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Updated: Nov. 30, 2012
Marijuana and Medical Marijuana
2012 Elections
On election day, Nov. 6, 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington made their states
the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use. But in Oregon, a similar measure failed.
Supporters of Washington’s initiative said they hoped its passage would ultimately change federal law, which regards any possession or sale of marijuana as illegal.
The next day, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency said the Justice Department was reviewing the ballot measures and declined to comment directly on how officials would respond to them. But he said the agency’s enforcement of federal drug laws “remains unchanged.” The
United States attorneys in Denver and Seattle responded with nearly identical statements, offering no clue on whether they would sue to block the measures from being put into effect.
Overview
Marijuana, whose botanical name is cannabis, has been used by humans for thousands of years. It was classified as an illegal drug by many countries in the 20th century. Over the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to legalize marijuana, primarily for medical purposes. But in November 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington made their statesthe first to legalize marijuana
for recreational use.
Medical marijuana use has surged in the
16 states and the District of Columbia that allow its use. But states and cities are wrestling with the question of what medical marijuana is, or should be, complicated by the fact that recreational use is now legal in two states.
Marijuana’s use has particularly increased among teenagers. According to a December 2011 government report,
one out of every 15 high school students smokes marijuana on a near daily basis, a figure that has reached a 30-year peak even as use of alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine among teenagers continued a slow decline.
The popularity of marijuana reflects what researchers and drug officials say is a growing perception among teenagers that habitual marijuana use carries little risk of harm. That perception, experts say, is fueled in part by wider familiarity with medical marijuana and greater ease in obtaining it.
Proponents of marijuana have argued for years that the drug is safer than alcohol, both to individuals and society.
No Playbook for Legalized Marijuana
As the first states to treat small amounts of marijuana like alcohol,
Colorado and Washington are poised to become national test cases for drug legalization. As advocates and state officials plan for a new frontier of legalized sales, they are also anxiously awaiting direction from the federal government, which still plans to treat the sale and cultivation of marijuana as federal crimes.
Advocates for legalized marijuana are hoping the Justice Department yields. Despite some high-profile arrests of medical marijuana patients and sellers, the federal government has mostly allowed medical marijuana businesses to operate in Colorado, Washington and 16 other states.
While drug agents will probably not beat down doors to seize a small bag of the drug, they are likely to balk at allowing the state-regulated recreational marijuana shops allowed under the new laws, said Kevin A. Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration.
Hundreds of misdemeanor marijuana cases are already being dropped in Colorado and Washington. Many police departments have stopped charging adults 21 years and older for small-scale possession that will be legally sanctioned once the laws take effect.
But prosecutors in more conservative precincts in Colorado have vowed to press ahead with existing marijuana cases and are still citing people for possession. At the same time, several towns from the Denver suburbs to the Western mountains are voting to block new, state-licensed retail marijuana shops from opening in their communities.
Regulators in Washington State are looking for guidance on how to set up a system of licenses for production, manufacturing, distribution and sales — all by a deadline of Dec. 1, 2013. They say that Colorado, for better or worse, is ahead of most states in regulating marijuana, first for medical use and now recreationally.
Washington’s law, called I-502, takes effect on Dec. 6, 2012, which leaves a year of limbo during which the state licensing system will not yet exist, but legalized possession will. And there are thorny mechanical questions that must be resolved during that time, like how to balance the state’s mandate of “adequate access” to licensed marijuana with its prohibitions on cannabis businesses within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground or child care center.
Some States Are Calling for Reform
In late November 2011, the governors of Washington State and Rhode Island
petitioned the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses, saying the change was needed so states like theirs, which have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes, can regulate the safe distribution of the drug without risking federal prosecution. (Washington State has since
legalized marijuana for recreational use.)
The move by the governors —
Christine Gregoire of Washington, a Democrat, and
Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent who used to be a Republican — injected political muscle into the long-running debate on the status of marijuana. Their states were among the 16 that allow medical marijuana, but which had seen efforts to grow and distribute the drug targeted by federal prosecutors.
In April, Gov.
Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have repealed the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law. Even so, Mr. Schweitzer made it clear that he would like to see reform of the law.
New Mexico’s Republican governor, Susana Martinez, also expressed interest in repeal in 2011, and lawmakers in New Jersey have jousted with the governor over regulation.
In November 2010, Californians defeated Proposition 19, a ballot measure that would have legalized possession and growing of marijuana outright, and taxed and regulated its use. California had already
reduced its penalty for possession, putting those caught with small amounts of the drug on the same level as those caught speeding on the freeway. Advocates for Proposition 19 had said that if marijuana were legalized, California could raise $1.4 billion in taxes and save precious law enforcement and prison resources.
