In recent weeks, we have seen a shift in how drug war proponents are talking about marijuana. No longer able to convince the public that people who use marijuana should go to jail, they are singing a new tune; they should all go to treatment. This is a shift we have seen before. When marijuana first came on the scene in the U.S. in the early 1900s, reports of marijuana induced violence among Mexicans fueled the nation’s fear about the little known plant. When the general population started experimenting with the herb in the 1920s, it became clear that the claims of violence were fabricated. Losing the ability to instill fear in the public around marijuana use, the message was modified. The new message tied marijuana use to insanity and mental illness, which were highly stigmatized conditions, and continue to be. Being labeled as mentally ill frightened the white, middle class, marijuana consumers, and this fear led to the support of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937.

Fast forward to 2012. Public support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high and the government acknowledges that a change is being considered. No longer able to convince Americans that marijuana consumers are dangerous criminals who deserve to be locked up, history is repeating itself. We are seeing a shift in the message, from marijuana consumers as criminals to marijuana consumers as sick people who belong in treatment. It’s a propaganda shell game and we can’t fall for it again.

A recent article in the New York Times quoted Dr. Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse as saying that 1 out of 6 adolescents who try marijuana will become addicted. That is akin to saying, if you keep making that face, it will freeze that way. In fact, a mere 2.8% of 12-17 year olds who used marijuana in 2010 entered treatment for it, and many of those cases could be the result of an agreement between the courts and the defendant in lieu of involvement with the juvenile justice system. When looking at the broader landscape of marijuana use, we see that 1.1% of marijuana users 12 and older in 2010 went to treatment for the substance. We also saw twice as many arrested for simple marijuana possession that year than enter treatment for marijuana dependence (750,000 vs. 335,833). The claim that marijuana causes mental illness, or that all marijuana consumers are addicted and in need of treatment undermines the efforts by mental health and addictions professionals to address the serious illnesses and addictions that pose real threats to persons and society.

Dr. David Nathan, a clinical associate professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and recently elected as a distinguished fellow in the American Psychiatric Association, wrote in a piece on CNN.com, “Throughout my career as a clinical psychiatrist, I have seen lives ruined by drugs like cocaine, painkillers and alcohol. I have also borne witness to the devastation brought upon cannabis users — almost never by abuse of the drug, but by a justice system that chooses a sledgehammer to kill a weed.”

Recently, former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy announced the formation of a new group, SAM, which stands for A Smarter Approach to Marijuana. Kennedy and his group recognize that the argument of jail for marijuana is no longer salient with today’s population, so they have repackaged the message for a new generation: marijuana use is a mental illness and requires treatment, every time. This sentiment is echoed in his group’s project list, which includes, “Increased funding for mental health courts and treatment of drug dependency, so those caught using marijuana might avoid incarceration, get help and potentially have their criminal records cleared.”

On its face, this statement is not so outrageous, but upon closer look it is frightening for two reasons. First, although increased funding for mental health services and substance abuse treatment can be beneficial, according to a 2008 report, 90% of those who currently need substance abuse treatment do not receive it, this compares to 24% of diabetes patients who do not receive treatment. It is estimated that 23 million people need addiction care, and only 2.3 million receive it. Forcing marijuana consumers into an already overloaded system will reduce the likelihood of care for those with serious, life threatening addictions. Furthermore, since approximately 37% of treatment referrals come from the criminal justice system, initiating a pipeline from the courtroom to treatment will result in a tidal wave of first time, young marijuana offenders entering substance abuse treatment to trade the label of criminal for addict. Secondly, Kennedy’s group refers to treatment for those “caught” with marijuana. This implies, that, under his plan, the U.S. will continue to seek out marijuana users, presumably via law enforcement. Or, perhaps Kennedy et al will institute a special marijuana task force charged with roaming the country in search of marijuana addicts. Whatever the case, SAM’s plan involves the active identification of marijuana consumers, followed by forced involvement in the system. Don’t be fooled, this is not a “new way” for marijuana, but rather a regressive old approach dressed in new clothes.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Amanda Reiman, Policy Manager, Drug Policy Alliance
Published: January 18, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: scoop@huffingtonpost.com
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Driving east on Interstate 70 through Denver’s warehouse district, the smell of the marijuana plants growing inside unmarked industrial buildings blasts through car air vents and overwhelms drivers who roll down their windows. The smell is a pungent reminder that the state of Colorado is now home to some of the world’s laxest marijuana regulations.

