Pubdate: Wed, 21 Dec 2011
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.signonsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.

A MISDIRECTED EFFORT TO LEGALIZE MED POT

San Diego's medical marijuana collectives have unveiled a proposed 
ballot initiative that tries to ensure that dispensaries "operate as 
good, responsible neighbors" and that seeks to mollify City Hall with 
the promise of fees to cover regulatory costs and new sales taxes to 
help the city's beleaguered budget. Nice try. But as long as 
marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and as long as 
dispensaries throughout the state flagrantly abuse it, this 
initiative is a waste of effort.

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug 
defined as having the greatest potential for abuse and no accepted 
medical use  and is against federal law for all purposes. California 
voters in 1996 approved an initiative legalizing medical marijuana 
and, for most of the years that followed, the feds largely kept their 
distance, leaving local authorities to keep the dispensaries 
reasonably in check.

But as dispensaries mushroomed, so did the abuses. In October, U.S. 
Attorney Laura Duffy, whose territory includes San Diego and Imperial 
counties, and her other California colleagues, launched a concerted 
effort to shut the dispensaries down.

There is zero indication that the federal enforcement effort will be 
halted  certainly not by a local ballot initiative. If proponents of 
medical marijuana want it legalized, they need to start with the 
government that has long made it illegal. Good luck with that.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom