Athough many local residents might suspect there’s a legalizing-pot debate under way among Clark County leaders, that’s really not the case. A more accurate description is that of a legal dilemma. County commissioners are caught in a tug of war between a new state law that allows collective medical marijuana gardens, and federal law that prohibits growing, distributing and possessing the substance.Last year, the commissioners made the right call when they imposed a moratorium on implementing the state law, and now they say they will extend that moratorium beyond its July expiration date. That, too, appears to be a correct decision, even more so in light of a recent letter to county commissioners from the U.S. Department of Justice. As Stephanie Rice reported in Friday’s Columbian, commissioners had asked the feds if county employees would be immune from prosecution if they perform tasks related to zoning and permitting of state-sanctioned collective medical marijuana gardens. That seems to be a question of profound importance, especially of county employees who don’t want to face federal criminal charges for doing their jobs.
Joseph T. Rannazzisi, deputy assistant administrator of the federal department’s Office of Diversion Control, left no doubt about the answer. Not only has Congress “determined that marijuana is a schedule I controlled substance,” but also, “growing, distributing, and possessing marijuana in any capacity … is a violation of federal law regardless of state laws permitting such activities.”
Medical marijuana advocates will point out that President Obama’s policies on the matter have wavered, but at the federal level at least, the law is the law. And in the context of feedback from the Justice Department, the letter is the letter.
As we noted in an editorial on July 22 last year, this isn’t a drug debate, it’s a zoning matter, and one that remains very much unresolved. That is why city councils in Vancouver and elsewhere in Clark County have also enacted moratoriums on collective medical marijuana gardens.