The state legalized medicinal marijuana use in 2000, but in November voters in Colorado went even further by approving a constitutional amendment that legalizes recreational marijuana for all users over 21 and aims to “regulate marijuana like alcohol.”

Now, a governor-appointed “Amendment 64” task force is racing to draft regulations on everything from banking to public safety, to submit to the governor and the general assembly by the end of February. The legal sale of marijuana to recreational users is scheduled to begin as early as October.

The passage of the new law raises a lot of questions, especially for the established medical marijuana community. While marijuana advocates cheered Amendment 64’s passage, Colorado’s current medical marijuana providers, arguably the nation’s most successful and well-regulated, are apprehensive about how the new laws might change the current landscape. These businesses, 299 medical marijuana centers statewide at the end of 2012, have completed 1000-page business applications and probing background checks, paid taxes to the state Department of Revenue and still managed to turn a profit.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal, medical marijuana sellers must decide whether to pursue a permit to serve recreational users, or remain medical dispensaries. If they do expand their operations, how might the new recreational market change their relationship with their medical patients? And most importantly, will the federal government shut them down as soon as they begin serving recreational users?

Established Medical Marijuana Market

When it comes to regulating marijuana, Colorado is further along than the state of Washington, which also legalized recreational marijuana use in November’s election. In Colorado, unlike in Washington, medical marijuana dispensaries are for-profit businesses and all dispensaries and employees are registered and licensed, which has helped legitimize an industry that’s been forced underground in most of the world. You won’t see marijuana leaves emblazoned on dispensary doors or pictures of Bob Marley on the walls. Instead, they feel like small doctors’ offices with waiting rooms and helpful receptionists.

“We’re trying to rebrand the image of marijuana in general and get away from that pot stoner culture,” says Jason Katz, head of operations at Local Product, a Denver dispensary located in view of the statehouse. “As long as we can continue to keep doing that with the recreational model…we’ll be moving in the right direction.”

For most medical marijuana sellers, the decision to serve recreational users is likely to come down to economics—there will simply be more customers, and more money, for businesses who serve recreational users alongside medical users.

“If anyone over 21 can buy marijuana,” says Katz, “why would a patient go through a $100 state registration process to get a medical marijuana card when they can just buy it without doing any of that? I think it makes sense for our business to go recreational in that it will open up our customer base.”

Analysts expect that customer base to be upwards of one million in-state consumers, which for a marijuana products manufacturing company like Denver-based Dixie Elixirs, spells big profits.

“Ultimately my goal is to sell our business to big alcohol, big tobacco, or potentially big pharma,” says Tripp Keber, managing director of Dixie Elixirs. The company makes more than 75 marijuana-infused products, ranging from marijuana-infused truffles to flavored sodas to non-psychoactive cannabis body lotion. Located in the Denver warehouse district , a whiff of the outside air leaves little doubt about the new cash crop in town.

But until the regulations are finalized later this year, business owners who want recreational permits will have to sit on their hands. They’ll have to make sure they follow all the rules, such as not selling to anyone without a medical marijuana card, says Denver medical marijuana lawyer Warren Edson. That takes a lot of restraint. Since Amendment 64’s passage, says Katz, he’s had about three or four people a day either calling or knocking on the door of his dispensary asking to buy recreational marijuana.

Writing The Rules

In a dimly-lit room in a Denver office building across the street from the golden-domed statehouse, the first draft of the new rules for recreational marijuana are being hammered out by agency officials, medical marijuana interest groups, lawyers, doctors and concerned citizens. The mundaneness of the setting belies the enormity of the task: creating the most open marijuana market in the country while at the same time protecting public health, safety and trying not to run too far afoul of the federal government, which still considers marijuana use—medical or otherwise—to be illegal.

