While D.C. officials wait for six firms to grow medical marijuana in warehouses less than five miles from the White House, the role of cannabis in American life is taking center stage in political and legal bouts across the country.

The
city government is treading warily in its implementation of the
program, which voters approved in a 1998 referendum before congressional
interference and painstaking rule-making delayed it for more than a
decade. But the long-awaited debut of cultivation centers and
dispensaries in the District

Of the 17 states that have passed medical marijuana laws, only one — Montana — has experienced a serious legislative effort to repeal the law.

How could this have happened, and what can advocates in other states learn from Montana’s experiences?

Fortunately for those of us who work to pass — and improve — medical marijuana laws, an excellent new documentary film provides a unique and insightful view of Montana’s 2011 repeal effort. Code of the West, directed and produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen, recently made its debut and is now being screened at film festivals and other venues across the United States.

I had the honor of presenting Code of the West at its New Hampshire debut Friday evening at the New Hampshire Film Festival in Portsmouth. As an MPP legislative analyst monitoring the ongoing action in Montana, I was familiar with the events depicted, but seeing these events unfold on the big screen — against the stunning backdrop of Montana’s rugged mountains — provides a more complete experience than any number of newspaper articles could possibly supply.

In a nutshell, the repeal advocates depicted in Code of the West are appalled by the proliferation of unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries in Montana and by the ease with which non-patients appear to be qualifying for medical marijuana cards. Instead of seeking regulations to curb these perceived abuses, they lead an organized effort to repeal the law.

Despite being a very well-made film, a few scenes in Code of the West are difficult to watch:

• One repeal-supporting legislator foolishly compares medical marijuana to the deadly poison arsenic.
• A grandmother suffering from advanced cancer loses access to medical marijuana and is left with no choice but to manage her pain with morphine.
• A repeal supporter admits that some seriously ill patients benefit from medical marijuana but continues pushing — not for regulation and restrictions to prevent abuse, but for a full repeal.

The film’s main subjects are medical marijuana advocates led by Tom Daubert — a well-respected political professional whose life is turned upside-down by an unjust federal prosecution — and repeal advocates led by a group of concerned parents and Montana House Speaker Mike Milburn.

Although the attempt at full repeal does not succeed, the film does not have a happy ending for patients and their advocates, as legislators resist common sense efforts to regulate the medical marijuana industry. Instead, they opt to pass SB 423, an ultra-restrictive “repeal in disguise” that will dramatically limit patients’ access.

A year after the film’s action concludes, Montana’s struggle to achieve a sane medical marijuana policy continues, and many conflicts described in the film remain unresolved.

Despite his efforts to pass regulations and improve Montana’s medical marijuana law, federal prosecutors brought felony charges against Daubert for his involvement with a medical marijuana dispensary, giving him little choice but to plead guilty. In September, Judge Dana Christenson ignored prosecutors’ request for a lengthy prison term and instead sentenced Daubert to five years of probation.

Another of the film’s subjects, Daubert’s former business partner Chris Williams, was recently convicted on eight felony counts and, astonishingly, faces mandatory minimum sentences that could keep him incarcerated for life. Williams’ attorney is currently seeking a new trial. Sadly, yet another of Daubert’s former business partners, Richard Flor, was sentenced to a five-year prison term earlier this year and died in federal custody August 30 after being denied medical care that had been recommended by a judge.

Fortunately, Montana voters will have an opportunity to reject the legislature’s “repeal in disguise” when they go to the polls Nov. 6. Regardless of how Montana’s IR-124 fares at the ballot box, Montana’s legislature should learn from the experiences portrayed in Code of the West and pass sensible regulations for medical marijuana providers in 2013.

For more information on Code of the West, including how to schedule a screening in a town near you, click here. If you submit a request, you’ll receive more details, including information on screening fees and the option to preview the film.

A medical marijuana grower in Ellsworth, Maine received a pleasant surprise on Saturday: a marijuana delivery from the police. Thomas Davis, a state-licensed medical marijuana caregiver and grower, lost 17 marijuana plants from his greenhouse in a burglary on Wednesday night. The thief, 32-year-old Aaron Pert, was arrested soon afterward and charged with offenses including marijuana possession, burglary, and theft. He confessed to breaking into the greenhouse and stealing the plants and led the police to the location where he had hidden the majority of the stash. However, the police delayed returning the marijuana to Davis for two days, concerned that they might be violating federal law, which makes all marijuana possession, cultivation, and distribution criminal offenses.

