AP Newsbreak: New medical marijuana policy issued by Obama administration

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.





Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-Newsbreak-New-medical-...

link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_re_us/us_medi...

This morning's news

but they should aim just a bit higher, and to the front and center.

and it doesn't sound like the feds will back him up. He'll be out there alone, like that nut in AZ.

No Medical MJ laws here in the Northeast, but I applaud the precedent being set.

It's in the legislature in New York and New Jersey, and a legislative effort is in its first year in Pennsylvania. Maryland has an affirmative defense law. DC voters approved it a decade ago, but Congress blocked it; that could change soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_215...

that would be the entire West Coast.

You only ever hear of California on the snewz when the topic is raised. I wasn't aware we had all that going on over here on the other coast.

And may even be anti-cancer as some studies have shown.

Breathe it in and enjoy the benefits!

There will be TONS of lawsuits and given precedence they will probably make quite a few people into millionaires.

Cannabinoids isolated in liquid and crystal forms however, are the forms that slow and reverse tumors. "Anti-cancer smoking" is a myth left over from big tobacco, whose dubious "light" and "low tar" claims about inhaling smoke are pretty much in the dustbin of science.

Yes, you can smoke tobacco, or cannabis, all of your life, and never get cancer. That's true.

However, inhaling burning material is carcinogenic, be that car smoke, BBQ smoke, campfire smoke, tobacco smoke, or cannabis smoke.

are at less risk of developing mouth, throat and lung cancers than tobacco only smokers. Pretty shocking result IMO.

Looking for a link.

Last time I heard news like this it was followed up by raids of medical marijuana dispensaries, as though it had never been said.

KR for the OP anyway, sounds like good news.

or didn't care. As I recall, they destroyed a medical marijuana dispensary business in Oakland, CA (I think it was Oakland--trying to recall--Northern Californian anyway) and possibly one other--arrested people who were following state law to the letter, shut them down, confiscated computers and MJ, put them through hell and furthermore harmed a lot of sick people who had prescriptions. Obama or someone in his admin had just said that the Feds would respect state laws! I remember being furious about it and wondering how long the transition was going to be from Bushwhackism to sanity, on this and other matters, and if Obama would ever be able to ferret out all the Bushwhack moles in various agencies whose orders are to disobey the President and sabotage his policies, or lay in wait with various traitorous plots. (I think Honduras may be indicative of how destructive the Bushwhacks can be.)

Those dispensary owners and their patients should be compensated for damages.

They are in the process of closing down ALL dispensaries in my town but it's happening in a lot of places in California. Our illustrious, FUNDA-FUCKIN'-MENTALIST City Council still considers it the demon weed don't 'cha know. They passed an ordinance that said the dispensaries must comply with state AND federal law, knowing full well that the two are in direct opposition to one another. The next thing they did was to threaten the landlords with hefty fines should they continue to rent to dispensaries. The feds need to tell the D.E.A., they need to tell the counties and they need to tell municipalities. But most of all? CONGRESS needs to lift all federal bans against medical marijuana. That would pretty much settle the issue.

How dumb to lock up people using pot legally, according to state law.

really are in jail because of personal pot use. Around here people light up on the street and no one gives a shit.

If there really are people who are sitting in jail because they got busted for pot then they need to be released. I just haven't heard that there was a huge push to prosecute pot uses for years and years.

That's not to say it hasn't happened but I kind of doubt our jails are filled with pot heads.

and most are simple possession

a link on that? CA has a lot of problems but spending half of its arrents on simple marijuana posession seems a bit much.

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370

a marijuana smoker is arrested every 30 seconds in the USA

I looked at CA and of the 1,543,797 arrests in CA in 2006, 301,404 were drug offenses but it did not break down what kind of drugs. We've got crack, meth and heroin lumped in with these figures.

These are arrests and not convictions, and not a percentage of prison population who are marijuana smoking related offenders.

Webb Sets His Sights On Prison Reform
Senator Proposes National Panel
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

they specifically go after pot users here in alabama.

they set up sting operations to catch them trying to buy it. then arrest them.

then the redneck cops go home and smoke the dope they confiscated.

true. This is the state that get's all hot and bothered about bingo and sex toys also.

Only our kind could possibly think that people do not get arrested for pot. In CA, our kind really don't. In NY, same thing.

no one of any color or class is never arrested for pot. What I am interested in is the percentage of people actually convicted and serving time for simple possession in CA. There seems to be some thought that if the potheads were released from prison in CA it would do a lot to aleviate the overcrowded conditions. I question that premise.

a lot of the people in jail for pot crimes are not there just because of pot. how it usually happens is the offender gets busted for some other minor crime, and they are put under probation, which means drug tests. you piss dirty and they send you to jail for a probation violation. you can be a model citizen on probation, but take a toke on the wrong day and off to jail you go. i've seen this happen to way too many of my friends and acquaintances.

doctor was in. I just burst out laughing.

also would make it into a tea with coltsfoot and blackberry leaves for lung problems and coughs, colds etc... I think it tastes great with honey.
I dont think pot would cure coughs but I am not a dr.

cough cough!

What is the cough from?

to do a MAJOR crackdown on pot dispensaries (he says they are ALL illegal).

Seems they are ok with us having the legal right to own and use the stuff, just not the right to ACQUIRE it.

...or a recalcitrant county sheriff--Kern County, anyone?--then that leaves a loophole for federal involvement. That's what's been happening in some California counties, anyway.

Most of these DAs are going to have a tough time keeping such hardened criminals in prison. There will probably be a tidal wave of appeals to federal court -- which will immediately dismiss all simple possession busts.

The back of pot prohibition has just been broken. From here onward, it's all just a mop-up operation.

--d!
And I don't even smoke it.

("The back of pot prohibition has just been broken.") As long as it is federally illegal there will continue to be busts. I'm hoping at some point our "Democratic" Congress will dig deep and locate some semblance of a spine to reverse prohibitive pot laws. Medical marijuana would be a good place to start.

But if you were a defense lawyer, what would you be doing?

I'd be telling my clients not to get their hopes up, then building the strongest case possible that selective non-enforcement is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection clause, for use with a large foregoing list of particulars to be argued. No judge in his or her right mind wants to spend hundreds, or thousands, of hours listening to pot arguments, with the certainty that conviction will lead to immediate dismissal in a higher court.

"Case dismissed! Now get out of my courtroom!"

Of course, using the EPC is no guarantee, either, but it will put an enormous burden on prosecutors. That is how (at least one of the "how"s) drug "prohib" will start to die. And not just marijuana -- this will fan out to liberalize policy for all recreational drugs that do not carry extreme danger for the user (e.g., opiates, barbiturates). I think it will break down in a series of abrupt, court-mandated shocks to the prosecutorial system. Congress will only act after there is a body of case law that makes prohib unwise to continue.

In 2001, I thought that Gay Rights would require about 20 more years to get to the point of demanding marriage equality. All it took was a few months under Obama to emerge as a burning issue, one that is now causing Obama a major tactical problem. The changeover from Jim Crow to Martin Luther King was greater still. I am not 100% certain that I am right about this, but I do have confidence that the thaw has begun.

--d!

In Tehama County (Red Bluff) the repug Sheriff has a 'secret' war on against pot and uses scare-tactics on tv like, "Do you want a pot shop next to your schools"?

High School kids, "WELL HELL YEAH! Does the Pope sh*t in the woods?"

Oh yeah, and good news on the policy change too.

Day after tomorrow it will be largely forgotten here, though. Nonetheless, KnR, with pleasure.

Hekate

Yes, he's definitely not George Bush. This following on saving the mountaintops.

I was bashing him to a Hillary supporter whom I had -really- disagreed with during the primary campaign the other day, and she said to give him more time, which just about made me fall over. On reflection, I think we forget how difficult is to deal with a 99% corrupt Congress. Not to say Rahm, etc. isn't a real loser, but Obama is not as totally a disappointment as I usually think.

A particularly NASTY one, at that. They haven't eliminated Mountaintop Removal mining from the list of acceptable practices. And i'm not sure Obama had anything to do with it. There has long been public opposition to this mine and i think the Publicity and the facts of the devastation were too hard to hide. There will be more Mountaintop Removals and subsequent devastations. Perhaps not as egregious as this one, but...

And although I am pleased by this announcement, I believe that the ruling regarding the mountaintop removal is the more significant of the two.

Obama being President does not solve all problems--far from it. But anyone who thinks it isn't an improvement isn't paying attention.

That is certainly good news!

Maybe, the prison population will seriously decrease as white collars criminals replace the petty violators.

That, in and of itself, would be an amazing report of American democracy!!!

For that matter the whole US should try and help those who have chronic pain if this helps them out! It is a drug after all.

i guess better than nothing

and I am very pleased to read this article.

I find it that MJ does help me keep me sane...

http://legalmarijuanadispensary.com /

A list of doctors and dispensaries.