At a working group meeting of the Amendment 64 task force last week, banking issues took center stage. Under the Controlled Substances Act, any bank that takes money from an illegal enterprise can lose its FDIC coverage and potentially be prosecuted. This means that medical marijuana businesses are cash only, which makes for a potentially dangerous situation where businesses have thousands of dollars in cash on hand at any given time, making them vulnerable to robbers.

But fixing this problem would require action from the federal government, which is unlikely in such a short amount of time. However, the attitudes in Washington, D.C. about marijuana seem to be tacitly on the side of state experimentation.

The Obama administration is taking a hands-off approach in both Colorado and Washington, saying his administration has “bigger fish to fry” than going after recreational marijuana users in those states. And a 2009 U.S. Department of Justice memo made clear that pursuing medical marijuana users would be the administration’s lowest enforcement priority.

That bodes well for Colorado, since its strict medical marijuana regulations seem to have satisfied federal drug enforcement authorities. Few Colorado dispensaries have been shut down and raids are uncommon, unlike in California where the Drug Enforcement Agency has raided and closed hundreds of dispensaries in the last few years. Many in the medical marijuana community hope that the Amendment 64 task force and ultimately the general assembly simply roll over many of the medical marijuana regulations into new recreational regulations.

The regulations also make business owners and employees feel safer navigating this legally precarious industry. Other states such as Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut that are crafting their own medical marijuana regulations are looking to Colorado’s example as a way to serve patients while not upsetting the federal government.

A Marijuana Trajectory

Indeed, national political analysts agree that Colorado’s trajectory, from making marijuana possession the lowest criminal priority, to legalizing medical marijuana and then legalizing recreational use, is the ultimate goal for most activists. “I don’t think the distinction between medical and recreational marijuana will hold up,” says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). “We hear people asking, why be in purgatory? Why spend 10 years on decriminalizing possession and medical marijuana only to move on to recreational later?… Legalization is so much more politically salient now that it makes the discussion around medical marijuana almost pedestrian.”

Already this legislative session, legislators in five states have proposed medical marijuana legislation and in five other states, legislators will consider following in Colorado and Washington’s footsteps to regulate marijuana like alcohol, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

But however the states regulate it, marijuana remains a Schedule I narcotic in the eyes of the federal government, equivalent to heroin and LSD. That means that, while unlikely, all of these business owners, employees, and even regulators are open to federal prosecution. While the risks are still high, Keber says he sleeps pretty soundly.

“We operate with our doors wide open,” says Keber, “and we’ve hosted law enforcement officers, state and federal legislators here. The reality is that (prosecution) is always a concern, but I don’t lose sleep over it. If federal agents arrest me… they should go to mayor’s office since he puts his name on the business license, then they should wrap up the governor since he signed it into law.”

Source: Stateline.org (DC)
Author: Maggie Clark, Staff Writer
Published: January 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Stateline.org
Contact: letters@stateline.org
Website: http://www.stateline.org/

A third measure regulating medical marijuana storefronts in Los Angeles could be headed toward the May ballot.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 11-1 Wednesday to draft ballot
language that would allow some existing clinics to remain in operation
while formalizing restrictions on where the shops can be located. Only
those clinics that were opened prior to September of 2007, when the city
first approved a set of rules for dispensaries, could remain open. Even
then, they would be have to meet requirements including:

• Ban consumption on the premises
• Close from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m.
• Pay taxes
• Prohibit minors
• Conduct LAPD background checks on employees
• Operate more than 1,000 feet from schools, libraries, parks and religious institutions

The city estimates there are 800 to 1,000 clinics operating in the
city. Only about 180 of them opened before the 2007 restrictions took
effect. 

The proposal, authored by Councilman Paul Koretz, would increase the
tax on clinics to $60 per $1,000 of gross receipts. One medical
marijuana initiative that has qualified for the May 21 ballot, sponsored
by Angelenos for Safe Access, also calls for increasing the tax on
clinics, but without limiting the number in operation.

