www.KOB.com - Feds: Medical marijuana producers not a target
www.KOB.com - Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, KOB Eyewitness News 4 (New Mexico)
Posted at: 06/05/2009 5:39 PM
Updated at: 06/05/2009 6:23 PM
By: Jeremy Jojola, Eyewitness News 4; Charlie Pabst, KOB.com
The federal government has said it intends to honor state laws legalizing medical marijuana, but organizations in the state's marijuana program are still worried about federal raids.
Attorney General Eric Holder, the head of the country's Justice Department, answered questions Friday about whether local growers have to worry about the feds.
New Mexico is one of 13 states where medical marijuana is legal. One state-approved grower is on the verge of dispensing the drug to Albuquerque patients, despite the fact that it's illegal under federal law.
For two years, New Mexicans with a prescription to smoke have been doing so with fears that the federal government may knock on their door.
In California, even under the Obama administration, DEA agents raided some medical marijuana shops.
One New Mexico man, one of the first legally allowed to use medical marijuana, was arrested by a federal task force but never charged.
Attorney General Eric Holder told Eyewitness News 4 on Friday that local growers should be safe under the current administration.
He said, "As we have indicated the focus of our efforts are on large traffickers- people who are engaged in drug trafficking in the way that we normally think of that word, that term."
"For those organizations that are doing so sanctioned by state law and do it in a way that is consistent with state law, and given the limited resources that we have, that will not be an emphasis for this administration," Holder said after a press conference announcing new strategies in fighting cross-border drug trade.
Despite a growing number of states allowing marijuana use, there hasn't been a push for legalization on the federal level.
That isn't likely to change anytime soon.
When asked about the possibility of federal legislation, Holder said, "Medicinal marijuana . . . that is something for the states to decide."