Way to go Mr. President!

It's about time!

A lot of suffering will be eased.

was a good guy and I don't use it either.


Pissed of the GOPers, too. Makes for a nice day all around.

wing potheads (and i am one of those). there is his escalating war and his phony health care reform we still give a shit about.

Well, maybe. Won't hurt him, that's for sure!

smoke another one...

in other words, if they want to play hardball, let them compete against cannabis for migraines, MS, chemo relief, etc.

there are LOTS of good things that happen with this bill.

I'm glad to see Obama respond to the big question he got from internet respondents. libertarians will like this too.

did it cost 50 million in abstinence money to the rr?

good.

<The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.>

Repubs love states' rights until they can find a federal law to prosecute on somthing they don't like, morally.

President Obama. I've been critical in the past and will be in the future but on this day, he done me proud!

I wonder how much choice there really is in this though. Mexico just legalized, and Canada has never had strong enforcement. It could be that Obama is just looking to manage an orderly collapse of marijuana prohibition, rather than having the whole edifice crumble at once. This gives the illusion that this is something chosen, rather than an inevitable defeat.

long months ago, when asked specifically about the issue here in Oregon. The stated reasons are also the reasons he gave then. That is, it is wrong to prosecute for medicine and law enforcement has better things to do as well.
For once they are doing what they said they'd do, if they carry through with this and do not do the opposite next week.

But I look good!

or like Sudafed, over the counter but you have to be 21. No prescriptions. This is a good sign for the future.

me voting for the Democrats.

I understand that there are some very notable health benefits from medical MJ, but people get scripts for MJ for some of the silliest reasons. All this means is that those who can afford to go to a doctor that sells scripts to anyone walking through the door gets a free pass while the government is still busting recreational users for no good reason and people in Mexico are getting murdered over drug wars. So we will continue to dance around this issue while the morans of this country continue to perpetuate failed policies that had no basis in sound reason from day 1.

for which people obtain medical marijuana.

Even if I provided an example of something ridiculous like say an ingrown toenail, sure as shit someone will say they have been suffering with them for decades and the only thing that gives their life meaning is their medical MJ script. But suffice it to say there is now a cottage industry of unscrupulous doctors that will literally write you a medical MJ script for anything or at least coach you into what you need to tell them before they can do it. I could really care less if doctors do that, but it's a greater indicator of the problem rather than the solution. It's BS that someone has to pay a doctor to get permission to get something they shouldn't have to ask permission to get in the first place. That's my point.

in order to relieve the pain of an ingrown toenail but I do know people who tell me it helps their chemo nausea. And, of course, there are a myriad of other medical maladies for which MM seems to offer relief but, as you say, I won't get into detail because it's easily researchable.

You claim there is a "cottage industry of unscrupulous doctors that will literally write you a medical MJ script for anything . . ." While there certainly are those doctors, I honestly don't believe they are in the majority. Just as doctors that are wiling to administer medication meant ONLY for hospital use into a patient within his own home, they are certainly not representative of those doctors prescribing MM. As for "coaching you into what you need to tell them before they can do it," I've never actually heard of that happening. Sounds sort of like what a few employees at ACORN did. Interesting that you should connect the two.

Your "point" got buried underneath your claim that people used pot for silly reasons.

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I can tell you with some authority that all kinds of people lie about their so-called ailments, and the mm docs do no consultation whatsoever with your reg family practitioner or no testing whatsoever in regards to those ailments.

It's too bad because it undermines the integrity of the legitimate use of mm. But the truth is that having a 215 card gives one legal cover for having weed.

Besides all of this, the underlying silliness of all this is that weed shouldn't be illegal in the first place while alcohol is. It's ridiculous.

MM (and it is a LOT of people), only ONE actually got it for medical reasons (HIV+ wasting) and all the others got it because they are potheads and liked getting legal pot. Some would even share/sell what they were getting at the dispensary. Several of our local weeklies were full of ads for doctors who would essentially find a medical excuse and write scrips for pot. I believe in MM, but here it is very often just used as a cover. I just wish folks would cut the crap and just say they like smoking pot.

Less stress = a healthier body and mind.

IMO everyone experiences stress at some level, and most average people would benefit from MMJ's anti-stress properties. Are your pothead friends freaks of nature or are they just doing what humans have done for thousands of years?

Their main pot use is while socializing.

I agree that reducing stress is important -- and you can have a glass of wine, do yoga, engage in meditation, excercise, and even smoke pot -- to reduce the everyday stress in your life.