Another measure, backed by Americans for Safe Access, would also
place time and location restrictions on clinics that opened prior to
September of 2007. (Representatives from both groups talked about their
proposals on KPCC

The Los Angeles City Council moved forward with its own medical marijuana ballot measure Wednesday, increasing the chances voters could face three pot initiatives on the May ballot.

On an 11-1 vote, the council instructed city lawyers to draw up
language for a ballot measure that would restrict the number of
marijuana dispensaries allowed in the city. Supporters of the measure,
including Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson, said
it would raise taxes on medical marijuana sales and would permit only
those dispensaries that opened before a city moratorium in 2007.

The proposal comes after two other initiatives qualified for the
ballot this month. According to Wesson,

Two medical marijuana cases going before the state Supreme Court could
determine whether dispensary bans by dozens of California cities are
legal.

The City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and
Wellness Center is scheduled to begin Feb. 5 at the University of San
Francisco School of Law over the city’s legal authority to ban the
dispensaries, which was upheld by an appeals court last year.

In another upcoming case, City of Upland v. G3 Holistic Inc.,
G3 lawyers are expected to argue that cities can’t ban the dispensaries
because they’re allowed under Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use
Act, which legally allows doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients.

Some cities contend they have the power to close the dispensaries based solely on zoning laws.

Medical marijuana advocates have said that more than 170 bans
were in place across California at one point, including Long Beach. The
city and county of Los Angeles have also both attempted to ban
dispensaries but were forced to back down.

City officials also lean on federal law that says marijuana – medical or otherwise – is illegal.

"We’re watching the Riverside case very closely yes," said T.
Peter Pierce, an attorney for Los Angeles-based Richards, Watson &
Gershon, which is representing Upland in its Supreme Court case.

"Once the Supreme Court decides, they would apply that decision in the G3 case as well as to all medical marijuana decisions."

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Riverside, or local
governments, it would affirm an appellate court ruling in the G3 case.

Attorneys representing G3 Holistic filed an appeal in December
2011 to the Supreme Court after the 4th District Court of Appeal in
Riverside sided with Upland’s ban on dispensaries on Nov. 9, 2011, based
on its zoning code language.

A similar decision was reached in the Riverside case that same day.

J. David Nick, an attorney for Inland Empire Patient’s Health
and Wellness Center, said he thinks a decision in the Riverside case
would allow the Supreme Court to "remand things back to the appellate,"
which would allow appellate courts to make decisions based on the
Supreme Court case.

Navigating state and federal marijuana laws has created a
quagmire for local governments as they attempt to regulate or ban the
drug, which is legal in California for medical purposes but illegal
under federal law.

Last July, an appeals court struck down Los Angeles County’s ban on all dispensaries in unincorporated areas.

Justices said that the state’s medical marijuana laws
authorize cooperatives and collectives to grow, store and distribute
cannabis, contrary to the county’s ban passed in 2010.

"The phrase `regulate the location, operation, or
establishment’ does not mean ban, prohibit, forbid, or prevent all
medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives from operating within the
entire jurisdiction `solely on the basis’ that they engage in medical
marijuana activities," Judge Robert Mallano wrote.

If full-on bans are ruled illegal, that could leave cities in a precarious position.

In 2011, a federal appeal court ruled that Long Beach couldn’t
regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, as many other cities have
attempted to do. Justices said the rules violated federal law.

Long Beach then appealed to the state Supreme Court for
clarification on its powers to regulate medical marijuana – while later
banning collectives of more than three people.

The high court threw out the appeal after the city banned medical marijuana outright.

Long Beach City Attorney Robert Shannon said the Supreme
Court’s decision on the Upland and Riverside cases will apply to the
city, assuming justices do not rule on a narrow front affecting only
those cities.

Shannon called that scenario "unlikely."

"I think they’re poised to give guidance to the cities, and frankly to the medical marijuana collectives," he said.

For the city of Los Angeles, the Supreme Court hearing on the Riverside case is not expected to have any immediate impact.

"These cases concern whether local government can ban dispensaries," said Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney.

The Los Angeles City Council had voted to ban dispensaries but
reversed its decision after medical marijuana advocates collected
enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot to overturn the
prohibition.

But, Usher said, the city is closely watching to see if the court will spell out how cities can govern pot shops.

"We anticipate that the Supreme Court may use these cases to
set forth its views regarding the scope of the regulatory authority of
local government," Usher said.

"If the court takes that opportunity, we will recommend the
city follow the court’s lead in any new medical marijuana regulations."

Usher said the direct cases involving the city’s proposals on
limiting the clinics have been pushed back to the point that the city
attorney has not even been told to prepare legal arguments.

Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access said the Riverside
case will have an impact on the ability of cities to address safe and
legal access to medical marijuana.

"With dozens of local regulatory ordinances through the state
and more than 170 municipal bans, there is a patchwork of access that
patients have to navigate," Hermes said.

Hermes said advocates for medical marijuana hope Los Angeles
will change its regulations and avoid the need for a further legal
battle.

Matthew R. Davies graduated from college with a master’s degree in business and a taste for enterprise, working in real estate, restaurants and mobile home parks before seizing on what he saw as uncharted territory with a vast potential for profits — medical marijuana.

He brought graduate-level business skills to a world decidedly operating in the shadows. He hired accountants, compliance lawyers, managers, a staff of 75 and a payroll firm. He paid California sales tax and filed for state and local business permits.

But in a case that highlights the growing clash between the federal government and those states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, the United States Justice Department indicted Mr. Davies six months ago on charges of cultivating marijuana, after raiding two dispensaries and a warehouse filled with nearly 2,000 marijuana plants.

The United States attorney for the Eastern District of California, Benjamin B. Wagner, a 2009 Obama appointee, wants Mr. Davies to agree to a plea that includes a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, calling the case a straightforward prosecution of “one of the most significant commercial marijuana traffickers to be prosecuted in this district.”

At the center of this federal-state collision is a round-faced 34-year-old father of two young girls. Displaying a sheaf of legal documents, Mr. Davies, who has no criminal record, insisted in an interview that he had meticulously followed California law in setting up a business in 2009 that generated $8 million in annual revenues. By all appearances, Mr. Davies’ dispensaries operated as openly as the local Krispy Kreme, albeit on decidedly more tremulous legal ground.

“To be looking at 15 years of our life, you couldn’t pay me enough to give that up,” Mr. Davies said at the dining room table in his two-story home along the San Joaquin River Delta, referring to the amount of time he could potentially serve in prison. “If I had believed for a minute this would happen, I would never have gotten into this.

“We thought, this is an industry in its infancy, it’s a heavy cash business, it’s basically being used by people who use it to cloak illegal activity. Nobody was doing it the right way. We thought we could make a model of how this should be done.”

His lawyers appealed this month to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to halt what they suggested was a prosecution at odds with Justice Department policies to avoid prosecutions of medical marijuana users and with President Obama’s statement that the government has “bigger fish to fry” than recreational marijuana users.

“Does this mean that the federal government will be prosecuting individuals throughout California, Washington, Colorado and elsewhere who comply with state law permitting marijuana use, or is the Davies case merely a rogue prosecutor out of step with administration and department policy?” asked Elliot R. Peters, one of his lawyers.

“This is not a case of an illicit drug ring under the guise of medical marijuana,” Mr. Peters wrote. “Here, marijuana was provided to qualified adult patients with a medical recommendation from a licensed physician. Records were kept, proceeds were tracked, payroll and sales taxes were duly paid.”

Mr. Holder’s aides declined to comment, referring a reporter to a letter from Mr. Wagner to Mr. Davies’s lawyers in which he disputed the depiction of the defendant as anything other than a major-league drug trafficker.

“Mr. Davies was not a seriously ill user of marijuana nor was he a medical caregiver — he was the major player in a very significant commercial operation that sought to make large profits from the cultivation and sale of marijuana,” the letter said. Mr. Wagner said that prosecuting such people “remains a core priority of the department.”

The case illustrates the struggle states and the federal government are now facing as they seek to deal with the changing contours of marijuana laws and public attitudes toward the drug. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use last year, and are among the 18 states, and the District of Columbia, that currently allow its medical use.

