Josh Farley at the Kitsap Sun provides another recap of the Robert Dalton case. Dalton was arrested after WestNET, a local drug task force, searched his property in August of last year and found 88 marijuana plants, which he says he was growing for his own personal supply of medical marijuana. Dalton is an authorized medical marijuana patient. Prosecutors tried to claim that he was supplying others, but the judge, Anna M. Laurie, threw out the “with intent to deliver” charge because of a lack of evidence.
Laurie will give her ruling on this case Friday. The case has boiled down to a man with a doctor’s authorization being accused of growing marijuana for medical reasons. Washington voters first said in 1998 that this should be legal, and the percentage of the state’s residents who support it has only grown since. In the comment section of Farley’s report, there are 27 comments, not a single one supportive of this prosecution. Why is it still happening?
For one, you can definitely blame Rob McKenna, the state’s Attorney General, who appears to believe that the Federal laws on marijuana should trump our state laws (and that putting sick people in jail is more important than protecting consumers from fraud). At a meeting I attended in April with patients, there was nearly unanimous agreement that McKenna and his office’s attitude towards them was a large step backwards from when Christine Gregoire was in that position.
But Christine Gregoire and the state Democrats are not without blame here either. Gregoire derailed the Department of Health’s efforts to establish good limits, leaving us in limbo past the original deadline and with a lesser likelihood of ending up with guidelines that can protect patients like Dalton. The legislature, which should have no reason to be tentative about this issue – considering the widespread support for medical marijuana – caved to law enforcement pressure to water down the original bill that was meant to provide better protections for patients under the initial voter-approved law.
The polling from the end of this week should be a wake-up call for the Gregoire campaign. I obviously don’t think that the Dalton case, or even medical marijuana in general, is having this effect on the polls, but the lack of courage that has been demonstrated by her in this area is something that we’ve seen across the board, especially the infamous cave to Eyman on I-747. And this perception is having a profound effect on the Governor’s chances for re-election. Right now is not the time for timid leadership that’s constantly worried about perceptions, or worse, completely beholden to special interests (the state’s law enforcement union in this case). Maybe it’s too late to do anything about this. It likely is for trying to win my vote.
The saddest thing is that if Gregoire’s terrible handling of this situation was based upon the fear of public perception alone, her fear is unfounded. The public’s attitude towards the drug war is not what it used to be. This is one topic that often brings policy wonks on both the left and right together, and it’s one that finds almost no support from people under the age of 40. The marijuana decriminalization initiative in Massachusetts has polled at over 70%. Taking a stand against the wastes and abuses of the drug war is a smart move in a state like Washington, but only a handful of politicians here have figured this out. Christine Gregoire is not one of them.
Was robert dalton arrested for any of the great drug laws that joe biden authored?
Strange that lee hasn’t spoken out against biden and his laws putting blacks crack users in jail and white cocaine users on probation.
Hell, tommy chong went to jail for some great legislation that biden wrote.
It must suck for lee to know that the drug laws he is opposed to is due to the actions of the man running for veep on the democrat ticket.
@1
I actually wrote about Biden and his terrible drug policy record at Reload, but haven’t written about it here yet. I will be doing so before the election, but it will be related to Afghanistan, where Biden once introduced a horrendous bill that would have authorized biological warfare in an attempt to reduce the poppy harvests.
Why not mention the drug laws he authored here in this country?
Wasn’t it you that has complained numerous times about the racial injustice in some drug laws?
Yet you don’t want to talk about it here. Maybe after obama loses, when negative words about the party ticket won’t matter you’ll find it in you to post about it.
Unfortunately, Lee, there’s a serious issue of whether state medical marijuana laws are preempted by federal law, and SCOTUS answered that question in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), with a definitive “yes.”
The legal test of whether federal law preempts (i.e., supersedes) state law is not whose policy is wiser, but whether Congress (a) has power to displace state legislation and (b) has chosen to do so.
As a lawyer and state attorney general, Gregoire had a professional and ethical obligation to respect and uphold the law. She was not free to disregard the fact that production, possession, and use of marijuana is illegal in the United States for all purposes, including medical purposes.
A couple of generations ago — when I was a young bunny — Congress preempted state laws in the Deep South that legalized segregation by enacting the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was enforced over the objections of states — with federal troops and law enforcement officers in some cases.
As liberals, we lauded that. We can’t have it both ways. The preemption doctrine doesn’t apply when we want it to, and not apply when we don’t want it to. It’s a fundamental principle of the U.S. Constitution and the organization of our nation into a federal government consisting of individual states.
Medical use of marijuana is illegal under federal law. Judges can’t ignore that fact. They have a professional and ethical obligation to uphold the law, regardless of whether they agree with it. That, too, is fundamental to our system of government: The Constitution gives Congress, not state judges, the power to decide what the law will be.
If you want to change the law, you have to change it at the federal level by working for legalization of medical marijuana in Congress, and you’ll need a president willing to sign such legislation.
And until it changes, growers and users of marijuana for medical purposes should understand that they’re operating outside the law and are potentially subject to legal sanctions.
Inhumane Republican Fuck @1: I don’t know what your idea of a “great drug law” is, but I do know that Republicans don’t give a hoot about whether people are suffering with unbearable pain. I do know that Republicans are warmongers and torturers. And the ineluctable conclusion from all this is that any drug law written by Republicans, or that any Republican thinks is “great,” is guaranteed to be a piece of shit.
@4
What you’re not understanding Roger is that the ruling in Gonzales vs. Raich does not mean that the states themselves have to make their prosecutorial decisions based upon federal law. You’re not understanding the scope of the decision at all. Gonzales vs. Raich gave the Federal government the right to override state laws at their discretion. It did not repeal the laws at the state level.
Medical use of marijuana is illegal under federal law. Judges can’t ignore that fact.
Yes they can, and they have. Especially in California where Appeals Court judges ruled unanimously that San Diego and San Bernardino Counties must obey the state medical marijuana laws despite the fact that the federal law still considers medical marijuana illegal.
The Dalton case is not happening in Federal court, and therefore the state laws should apply.
Weren’t you a lawyer?
@3
Considering that Biden has recently been at the forefront of fixing some of those disastrous domestic laws he helped bring about in the 80’s, the reality of what he thinks today isn’t as clear as you might want to believe. But this is certainly why I thought Jim Webb would have been a far, far better pick for VP.
As for your insinuations that I’m afraid to take on Democrats on the drug war…are you nuts?
@6 The California case involves ID cards, not possession or use.
@8
So what? It still shows that state medical marijuana laws can be valid.
@6 Lee,
You are exactly right. And Roger you are right too. But the grey area is in the prosecution and what the State Attorney General decides to pursue irrespective of what the Federal Attorneys pursue. State rights vs. Federal prerogative is a complicated topic and steeped in many contradictions depending on what policies are being pursued and at what level.
This is also, what made the firing of the Federal Prosecutors so pernicious. Basically, Bush and Gonzales were overreaching at the federal level and decided to shitcan the non compliant prosecutors. And if I do recall one of the issues for the federal prosecutor assigned to the Tucson AZ area was that they were not aggressively pursuing certain classes of marijuana cases at the federal level, they left that to local and state authorities, because they felt they had bigger priorities with violent crime, terrorism, and harder drug trafficking cases. The Bush administration didn’t like this and punished the prosecutors. Because Bush believes he is the decider and that the Federal government just do everything and run roughshod over the local and state authorities.
Lee, good for you standing up to HAs legal cretin.
Of course for you to speak negatively of Biden before the election with truths will pizz off HAs clueless irrational idiot and his other spastic “friends”.
As I told SJ at dinner one night, what people do in their own home doesn’t bother me. If you sell it to others then I have issues.
If you sell it to others then I have issues
I so didn’t want to go into this, but these sorts of incredibly idiotic and stupid statements need a good thrashing and fisking.
What is the “it” with which PussyBitch has “issues?” One would suppose that to “sell” a controlled substance to others implies that such an act is in itself detrimental to the welfare of the population. Of course that is idiotic (i am pretty sure pharmacies and medical clinics/hospitals fall in that category). Perhaps the issue comprises something that is dangerous to others (marijuana is dangerous and deadly, and thus shouldn’t be sold to others?). Again completely ludicrous given the markets for guns, alcohol, tobacco, etc. Or maybe the issue is pure political expedience, thus nullifying itself prima facie.
Indeed i suspect that purported libertarian conservative types would hail efforts by individual citizens to embark on capitalistic adventures of selling such items to one another, cutting out the middle men (class?) in the process. Hasn’t there been all sorts of such rhetoric here on why people should be able to sell guns to one another without the government interfering. So one can only assume that the complaint has to do with a staggering amount of hypocritical craziness in which one simultaneously holds massively conflicting opinions without one whit of concern or angst.
Roger ,,,
Interesting that HA probloggers have more legal knowledge than you do? I told you that passing as a rabbit rather than as the Pukah you are, would lose you respect.
But, since you have the Pukah expertise, can you explain the pre-emption doctrine and why it is not trumped by the 10th amendment?
Marijuana should never have been made illegal in the first place.