Just don't pretend it's a "medical" condition.

My best friend has wasting related to his HIV status -- to equate what he experiences with everyday stresses is absurd and insulting to people like him who really DO need MM as part of their healthcare.

get the wheels greased state by state.

Good news today. Tomorrow I'll be pissed about something else.

Anyway, good... a small step in the right direction at least.

Threatened to take away their DEA prescribing licenses if they recommended medical marijuana. He lost in Conant v. McCaffrey (later Conant v. Walters).

Good.

But there are issues of greater moment presently at issue.

N/T

Moderate cannabis use has a positive effect on treatment for cocaine dependence in patients with comorbid ADHD and cocaine dependence:
http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20061210235129584

Crack heads and roots daughters: The therapeutic use of cannabis in Jamaica (cocaine)
http://www.cannabis-med.org/studies/...w.php?s_id=260

All of this comes from the amazing list put together by activist Granny Storm Crow, available in link form here:
http://forum.grasscity.com/medical-marijuana/314173-gra...

Not to drive this point home on my very first DU post, but marijuana is the safest medicine known to humanity.

I have seen indigenous people using it to alleviate arthritis pain rubbering with alcohol but not sure about smoking marijuana medical advantages.

The following is an excerpt from the Merck Manual, the US military's field guide to medicine:

...no physical dependence ; no abstinence syndrome when the drug is discontinued.

Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continuous basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with it's obvious connotations probably is misapplied.

Many of the claims regarding severe biological impact are still uncertain, but some others are not. Despite the acceptance of the 'new' dangers of marijuana, there is still little evidence of biologic damage even among relatively heavy users. This is true even in the areas intensively investigated, such aspulmonary, immunologic, and reproductive function.

Marijuana used in the USA has a higher THC content than in the past. Many critics have incorporated this fact into warnings, but the chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not a toxicological, foundation.

(Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, 15th edition, 1987,Robert Berkow, MD, Editor-In-Chief. Published by Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories Division of Merck and Co, Inc)

from the hat whenever support from grass roots needs to be shored up. O admin Talking the talk.

Gawd this is fabulous news!

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.



I thought that DC also had something. Anybody know anything about that?

I think DC will soon be joining the medical marijuana states.

I think DC will soon be joining the medical marijuana states.

Source: AP via HuffPo

Under the policy spelled out in a three-page legal memo, federal prosecutors are being told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines being issued by the department do, however, make it clear that federal agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes.

The memo advises prosecutors they "should not focus federal resources in your states on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20091019/us-me... /

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A good sign, i think...

This should put the wind up the jackass in LA going after the medical marijuana centers. At least make him realize he is opening himself up to lawsuits.

With an actual MEMO (ie, legal policy), i would hope DEA and Local authorities will be more likely to step down when dealing with Medical Marijuana patients especially. I hope the Anti-Drug/Prison Complex Agenda doesn't somehow subvert or challenge this. The DOJ hasn't really impressed me lately.

Yay! One more step toward a rational drug policy!

Back in the 60s, I knew a Dr. Feelgood. Neighborhood junkies would go to him and get half a dozen Dilaudids or something else to tide them over when a dealer got busted and they needed a new connection. It was a compassionate thing to do and it likely reduced a lot of local crime. I knew him because he also kept open office hours and welcomed drop in patients who had real illnesses. He was over retirement age and probably felt if his license got pulled, it was no biggie.

Fast forward to today. The DEA is leaning on all doctors who prescribe narcotics for people who are legitimately in pain, meaning people who are in pain are often staying that way, increasing rates of isolation, depression and suicide. Having failed at stopping the flood of illegal drugs into the country, the DEA is using the full weight of its imperial power against doctors who are trying to treat their patients compassionately.

It's really got to stop. The country can afford the occasional Dr. Feelgood a lot more than it can afford so many people being left in pain and hopelessness.

www.painreliefnetwork.org/

While I'm not a user, we already have way too many in prison for drug crimes. It unnecessarily overwhelms the prisons.

Yes, I'm kidding.

Actually, a number of conservatives, especially the more libertarian minded, will agree with this.

Until Congress changes the law, why not tell the military the same thing about prosecuting and discharging gays?

The War will be over when we have Full Scale Harm Reduction. That calls for the legalization and regulation of all drugs. We shouldn't wait for it to become a matter of national security. If a terrorist organization forms an alliance with a drug cartel. They could very easily convert drug users to walking biological contamination units. I won't go into details. But they are a weak link in our security chain. We simply cannot leave them exposed and vulnerable.