Geez, we just went through this in Oregon (before, during, and after), now California is getting cold feet after the Raich decision. The worry here is that the state, by issuing cards that identify the patient as a state-registered and legal user of medical marijuana, are implicitly aiding and abetting the breaking of the federal law against marijuana, and government officials could be prosecuted:
(LA Times) California health officials Friday suspended a pilot program that issues photo identification to medical marijuana users out of concern that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling could make the state and ID holders targets for federal prosecution.
The state’s Department of Health Services on Friday also asked Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s office to determine whether the identification card program could potentially make patients and state staffers liable for prosecution because it identifies them as receiving marijuana or helping to facilitate marijuana use.
The identification card program was approved by the state Legislature in 2003 and was intended to be used as a tool for state law enforcement officers to easily determine whether an individual is using marijuana for medicinal purposes under California’s Proposition 215, August said.
The program’s suspension only makes it more difficult for law enforcement officers to differentiate between patients who are using marijuana for medicinal reasons and those who are not, said [Ethan] Nadelmann, [executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.]
“It was always understood that the medical marijuana ID system would not provide a protection against federal arrests. The whole point of the program was to provide protection against arrests by state law enforcement and to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to enforce the law,” he said.
I don’t understand why the state officials are so jumpy on this point. They’re reacting to bogeymen that don’t exist. California enacted medical marijuana in 1996 and marijuana’s been federally illegal during that whole time. The feds have never bothered any of the states’ offices that manage the paperwork of their medical marijuana programs.
I think they should just keep on doin’ what they’ve been doin’ — and that’s run successful and popular medical marijuana programs. Dare the feds to come in and prosecute state officials working completely within the bounds of state law. There’s no federal statute that prevents states from doing this. Call the bluff of these supposed “states rights” people. Generate those photo ops of DEA thugs handcuffing wheelchair-bound patients. Create that bad press of federal agents shutting down the offices of a program that has the overwhelming support and legal imprimatur of the people of California.
When these state officials overreact they cause real harm to patients, some of whom are not the most politically savvy or well-educated people. Some patients in Oregon destroyed their completely Oregon-legal crops and dismantled their grow operations, all because of their fears about the Raich decision, which were compounded when the Oregon’s officials halted issuance of OMMP cards.