According to Ellsworth police lieutenant Harold Page, this was the first case in the state in which marijuana had been stolen from a licensed medical marijuana provider, so the police department consulted with the Maine DEA as well as the state’s attorney general as to whether they should return the plants. Ellsworth Police Chief John DeLeo stated on Monday that as far as he was concerned, returning the plants was legal.

The delay led to the majority of the marijuana being ruined by mold. Davis estimated that he lost about six months’ worth of the crop and could only salvage 15 percent of it, enough for one month. He mentioned other licensed marijuana providers who are considering giving him some of their own plants to make up for the loss, but said that otherwise, his patients might soon need to look elsewhere for their medicine.

Davis, however, sees an upside to the situation. He said thieves may have assumed that they could steal from legal medical marijuana growers with impunity, since theft of plants from illegal marijuana growing operations would certainly go unreported to the police. Hopefully, as Davis suggests, his case will serve as a precedent for both the police, who might not be so hesitant to return stolen marijuana in the future, and to potential thieves. “It’s not the Wild West out here,” he said. “I feel like most of what I’m salvaging is a chance to get this out to the public, to let people know they can’t target medical marijuana patients and growers. The police will protect us.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
ignored research showing marijuana had legitimate medical uses when it
rejected efforts to reclassify the drug as a less harmful substance last
year, a lawyer for medical marijuana backers told a federal appeals
court.

Joseph Elford, a lawyer for Americans
for Safe Access, asked a three-judge panel in Washington today to order
the DEA to reconsider its decision to keep marijuana a Schedule I
narcotic, saying the agency’s ruling that there are no scientific
studies finding an acceptable medical use was arbitrary and capricious.

"There are over 200 studies that are adequate and well-controlled studies," Elford told the judges.

The case involves an 10-year-old petition from medical marijuana
advocates who asked the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III,
IV or V drug, which would allow for looser regulation. On June 21, 2011,
the DEA rejected the request, stating that existing clinical evidence
wasn’t adequate to warrant reclassification.

The judges questioned whether the
medical marijuana patients and the advocacy group had the authority to
challenge the DEA’s decision. U.S. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland said
the court has limited authority to review it as long as the agency made a
proper showing of support for it.

"I’m trying to figure out what our standard of review is," Garland asked a lawyer for the Justice Department.
"Is there evidence to support the administration’s position that there
is no substantial evidence? That sounds funny." Lena Watkins, a lawyer
for the Justice Department,
said the studies cited by the marijuana proponents were rejected
because the research didn’t meet government standards. She said about 15
studies meet the standards, though the government doesn’t have the
final results yet.

The case is Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration, 11-1265, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington).

Marijuana supporters told a federal appeals court panel Tuesday that
government agencies have created a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by keeping
cannabis illegal despite evidence that using it can be
medically beneficial.

Marijuana activists are seeking to
"reschedule" marijuana as a drug suitable for medical use and thus
remove it from Schedule I of the government’s drug classification
system, reserved for drugs with high abuse potential.

The Drug Enforcement Administration
and the Department of Health and Human Services say marijuana has no
medical use, is as dangerous as ecstasy and heroin, and has even more
abuse potential than cocaine.

The case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit has the potential to grow into a landmark ruling
by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether marijuana has medical value.

For
marijuana backers, it could be an uphill climb. In 2005, the court
ruled that DEA agents could enforce federal drug laws against Angel
Raich, an Oakland mother who used locally grown marijuana under
California’s voter-approved Compassionate Use Act of 1996 to ease pain
from a brain tumor and other ailments.

"This is going to be an historic case," said Steve DeAngelo, founder and executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, who attended the oral arguments.

The
case before the three-judge panel Tuesday dates back to 2002, when
marijuana supporters filed a rescheduling petition with the FDA and DEA.
The DEA has long said marijuana should remain a banned drug under the
Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

Under DEA’s drug schedule, "patients are denied the medicine they need for fear of federal prosecution," said Joseph Elford, representing Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland organization that brought the suit at issue Tuesday.

Elford pointed to a 1999 Institute of Medicine study that concluded marijuana has value for pain relief, nausea and appetite stimulation.

DEA spokesman Rusty Payne declined to comment with the case in litigation.

