Federal prosecutors are threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, sending letters that warn landlords to stop sales of the drug within 45 days or face the possibility that their property will be seized and they will be charged with a crime.
The stepped-up enforcement escalates the Obama administration’s efforts to rein in the spread of pot stores, which accelerated after the attorney general announced in 2009 that federal prosecutors would not target people using medical marijuana in states that allow it.
“It’s coming out of left field as far as we’re concerned,” said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, which advocates for medical marijuana use. “I really don’t know what inspired this. It’s a complete about-face from what [Obama] said when he was campaigning.”
The initiative, spearheaded by the four U.S. attorneys in the state, will focus on dispensaries selected by the prosecutors, said a person familiar with the operation. He declined to say what criteria would be used to target dispensaries and asked not to be identified because the prosecutors are scheduled to make the official announcement at a news conference Friday morning in Sacramento.
Admittedly, it is easy for anyone over 40 years old to get a prescription for pot in California. Why? Because the bar for what is considered treatable by marijuana includes dozens of ailments that are endemic to middle-age, everything from back pain and arthritis to migraines and gout.
More importantly, however, the list also includes cancer, HIV disease, ALS and other serious illnesses. In raiding these dispensaries, the Obama DOJ is denying people who are suffering from these illnesses access to a few moments of release from pain and discomfort.
The only rationale for the raids is an antiquated federal law with dubious origins that misascribes marijuana to a class of drugs that when abused can lead to potentially life-threatening addiction. Anyone who has tried marijuana — and this includes Pres. Obama as well as his two predecessors — knows that, whatever it is, pot is not heroin.
The dispensaries have been legal in the state for nearly 15 years. There is no organized or notable opposition to them. On a micro level, they represent a rare business sector in the state’s struggling economy that is actually growing and even producing a few jobs.
On a political level, even in light of this needless foolishness, California should be an easy win for Obama next year. But why risk it? With the exception of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s race in 2010, a GOP wave election, Democrats have been able to win national races in California without the huge outlays of campaign cash in what are some of the nation’s most expensive media markets. (And even though Boxer had to fight off a well-known and well-funded GOP opponent, she ended up winning by double digits.)
It would provide some cold comfort, at least, to believe that the Obama campaign is looking at polls showing that moderate independent voters across the country — the folks who will decide the election next year — overwhelmingly support closing down marijuana dispensaries in California, but even if that were true, what makes anyone think these faraway voters will be aware these raids are happening in California, where they are front-page local news.
Does the Obama campaign really want have to spend millions to shore up its base in California just to appease moderates in the South and Midwest?
Tell the U.S. attorneys to stand down, Mr. President. Why poke at this particular hornet’s nest?
