Feds’ Warning on Legal Pot Bad News for Big Growers
Your backyard gardener of marijuana will probably be safe
The federal government made it clear today that it will continue to enforce drug laws even if California votes to legalize marijuana on Nov. 2.
Observers said the Obama administration’s pronouncement that it would continue to “vigorously enforce” the laws against people buying, selling, or growing marijuana for recreational use would have a greater effect on big pot impresarios rather than the average stoner if Proposition 19 passes.
“I don’t see them coming in and taking down people with their little five-foot by five- foot gardens,” said Bill Panzer, an Oakland lawyer who helped write seminal state legislation on medical marijuana.
The feds, Panzer speculated, would more likely be interested in big marijuana growing operations like the ones that are going to be permitted in Oakland.
Prop. 19 would allow Californians 21 and older to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana and possess up to an ounce for personal use. It gives cities and counties the power over commercial production and sale.
Polls show that it will be close vote on Prop. 19. A Reuters polls this week has the initiative losing 53 percent to 43 percent. A Field poll released in late September had Prop. 19 winning 49 percent to 42 percent. Check out all the latest polls here.
In a letter made public today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that “We will vigorously enforce [drug laws] against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law,"
The Prop. 19 campaign fired back with a statement from one of its supporters, Joseph McNamara, a retired San Jose chief of police.
"If the federal government wants to keep fighting the nation’s failed 'war on marijuana' while we're in the midst of a sagging economic recovery and two wars, it just proves that the establishment politicians' priorities are wrongly focused on maintaining the status quo,” said McNamera. "As will be shown on Nov. 2, Californians are not going to let politicians in Washington, DC tell them how to vote."
State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who has long pushed for legalization, said that Holder's letter was a measure of the movement’s success.
“I think he’s just covering his ass,” said Ammiano. “When it looks like something is going to happen, then they either try to make it go away or cover their asses.”
If the initiative passes, legal ambiguity will no doubt ensue in many respects. Lawyer Panzer said provisions that give cities regulatory power "creates potentially a huge can of worms where you could have 463 different laws in California."
However, Panzer said that the feds would have a hard time striking down Prop. 19 in court, even if they start making arrests on the ground.
“The feds can strike something down is if there is a conflict between two laws,” Panzer said. “If California made it mandatory to possess cannabis then you have a conflict, but with 215 [the medical marijuana law] and 19 there’s no conflict.”
Mike Seebeck
Well, if the feds get in the way of legal activity in CA, then that's false imprisonment under CA law, which federal agents are subject to while working within CA borders, so the state and local LEOs will simply have to throw those federal agents in jail for violating the Penal Code, sections 211, 236, 236.1, 146, etc.
Of course, there's no state or local LEO in California with the courage to jail the feds for such crimes, Penal Code 142 notwithstanding. Hence the problem.
The real reason the feds are upset over Prop 19 is that it gives the fed a giant middle finger and reasserts a state's reserved powers under the Tenth Amendment.
Mike Seebeck
That and the feds have this awful trend of a habit of mistakenly thinking that you don't own your own body and should have no say over what you put in it, on it, or do to it...
J. Gravelle
Conservatives should be (literally) "up in arms" when der Attorney General decides that the commerce clause allows him to declare war on California:
http://gravelle.us/content/atty-gen-declares-war-california
But who's the bigger hypocrite in the marijuana issue:
- a liberal who demands that the federal government stay out of their health issues; or
- a conservative insistant that Washington impose its will upon the states?
http://www.dailyscoff.com/?p=2847
Legalization is a conservative position, and prohibition a progressive one.
BOTH sides of the aisle are schizophrenic on the matter...
-jjg
Egads No
Good news for the state though- will keep the price inflated high to cope with the losses from raids.
I look forward to seeing how all the vacancies in jail and prison appeal to violent criminals, or how the police will be shifting their budget on them.