals.

Anyone who supports the therapeutic use of cannabis shouldn't have a 
problem with carefully targeted enforcement  no more than an honest 
pharmacist would resent sanctions against a quack who sells on the 
side. Separating the traffickers and drug-seekers from the nonprofit 
providers and patients is the only way to restore the legitimacy 
medical marijuana enjoyed before profit-driven dealers took over two years ago.

Many marijuana advocates view the medical angle as a means to 
mainstream the drug. Their complaints about enforcement turn quickly 
to legalization, not lifting the federal rules that prevent real 
pharmacies from dispensing cannabis under normal medical regulation.

There's an honest case to be made for decriminalization, but medical 
marijuana is a different conversation. Some very sick people clearly 
benefit from cannabis as a last-resort drug. They shouldn't have to 
serve as human camouflage for traffickers and partyers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom