Pubdate: Thu, 05 Sep 2013
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2013 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

NOW IT'S UP TO CONGRESS TO CHANGE FEDERAL CANNABIS LAWS

Anyone who reads this column was probably surprised last Thursday 
when the headline blared that "the feds are dithering" at the very 
time the Justice Department was announcing the first significant 
changes in its cannabis policies in 40 years. That's the reality of 
covering a volatile, shifting-sand subject like cannabis in a weekly 
column - you can easily look like a fool!

As everybody knows by now, Attorney General Eric Holder told the 
governors of Colorado and Washington that, under certain conditions, 
the Justice Department would not interfere with regulation of 
cannabis businesses. As long as they "operate within state laws and 
don't violate other federal law enforcement priorities," Justice will 
consider the marijuana industries in those states legal, as laid out 
in a memo, "Guidance Regarding Marijuana Enforcement."

Those conditions involve both businesses - being a cover for a 
criminal organization or diversion of product out-of-state - and the 
state governments - enforcing drugged driving laws, preventing 
distribution to minors and cannabis cultivation or use on public 
lands - and they still leave Justice nominally in charge, with the 
legal ability to step in if it sees fit.

This is a major change of position, and in line with Holder's recent 
memo about prison sentencing, which suggested greater leniency for 
small-time criminals, many of them marijuana users or their 
suppliers. But these are all things that, with certain exceptions, 
Justice has not interfered with in states that allow medical marijuana.

More important, from a business perspective, is Holder's suggestion 
that Justice is "actively considering" giving cannabis businesses 
access to the American banking system if they otherwise comply with the law.

Since no other legal business I know of has to operate this way, it's 
hard to imagine how difficult it is to run a cash business in 2013 - 
especially when the state says your company is legal and the federal 
government says it's not. Did you know that cannabis businesses 
aren't even allowed to have bank accounts? How do they pay employees 
and rent, buy supplies, deal with emergencies or pay taxes? The city 
of Boulder collected $700,000 in taxes from medical marijuana 
businesses last year - all of it in cash.

Besides not making a cannabis businessperson or employee a constant 
target for thieves and criminals, this would allow banks, which had 
otherwise been hesitant to make loans or even allow pot companies a 
checking account, to work with cannabis businesses like they do with 
anyone else, which in itself could change the business atmosphere dramatically.

The memo begs a larger question, though, one that Justice hints at in 
the memo. "Congress has determined that marijuana is an illegal drug 
and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious 
crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale 
criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels." In effect, Justice, which 
administers laws, is saying that until Congress brings federal laws 
into compliance with state ones, it will have an increasingly 
difficult time enforcing cannabis under several different sets of laws.

Colorado lawmakers already get this point more than most. Rep. Jared 
Polis, who has already introduced legislation to move cannabis out of 
the Justice Department and into Agriculture, where it belongs, and 
allow bank access to cannabis businesses, told The Denver Post, "We 
still need to change the law ... so it's not at the whim of the 
attorney general."

Rep. Ed Perlmutter is introducing HR 2652, which would allow banks, 
credit unions and lenders to provide banking services to cannabis 
businesses. Rep. Diane DeGette has promised to promote legislation 
that would require the federal government to respect states' laws.

Holder's actions should at least arouse the curiosity of other 
lawmakers, many of whom represent states that have already allowed 
medical cannabis or have noticed that a growing majority of their 
constituents see the drug war as a failure, to at least re-examine 
the discrepancies between federal and state cannabis regulation and 
the problems they perpetuate. This is generally a non-partisan issue 
- - Libertarians and some Republicans already support at least 
decriminalization - but whether Congress has the will to take it up 
is debatable.

Locally, Boulder County DA Stan Garnett said that he's glad the 
federal government is allowing states to implement their 
voter-approved policies. But many national law enforcement 
organizations and anti-drug lobbying groups have already lined up 
against Justice the way they usually do. None of them will accept 
responsibility for their own failures in the drug war, but they make 
the usual pronouncements about how legalization will lead to 
widespread drug abuse among children and the general breakdown of society.

There is little evidence to back up their claims, but on one point, 
the law enforcement groups are absolutely correct: "The failure of 
the federal government to act in this matter is an open invitation to 
other states to legalize marijuana in defiance of federal law," they warn.

You know, that's the beauty of our system. Almost half the states 
have already defied federal law in this regard, and many more will be 
adding ballot proposals for decriminalization and/or legalization in 
2014 and 2016. Some of those will pass, too. And that's why Congress 
needs to step in and change federal law - and soon.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom