Pubdate: Mon, 20 Oct 2014
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5QwXAJWY
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Becky Schlikerman
Page: 11

BLURRY LINE BETWEEN STATES, FEDS

DENVER - Illinois won't be anything like Colorado, at least at first.

The Centennial State is at the forefront of marijuana policy in the 
United States. It's legal to use marijuana medically and 
recreationally. Colorado residents are allowed to grow marijuana in 
their homes.

The sales of both medicinal and recreational marijuana keep rising, 
according to Colorado data. In August, patients bought $ 32.2 million 
worth of medical marijuana.

"It is a lab. This is an experiment. People can learn from what we've 
done here," said Colorado State Rep. Dan Pabon, D- Denver.

Illinois medical marijuana will soon be grown, sold and then used by 
seriously ill people who suffer from specific conditions such as 
cancer or muscular dystrophy.

Experts in Colorado praised Illinois for the tight reins of the 
program. Springfield bureaucrats did not let one legal marijuana 
seedling be planted before the logistics were hashed out.

"If Illinois has set up the regulations and set up the oversight 
prior to the opening of businesses, it's a good move on Illinois' 
part," said Marco Vasquez, the Erie County police chief who serves as 
a marijuana expert for the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police.

That's not how it happened in Vasquez's state.

In 2000, voters there passed Amendment 20, which made medical marijuana legal.

But few people took advantage of the voter-passed initiative, and 
state officials didn't regulate it.

Things changed when President Barack Obama was elected.

"People thought things would be different under the Obama 
administration," said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of 
Denver. "People all at once thought ' Let's try it and see what happens.' "

"We went from a handful . . . to over 1,000 dispensaries in about six 
months," Kamin said. "It just took a while for our part-time 
legislature to get up to speed on what was going on."

Despite Illinois' attempt to have total control over the new industry 
before plants are sprouting, patients using marijuana and 
entrepreneurs will have issues to contend with. Chief among them is 
the discord between federal and state law.

"You have to put your name on a list that says, ' I'm somebody that 
wants to buy marijuana.' If you're a lawyer, if you're a doctor, if 
you're a schoolteacher, you might not want to be on that list," Kamin said.

"There are usually confidentiality promises that are made, but if the 
federal government says, ' Hey, we want to know everybody that says 
they want to buy marijuana,' it's hard to know how the state is going 
to respond to that."

And what about the business people who own and operate marijuana businesses?

"It's a huge unknown right now," Kamin said. "We have this big 
industry that's cash-only because the banks won't deal with it ... 
all the assets can be seized and the people that are involved with it 
can be sent to prison." For cops, it's also blurry. "We have sworn [ 
an] oath, as all law enforcement does, to uphold the constitution of 
the state of Colorado . . . and the U. S. Constitution," Vasquez 
said. "What causes us some concern is the conflict between federal 
law and state law. When we have sworn to uphold both constitutions, 
and it's illegal federally but legal in the state of Colorado, that 
is a bit awkward."

If the federal government wanted to, it could decide to come down on 
state legalized marijuana operations despite current indications it won't.

And some experts think whoever is president next won't dismantle the 
new, thriving industry.

"Frankly, I think the states have always been the laboratories of 
democracy, and by the time that happens in 2016, I think we'll see 
even more states" legalize some marijuana," said Pabon, the state 
rep. "Essentially it's going to be a domino effect where the federal 
government may change its policy."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom