http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/192

Memorandum for Selected United State Attorneys on Investigations and Prosecutions in States Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana

October 19th, 2009 Posted by Tracy Russo

Today Attorney General Eric Holder announced formal guidelines for federal prosecutors in states that have enacted laws authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Those guidelines are contained in a memo from Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden which was sent to United States Attorneys this morning.

The text of this memo is provided below for reference. You may also download a PDF version of the memo by clicking, http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/192

———————————————————————————————-

October 19,2009

MEMORANDUM FOR SELECTED UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS

FROM: David W. Ogden, Deputy Attorney General

SUBJECT: Investigations and Prosecutions in States Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana

This memorandum provides clarification and guidance to federal prosecutors in States that have enacted laws authorizing the medical use of marijuana. These laws vary in their substantive provisions and in the extent of state regulatory oversight, both among the enacting States and among local jurisdictions within those States. Rather than developing different guidelines for every possible variant of state and local law, this memorandum provides uniform guidance to focus federal investigations and prosecutions in these States on core federal enforcement priorities.

The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime and provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels. One timely example underscores the importance of our efforts to prosecute significant marijuana traffickers: marijuana distribution in the United States remains the single largest source of revenue for the Mexican cartels.

The Department is also committed to making efficient and rational use of its limited investigative and prosecutorial resources. In general, United States Attorneys are vested with “plenary authority with regard to federal criminal matters” within their districts. USAM 9-2.001. In exercising this authority, United States Attorneys are “invested by statute and delegation from the Attorney General with the broadest discretion in the exercise of such authority.” Id. This authority should, of course, be exercised consistent with Department priorities and guidance.

The prosecution of significant traffickers of illegal drugs, including marijuana, and the disruption of illegal drug manufacturing and trafficking networks continues to be a core priority in the Department’s efforts against narcotics and dangerous drugs, and the Department’s investigative and prosecutorial resources should be directed towards these objectives. As a general matter, pursuit of these priorities should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana. For example, prosecution of individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen consistent with applicable state law, or those caregivers in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law who provide such individuals with marijuana, is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources. On the other hand, prosecution of commercial enterprises that unlawfully market and sell marijuana for profit continues to be an enforcement priority of the Department. To be sure, claims of compliance with state or local law may mask operations inconsistent with the terms, conditions, or purposes of those laws, and federal law enforcement should not be deterred by such assertions when otherwise pursuing the Department’s core enforcement priorities.

Typically, when any of the following characteristics is present, the conduct will not be in clear and unambiguous compliance with applicable state law and may indicate illegal drug trafficking activity of potential federal interest:

•unlawful possession or unlawful use of firearms;
•violence;
•sales to minors;
•financial and marketing activities inconsistent with the terms, conditions, or purposes of state law, including evidence of money laundering activity and/or financial gains or excessive amounts of cash inconsistent with purported compliance with state or local law;
•amounts of marijuana inconsistent with purported compliance with state or local law;
•illegal possession or sale of other controlled substances; or
•ties to other criminal enterprises.
Of course, no State can authorize violations of federal law, and the list of factors above is not intended to describe exhaustively when a federal prosecution may be warranted. Accordingly, in prosecutions under the Controlled Substances Act, federal prosecutors are not expected to charge, prove, or otherwise establish any state law violations. Indeed, this memorandum does not alter in any way the Department’s authority to enforce federal law, including laws prohibiting the manufacture, production, distribution, possession, or use of marijuana on federal property. This guidance regarding resource allocation does not “legalize” marijuana or provide a legal defense to a violation of federal law, nor is it intended to create any privileges, benefits, or rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any individual, party or witness in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter. Nor does clear and unambiguous compliance with state law or the absence of one or all of the above factors create a legal defense to a violation of the Controlled Substances Act. Rather, this memorandum is intended solely as a guide to the exercise of investigative and prosecutorial discretion.

Finally, nothing herein precludes investigation or prosecution where there is a reasonable basis to believe that compliance with state law is being invoked as a pretext for the production or distribution of marijuana for purposes not authorized by state law. Nor does this guidance preclude investigation or prosecution, even when there is clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law, in particular circumstances where investigation or prosecution otherwise serves important federal interests.

Your offices should continue to review marijuana cases for prosecution on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the guidance on resource allocation and federal priorities set forth herein, the consideration of requests for federal assistance from state and local law enforcement authorities, and the Principles of Federal Prosecution.

cc: All United States Attorneys

Lanny A. Breuer
Assistant Attorney General Criminal Division

B. Todd Jones
United States Attorney
District of Minnesota
Chair, Attorney General’s Advisory Committee

Michele M. Leonhart
Acting Administrator
Drug Enforcement Administration

H. Marshall Jarrett
Director
Executive Office for United States Attorneys

Kevin L. Perkins
Assistant Director
Criminal Investigative Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation

DA dismisses charges against medical marijuana patient, caregiver
Erica Meltzer, Boulder Daily Camera
Posted: 10/15/2009 04:34:28 PM MDT

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett has requested that all charges be dropped against a Nederland woman who faced drug charges stemming from her use and distribution of medical marijuana.

