Democrat supportive while RNC statement suggests McCain would use DEA to thwart state law

Thanks to a ballot initiative that received nearly half a million signatures from state voters, Michiganians will decide Nov. 4 on medical marijuana. So far, 12 states have legalized the use of marijuana for those with a doctor’s prescription, but Michigan would be the first in the Midwest to do so.

Federal law does not recognize the legality of medical marijuana

As regionally isolated as Michigan has been from medical marijuana, it’s not common knowledge in Michigan that regardless of any state law, medical marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of federal law. And coastal states that have legalized it like California, Oregon and Maine have been locked in a struggle with the federal government.

The conflict has not been limited to esoteric posturing in dusty courtrooms. Patients using and entrepreneurs supplying “legal” medical marijuana have been arrested and jailed.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, which reports to the White House-controlled Department of Justice, has raided state-licensed growers and distributors and arrested legal users of marijuana in all 12 states under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The overall effect of this federal interdiction has been to limit marijuana’s appeal and thus its efficacy as a therapy because people are afraid of arrest by federal agents. Medical marijuana has been on the books since 1996 when Californians voted for it, but the DEA is getting more, not less, aggressive with time.

In the wake of the latest round of DEA raids in California, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the House Judiciary Committee Chair, threatened the DEA three weeks ago with hearings to investigate the wisdom and justification for the heightened action against state medical marijuana laws.

Conyers queried the DEA after receiving complaints from the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland and the California Legislature. Complaints from state officials include the DEA’s most recent tactic of “…sending hundreds of letters to property owners who lease property to medical cannabis dispensaries, threatening them with arrest and forfeiture of their property.”

That particular measure by the DEA would seem to be aimed at essentially drying up the supply of legal marijuana in California.

Could that happen in Michigan?

Michigan’s proposed law, unlike California’s, does not call for private, independent cannabis clubs where patients can get prescriptions filled. But neither does it stipulate how legal users of the drug in Michigan would acquire it. The initiative does stipulate that legal users would have the right to grow a limited amount themselves, decentralizing distribution, but patients would have to get the seeds from somewhere, and not all patients would be able to cultivate their own supply.

As long as there is a distribution chain, DEA interdiction and forfeiture raids would certainly lead to arrests and disruption of the system in Michigan as well.

Presidential vote matters in Michigan for the future of medical marijuana

Since the DEA is under the auspices of the executive branch, it follows that the winner of the White House this fall will have everything to do with medical marijuana’s ultimate legality in Michigan. And the two presumptive candidates seem divergent on the issue.

Barack Obama has voiced a preference for a laissez-faire, states-rights policy toward doctor-prescribed marijuana in states where it is legal.

Quoted in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said, “Voters and legislators in the states — from California to Nevada to Maine — have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve their pain and suffering. Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this choice — though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to [FDA] regulation like other drugs.”

Obama himself took a position on the issue with Oregon alternative paper The Willamette Weekly last week when he said, “I would [stop the DEA raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers] because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism.”

It’s a stance that immediately caught flak from the Republican National Committee, which took the Illinois senator to task in a statement also released last week.

John McCain has sent mixed messages on the issue, according to pro-marijuana observers, and a promised “in-depth policy paper” on the topic was never completed or released by the McCain campaign, which has not responded to media inquiries on the subject of raids. But the May 14th RNC statement strongly suggests that McCain’s position will be contrary to that of Obama’s.

No endorsement from supporters

Despite the influence the president would have over any medical marijuana law adopted by Michigan, the backers of the ballot initiative, Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care (MCCC), are not making an endorsement of any presidential candidate. “This measure is not about politics,” says MCCC spokesperson Dianne Byrum. “It is a political issue, but this ballot initiative has always been solely about protecting patients.”

When asked more specifically about the politics, Byrum says that support for the measure comes from both sides of the political fence here in Michigan and that many other organizations, such as the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, are taking an officially neutral stand.

Support is solid, mixed

Many Libertarian and conservative voters identify with the issue as a states’-rights, get-government-off-our-backs proposal. A major funder of the parent organization of MCCC, The Marijuana Policy Project, is California activist John Gilmore, a well-known civil libertarian. Civil libertarians have many issues close to their hearts that fall on both sides politically.

MCCC’s Byrum points out that one of the most vocal proponents of the Michigan medical marijuana initiative is Allegan County Rep. Fulton Sheen, R-Plainwell, whom she describes as “a very conservative Republican.” Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, has come out against the proposal.

As for the voters themselves, two polls suggest that support for the initiative seems to be in place.

One poll conducted by Bill Ballenger’s political newsletter Inside Michigan Politics showed 67 percent supported legalizing medical marijuana, and another poll conducted by the Kalamazoo Gazette in March showed 88 percent support.

But certainly, supporters and detractors alike will, or should, be keeping an eye on the presidential election results for they will tell, as Paul Harvey says, “the rest of the story.”