America's Schizoid Pot Culture -- 4 in 10 Have Smoked It, and Millions Are Still Getting Busted

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted April 28, 2009.

Federal prosecutors charge that Lynch violated California’s medical marijuana law because he wasn’t a primary care-giver, but Joe Elford, Chief Counsel for Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said, “there is not even any evidence that state law was violated." Elford added, "It's disingenuous to accuse people of state law violations and then prosecute them under federal law, thereby denying them an adequate defense in federal court."  

While medical pot operators can’t use their compliance with state laws as a defense, it can be brought up at sentencing as a mitigating factor. On April 23, District Court Judge George Wu, a Bush-appointee, said that he was inclined to impose a sentence less harsh than the mandatory minimum, but it wasn’t clear that the law would allow him to do so (there is a so-called “safety-valve” in the mandatory sentencing scheme that allows judges leeway in certain circumstances, but Wu was unsure whether Lynch’s case qualified). "If I could find a way out, I would," Wu said. He gave lawyers until June 2 to file briefs on the matter. 

Lynch’s case is seen as a test of whether the Obama administration will reverse the Bush Justice Department’s policy towards medical marijuana, and so far the signals have been decidedly mixed.  

In March, the New York Times reported that Attorney General Eric Holder had “outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.” Holder said the “Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and ‘use medical marijuana laws as a shield.’”  

A week later, a San Francisco dispensary was raided by the DEA. In early March, the Los Angeles Times reported, “the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles sent a confidential memo to prosecutors last week ordering them to stop filing charges against medical marijuana dispensaries, then abruptly lifted the ban.”  

The conflicting signals prompted Judge Wu to ask for guidance from the Justice Department before proceeding with Charles Lynch’s case. The DOJ responded with a memo saying, “the Office of the Deputy Attorney General has reviewed the facts of this case and determined that the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of defendant are entirely consistent with the policies of DOJ and with public statements made by the Attorney General with respect to marijuana prosecutions.” But, again, Charles Lynch wasn’t charged with violating California law. 

If this seems a mess of contradictory statements and actions, that’s because it is. Yet marijuana reform advocates caution that it’s premature to judge the young administration’s policies. Carey Woodson of Americans for Safe Access told the Drug War Chronicle, “I think it's confusion --- it's important to remember that we aren't even close to having the appropriate Obama officials seated at this point.” (This was before the San Francisco raid). 

But in a country that imprisons hundreds of thousands of people each year for simple possession -- for a “crime” that 4 out of 10 adults have committed -- it bears close scrutiny. So far, we haven’t seen the change that we were promised.

See more stories tagged with: marijuana, drug reform, pot policies

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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