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit heard
oral arguments in a case challenging the Drug Enforcement
Administration’s
refusal to reclassify marijuana so it can be legally used as a
medicine. Since 1970, when Congress passed the Controlled
Substances Act, marijuana has remained on Schedule I, a category
supposedly reserved for drugs with a high abuse potential and no
accepted medical value that cannot be used safely even under a
doctor’s supervision. The National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML) first challenged marijuana’s legal status in
1972, eventually winning the support of an administrative law
judge, Francis Young, who in 1991 declared it
"abundantly clear" that the drug has "a currently accepted
medical use." Young, who called marijuana "one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known to man," was overruled by
DEA Administrator John Lawn. In 1995 former NORML Executive
Director Jon Gettman filed a second rescheduling petition, focusing
on marijuana’s abuse potential, which the DEA rejected in 2001. The
latest petition,
filed a year later by a coalition of activists, cited state laws
allowing patients to use marijuana as well as recent research
confirming its therapeutic value. As usual, the DEA dragged its
feet, finally rejecting the petition last year. Now Americans for
Safe Access is appealing
that decision.

This is the first time in nearly two decades that a federal
appeals court has heard arguments about marijuana’s Schedule I
status, which a group of researchers at the University of
California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research politely
called "untenable" in a recent review of the literature.
Perhaps more than any other policy, the Obama administration’s
continued defense of this classification, which puts marijuana in a
more restrictive category than cocaine, morphine, or
methamphetamine, belies the president’s
avowed commitment to sound, unpoliticized science. California
NORML coordinator Dale Gieringer notes that the DEA "summarily
discounted substantial scientific evidence showing that cannabis
has medical efficacy." He says the agency insists that "only
expensive, ‘Phase 3’ FDA efficacy studies are acceptable, while at
the same making such studies impossible by blocking approval of the
necessary research facilities." Although other Schedule I drugs are
produced by private, DEA-licensed labs, when it comes to marijuana
the agency has refused
to allow competition with the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
researchers’ only legal source of the drug. That policy is also the
target of federal
litigation.

A medical marijuana
advocate urged a federal appeals court to require the U.S. government
to relax, or at least rethink, a more-than-40-year-old rule that treats
marijuana as a highly dangerous drug with no medical value.

Federal
drug regulators "have failed to weigh the evidence" from a growing
number of medical studies showing that marijuana is effective for
relieving pain and nausea, said Joe Elford, counsel for Americans for
Safe Access.

In his legal brief, he said the Drug Enforcement
Administration displayed a "bias" against marijuana by ignoring its
medical benefits and exaggerating its danger. That is the only way to
explain how the "federal government could conclude that marijuana is as
harmful as heroin and PCP and even more harmful than methamphetamine, cocaine and opium," he told the court.

Elford was challenging the
DEA’s insistence that marijuana is properly classified as a Schedule I
drug, meaning it has no accepted medical benefits and has a high
potential for abuse. This classification means, for example, that
doctors at the Veterans Administration may not give marijuana to a
disabled veteran to treat his chronic pain, he said, citing the plight
of one of the plaintiffs in the case. If marijuana were reclassified,
Elford said, it would help doctors and patients by permitting its use
under medical supervision.

Marijuana’s classification as a
Schedule I drug dates to 1970, when Congress passed the Controlled
Substances Act. On two occasions since then, marijuana advocates have
petitioned the DEA to reconsider the classification, citing the medical
benefits of cannabis. They also noted that 16 states and the District of
Columbia have opted to allow medical use of marijuana in some
instances.

But the DEA turned down the most recent petition last
year and made no change in the classification schedule. By way of
explanation, the agency said there was not a scientific consensus on the
medical benefits of marijuana. It also said marijuana has many
"chemical components" that are not well understood.

During Tuesday’s argument, a Justice Department
lawyer said the government remained convinced of the danger of
marijuana. "It’s the most widely abused drug in the United States," said
Lena Watkins, the government lawyer.

The case was heard by a
veteran panel of three judges who questioned whether they were in a
position to reject the DEA’s determination.

"Don’t we have to
defer to their judgment" on what the medical studies show? asked Judge
Merrick Garland. "We’re not scientists. They are."

"The real
question is to what extent we have to defer to the agency," added Judge
Harry Edwards. The two judges said they could not overturn the DEA’s
decision unless they found it to be "arbitrary and capricious."

Elford
responded that the judges should send the case back to the DEA to
require the agency to hold a hearing to consider research over the last
decade on the benefits of marijuana.

Judge Karen Henderson, the
third member of the panel, noted that changing the classification of
marijuana would not decriminalize it. "It would still be illegal," she
said.

For the first time in nearly 20 years, the issue
of medical marijuana goes before a federal court today. Right now,
federal law list marijuana as a Schedule I drug, along with most
dangerous drugs such as heroine and LSD, as having a potential for
abuse.