Two of Mr. Davies’s co-defendants are pleading guilty, agreeing to five-year minimum terms, to avoid stiffer sentences. Mr. Davies, while saying he did not “want to be a martyr,” decided to challenge the indictment with a combination of legal and public-relations measures, setting up a Web site devoted to his case and hiring Chris Lehane, a hard-hitting political consultant and former senior aide in Bill Clinton’s White House.

Among Mr. Davies’s advocates here in California are Paul I. Bonell, who was the president of the Premier Credit Union for 21 years before Mr. Davies hired him in early 2011 to oversee his businesses’ fiscal controls. After the businesses were raided in October that year, Mr. Bonell took a position as the head of the Lodi Boys and Girls Club.

“I had some reservations going in,” he said of Mr. Davies’s enterprise. “But the industry was exploding. Matt wanted to have internal controls in place. And we thought: This was a legitimate business. If the State of California deems it legitimate, we want to be the best at it.”

Mr. Davies’s accountant, David M. Silva, said he set up spreadsheets to keep track of inventories, revenues and expenses. “I’ve been a C.P.A. for 30 years,” Mr. Silva said. “What I saw was a guy who was trying to run an operation in an up-and-up way.”

The federal authorities said they stumbled across the operation after two men were spotted apparently breaking into Mr. Davies’s 30,000-square-foot Stockton warehouse. The police said they smelled marijuana plants. Federal agents conducted a raid and confiscated 1,962 plants and 200 pounds of marijuana.

Mr. Davies, who is free on $100,000 bail, greeted visitors to his gated home by asking them to speak softly while walking through the entryway so as not to awaken his sleeping infant. He called out to his wife when asked when he was indicted: “Hey, Molly — we were indicted on your birthday, right? July 18.”

Mr. Davies referred to marijuana as “medicine,” and himself as a turnaround expert.

“We were basically pharmacists for medical marijuana — everything was in full compliance with state law,” he said. “We paid our employees. We paid overtime. We had people going for unemployment if we fired them.”

“Why are they coming after me?” he asked. “If they have such a problem with California, why can’t they sue California?”

Stephanie Horton, 25, who went to work for Mr. Davies after going to one of his dispensaries to obtain medical marijuana to help her deal with ovarian and cervical cancer, said she was devastated by the arrest of employers she described as among the best she had ever had — not to mention the loss of her job.

“I’d go back and work there in a heartbeat,” Ms. Horton said. “I totally trusted them. We’re not criminals. I’ve never been arrested my whole life. I need that medication, and so do a whole lot of people.”

But federal prosecutors offered a much less sympathetic view of Mr. Davies. The authorities shut down the warehouse and two dispensaries but said that Mr. Davies had ties to a total of seven dispensaries in the region, which they said yielded $500,000 in annual profits. Mr. Davies’s lawyers disputed those assertions.

“Mr. Davies is being prosecuted for serious felony offenses,” Mr. Wagner wrote to Mr. Davies’s lawyers. “I understand he is facing unpleasant alternatives. Neither a meeting with me nor seeking a review in Washington will change that reality.”

This is as much a legal clash as a cultural clash. Recreational marijuana use is common across this state, and without the legal stigma attached to it in much of the country. The federal government is viewed as a distant force.

“It’s mind-boggling that there were hundreds of attorneys advising their clients that it was O.K. to do this, only to be bushwhacked by a federal system that most people in California are not even paying attention to,” said William J. Portanova, a former federal drug prosecutor and a lawyer for one of Mr. Davies’s co-defendants. “It’s tragic.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 14, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In California, It’s U.S. vs. State Over Marijuana.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Adam Nagourney
Published: January 14, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

Today’s New York Times includes a feature story about California medical marijuana provider Matthew Davies, who federal prosecutors are pressuring to accept a five-year mandatory minimum as a plea agreement. Federal authorities indicted Matthew last year on charges of marijuana cultivation, calling him “one of the most significant commercial marijuana traffickers to be prosecuted in this district.” By all accounts, the two dispensaries Matthew owned were in total compliance with state law and were models of professionalism and service.