Attorney General
Eric Holder has insisted that the government would continue to enforce federal laws against marijuana in California even if they conflicted with state law. In an illustration of that conflict, in October 2011 federal officials warned dozens of marijuana dispensaries throughout California to shut down or face civil and criminal action. Specifically, four
United States attorneys said that they would move against landlords who rent space to storefront operators of medical marijuana dispensaries
whom prosecutors suspected of using the law to cover large-scale for-profit drug sales.
Regulatory Chaos in California
One year after federal law enforcement officials began cracking down on California’s medical marijuana industry with a series of high-profile arrests around the state, they finally moved into Los Angeles in September 2012, giving 71 dispensaries until Oct. 9 to shut down. At the same time, because of a well-organized push by a new coalition of medical marijuana supporters, the City Council in early October repealed a ban on the dispensaries that it had passed only a couple of months earlier.
Despite years of trying fruitlessly to regulate medical marijuana,
California again found itself in a marijuana-laced chaos over a booming and divisive industry.
Nobody even knows how many medical marijuana dispensaries are in Los Angeles. Estimates range from 500 to more than 1,000. The only certainty, supporters and opponents agree, is that they far outnumber Starbucks.
In the biggest push against medical marijuana since California legalized it in 1996, the federal authorities have shut at least 600 dispensaries statewide since the previous October. California’s four
United States attorneys said the dispensaries violated not only federal law, which considers all possession and distribution of marijuana to be illegal, but state law, which requires operators to be nonprofit primary caregivers to their patients and to distribute marijuana strictly for medical purposes.
While announcing the actions against the 71 dispensaries, André Birotte Jr., the United States attorney for the Central District of California, indicated that it was only the beginning of his campaign in Los Angeles. Prosecutors filed asset forfeiture lawsuits against three dispensaries and sent letters warning of criminal charges to the operators and landlords of 68 others, a strategy that closed nearly 97 percent of the targeted dispensaries elsewhere in the district, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney.
Vague state laws governing medical marijuana have allowed recreational users of the drug to take advantage of the dispensaries, said supporters of the Los Angeles ban and the federal crackdown. On the boardwalk of Venice Beach, pitchmen dressed all in marijuana green approach passers-by with offers of a $35, 10-minute evaluation for a medical marijuana recommendation for everything from cancer to appetite loss.
Nearly 180 cities across the state have banned dispensaries, and lawsuits challenging the bans have reached the State Supreme Court. In more liberal areas, some 50 municipalities have passed medical marijuana ordinances, but most have suspended the regulation of dispensaries because of the federal offensive, according to
Americans for Safe Access, a group that promotes access to medical marijuana. San Francisco and Oakland, the fiercest defenders of medical marijuana, have continued to issue permits to new dispensaries.
State Laws at Odds With Federal Law
Currently, two states allow marijuana for recreational use and 16 states allow it for pain relief, nausea and loss of appetite by people with AIDS, cancer and other debilitating diseases. Those laws, however, are at odds with federal law. The federal government continues to oppose any decriminalization of the drug.
While the Obama administration has signaled some leeway when it comes to medical marijuana, raids on dispensaries and growers by law enforcement agencies are still common — even in California, where the industry effectively began in 1996, with the passage of the landmark Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana.
Rules vary widely in the states that permit medical marijuana. Some states require sellers to prove nonprofit status — often as a collective or cooperative — and all the states require that patients have a recommendation from a physician. But even those in favor of medical marijuana believe that the system is ripe for abuse or even unintentional lawbreaking.
Although party line positions defined the issue in Montana, with Republicans mostly lined up in favor of restriction or repeal, there was widespread agreement among legislators and residents that medical marijuana had become something very different than it was originally envisioned to be.
Sixty-two percent of voters approved the use of medical marijuana in a Montana referendum in 2004. But the real explosion of growth came only in 2010, after the federal
Department of Justice said in late 2009 that medical marijuana would not be a law enforcement priority. After that, the numbers of patients quadrupled to more than 27,000 — in a state of only about 975,000 people — and millions of dollars were invested in businesses that grow or supply the product.
Burnishing Marijuana’s Image
As more states allow recreational and medical use of the drug, marijuana’s supporters are pushing hard to burnish its image by franchising dispensaries and building brands; establishing consulting, lobbying and law firms; setting up trade shows and a seminar circuit; and constructing a range of other marijuana-related businesses.
In July 2010, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it would formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans had sought for several years.
The department directive resolved the conflict in veterans’ facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the states that allow medicinal use of the drug, effectively deferring to the states.
Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review. The University of Mississippi has the nation’s only federally approved marijuana plantation. If researchers wish to investigate marijuana, they must apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse to use the Mississippi marijuana and must get approvals from a special Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.
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