Today, medical marijuana advocates will try to change that and
reclassify pot so it can be used for treating diseases. The group argues
it should be on schedule III drugs, with other more common medications
like Vicodin and Tylenol with codeine. Similar attempts have failed in
the past. But this time, the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access
feels they have a shot.

This morning on "Early Start," Americans for Safe Access’s executive
director Steph Sherer explains why medical marijuana should be
reclassified.

Supporters of marijuana rights asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday
to do what Congress and U.S. presidents have resisted for decades and
help ease the level of regulation surrounding the popular recreational
drug.

Oakland, Calif.-based Americans for Safe
Access said there was no reason for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) to control marijuana as tightly as it does heroin.

The argument is a new tack for
marijuana supporters who have already won local approval for medical use
in 16 states and Washington, D.C.

Americans for
Safe Access lawyer Joseph Elford said the DEA ignored recent evidence of
marijuana’s medical benefits when, in 2011, the agency declined to ease
regulation. Federal law required the DEA to take that evidence into
account, he said.

"This game of ‘gotcha’ will
continue indefinitely unless this court intervenes," Elford told a
three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The federal government divides drugs into five categories, or
schedules. Schedule I requires the strictest control and covers drugs
such as marijuana and heroin.

Cocaine is a Schedule
II drug, and prescription medications rank further down in the system.
The drugs are ranked by potential for abuse, medical value and risk of
dependence.

Elford’s group wants the appeals court
to force the DEA to hold a hearing on marijuana’s classification, which
the group believes should be Schedule III or lower.

Forty-two percent of Americans age 12 or older have used marijuana at
some point, according to a 2011 survey by the U.S. Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration.

DEA NOT PERSUADED

The DEA, the primary enforcer of U.S. drug laws, argued it
already has considered all the evidence and was not persuaded.

"They don’t have the type of study that would allow them or
any other expert to reach a conclusion about the medical utility of
marijuana," government lawyer Lena Watkins told the court.

Most recent scientific studies, she said, either did not involve humans or were too preliminary.

Watkins described marijuana as dangerous, saying it had
"adverse physical and psychological consequences" and had been
"implicated in hundreds of thousands of hospital visits."

This is the first time the appeals court has considered
marijuana’s classification since 2002. The court did not reach the heart
of the issue at that time, deciding instead that the man who brought
the case did not have real damages over which to sue.

The judges suggested the same obstacle might block the present case,
but marijuana supporters are relying in part on a disabled military
veteran who depends on the government for his healthcare and is barred
from even asking his doctor about marijuana treatment for pain and
trauma.

"That seems pretty straightforward," Judge Harry Edwards told the government’s Watkins.

Watkins said the prospects still seemed tenuous that the
veteran, Michael Krawitz, would legally obtain marijuana because his
state, Virginia, has not approved the drug for medical use.

Another judge expressed wariness at delving too deeply into the science of marijuana.

"Don’t we have to defer to the agency?" asked Judge Merrick Garland. "We’re not scientists. They are."

The case is Americans for Safe Access, et al, v. Drug
Enforcement Administration, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit, No. 11-1265.

The Drug Enforcement Administration "acted arbitrarily and
capriciously" in denying a petition to reclassify cannabis as a less
harmful substance, a lawyer for medical marijuana advocates told a
federal appeals court on Tuesday.

Arguing on behalf of Americans for Safe Access, Joseph Elford called
on the court to force the DEA to reconsider its classification of
cannabis as a dangerous drug without therapeutic benefits, saying the
agency ignored 200 well-controlled studies showing cannabis has
legitimate medical uses.

At issue is a petition filed by public interest organizations back in
2002 that requested that cannabis — currently defined as a Schedule I
drug with "a high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted
medical use in treatment" — be reclassified. For context, heroine and
LSD are classified alongside marijuana as Schedule I, while cocaine,
opium and methamphetamine are classified as Schedule II, meaning they
have "some accepted medical use."

Justice Department lawyer Lena Watkins said a DEA review found "no
substantial evidence" of acceptable medical use, adding that the agency
rejected the studies cited by Elford because they did not meet the
standard of double-blind FDA approval trials. Watkins said that the
results are still pending from 15 government-approved studies.

That, Elford countered, is because the agency is deliberately
"stymying" research. "DEA’s played a game of ‘gotcha,’" he told the
judges. "They won’t allow additional research to be conducted."

The case, Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement
Administration, was heard by a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.