He brought graduate-level business skills to a world decidedly operating in the shadows. He hired accountants, compliance lawyers, managers, a staff of 75 and a payroll firm. He paid California sales tax and filed for state and local business permits.

“This is not a case of an illicit drug ring under the guise of medical marijuana,” [his attorney] wrote. “Here, marijuana was provided to qualified adult patients with a medical recommendation from a licensed physician. Records were kept, proceeds were tracked, payroll and sales taxes were duly paid.”

Does this sound like a dangerous criminal who we should spend federal resources to arrest, prosecute, and possibly jail? Medical marijuana providers who followed state law, like Matthew, weren’t supposed to be the targets of federal attack and provide an excellent example for others in the industry. Nevertheless, he is facing a significant amount of time in jail regardless of whether he takes the plea, which will surely take a serious toll on him and his family.

“To be looking at 15 years of our life, you couldn’t pay me enough to give that up,” Mr. Davies said at the dining room table in his two-story home along the San Joaquin River Delta, referring to the amount of time he could potentially serve in prison.

Matthew and his family are not taking this lying down. Matthew’s wife Molly published this open letter to President Obama today in the Huffington Post. You can find out more about Matthew’s case and how you can help at http://www.keepmattfree.org/.

SAN DIEGO

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner declared an end on Thursday to the city’s legal war on medical pot with a letter to city authorities ordering civil prosecutors to "stop the crackdown on marijuana dispensaries."

Filner, a Democrat who was sworn in December 1, said in the letter sent to the police chief, city attorney and the city’s Neighborhood Code Compliance Department that such shops could still be scrutinized for other code violations like any other business.

"Until we have a new set of regulations for medical marijuana distribution, I have asked the Neighborhood Code Compliance Department and the Police Department to temporarily halt all prosecutions of city zoning code violations when it comes to medical marijuana dispensaries," Filner said in a statement.

He added that he plans to bring a proposed ordinance on the matter to the city council soon to regulate marijuana dispensaries to close a regulatory gap that had allowed the shops to be prosecuted on zoning violations.

The announcement signals a sea change in dispensary prosecutions in California’s second largest city, with a population of 1.3 million. In 2011, the city attorney launched code enforcement action lawsuits against more than 100 medical marijuana dispensaries and shut most of them down.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith responded to Filner’s call for an end to the prosecutions in a letter that said, "We will, of course, comply with that direction."

The move comes amid a growing federal-state battle over marijuana that intensified when states in the U.S. West and Northeast liberalized medical pot laws in recent years, setting the stage for voters in Colorado and Washington in November to approve legalizing recreational use of the drug as well.

The federal government holds that marijuana is an illegal drug liable to be abused and has cracked down on medical marijuana operations in California and other states where it is legal.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy sent a letter in August to the city of Del Mar warning that even city employees who "conduct activities mandated" by a proposed Del Mar medical marijuana ordinance were not immune from prosecution.

Duffy was traveling out of the district on Thursday and was unable to respond to media inquiries, her staff said.

Other cities, including Oakland and San Francisco, have sought to add zoning rules that allows such shops. In October, the city of Oakland sued the federal government to block U.S. authorities from closing down a prominent medical marijuana dispensary that is featured on a reality television show.

Eugene Davidovich, the spokesman for the San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access, applauded the mayor’s move to end targeted prosecutions.

"I’m so hopeful that this is the end to these lawsuits and it will create a path to regulation of shops for the thousands of people who rely on this medicine," Davidovich said.

This week, Mayor Bob Filner re-opened the door to the possibility of
legal medical marijuana collectives in San Diego. Speaking to the group
Americans for Safe Access, the mayor said he would work to stop the city of San Diego from closing medical marijuana collectives.

As first reported by San Diego CityBeat, Goldsmith then sent Filner a letter saying that the mayor could stop him from going after the collectives in "30 seconds."

On Thursday, Filner responded by ordering the city to stop referring medical marijuana code violation cases to Goldsmith for prosecution.

On KPBS Midday Edition, Goldsmith said now that Filner