Sherri Versfelt’s home was raided by law enforcement in July 2008. She spent 27 days in jail because she did not have the money to post bond, her attorney Robert Corry Jr., said.

Corry also represented Jason Lauve, a wheelchair-bound medical marijuana user was acquitted earlier this year.

Versfelt’s case was scheduled to go to trial next week. Corry called on Garnett not to pursue the case in a guest opinion published in Thursday’s Daily Camera.

Garnett has said prosecuting medical marijuana cases is his office’s lowest priority, and he thinks marijuana eventually will be legal.

Amendment 20, approved by Colorado voters in 2000, allows patients and caregivers to possess marijuana for medical purposes.

Garnett filed a motion to dismiss all charges against Verfelt Thursday morning. He said he was motivated by recent rulings in other court cases, not the publicity around the case.

Corry called the decision “a victory for the taxpayers of Boulder County, the voters of Colorado and medical marijuana.”

The truth about medical marijuana
By Robert J. Corry, Jr.
Posted: 10/15/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

These are promising times for Colorado`s medical marijuana patients. For years, they`ve suffered in the dark, desperately seeking only to follow their physicians` orders to use marijuana to address their debilitating medical conditions, taking their wheelchairs at midnight to the streets to purchase low-quality medicine at inflated prices, or struggling in the difficult and physically-taxing endeavor of growing it themselves in expensive indoor gardens. But finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Patients can visualize a world where the supply of medical marijuana is almost as safe to obtain as more dangerous and addictive hard narcotics such as Oxycontin, Percocet, or Fentanyl.

The optimism hasn`t come easy. In August, the Boulder District Attorney`s Office prosecuted Jason Lauve, a wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patient for two felony charges of possessing low-quality medical marijuana for his own use. While two high-level prosecutors participated in the four-day trial, these talented attorneys could not overcome simple facts: Jason was protected under the Colorado Constitution, which allows him to consume marijuana to treat extreme pain associated with his broken back.

In addition to understanding Lauve`s legal rights, many jurors saw the light about marijuana`s continued prohibition. Marijuana has alleviated human suffering for thousands of years, is not physically addictive, does not rip apart internal organs like harsh narcotics, and presents an all-natural and organic alternative to synthetic medicine.

After the verdict and an ensuing firestorm of taxpayer outrage, Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett opened his mind. He said that it would be better if marijuana were legal outright, and not just for medical purposes. This is an extraordinary statement from a prosecutor, and Garnett should be applauded for seeing that prohibition is a failed policy that only hurts those that have already suffered too much.

Garnett then reached out and explored clarifying Colorado`s law through civil litigation, rather than criminal prosecution. In a letter to the Daily Camera on Sept. 20, Garnett wrote, “I would like to see these issues clarified outside the context of a criminal prosecution, .. . I have assured them that I will not prosecute dispensaries since I don`t want the obvious lack of clarity about their operations to be resolved in a criminal context.” (emphasis his.) Then, a week later, Garnett told County Commissioners that prosecuting marijuana cases (not just medical marijuana cases, but marijuana in general) is his office`s lowest priority.

We can only hope that Garnett`s words are met with action. Because before any civil discussions can occur, Garnett must begin by dismissing the current criminal charges pending against Sherri Versfelt, a young Nederland woman guilty of nothing more than suffering from a debilitating medical condition and legally consuming and dispensing small amounts of medical marijuana to other patients.

When government agents showed up at her home without a search warrant, they were dealing with someone who has no prior criminal convictions, no money, and no weapons. She did, however, have a state-issued Medical Marijuana Registry Card. Versfelt has already spent 27 days in jail because she could not afford to post bond. This coming at a time when we face a distressed economy, high unemployment, and the prospect of violent criminals being released from prison because the government has run out of our hard-earned tax money.

Versfelt is currently pregnant, due in December, and the extreme stress of a felony jury trial (scheduled to begin Oct. 19 at the Boulder County Justice Center) might be too much for her and her unborn son, especially because Sherri suffers from a severe long-time medical condition stemming from an adolescent surgery that makes her pregnancy itself a miracle. At age 14, she had a watermelon-sized growth removed, along with one of her ovaries.

For voters to take seriously Garnett`s desire to be “the most progressive DA in Colorado,” he must cease the fearsome prosecution of sick people and those who care for them. As long as peaceful citizens fear pounding on their doors by armed police, criminal charges, and the humiliation that comes from being accused, there can be no open and civil discussion, no trust.

Colorado voters made medical marijuana legal. Patients and caregivers are dispensing and consuming it legally. Jurors and taxpayers should not be subjected to lengthy trials over a plant. After a long dark road, Colorado`s suffering medical marijuana patients finally have hope that better days lie ahead. Garnett can lead the way by turning words into action.

Robert J. Corry, Jr. is a Colorado defense attorney specializing in medical marijuana. He represents Jason Lauve and Sherri Versfelt.

Marijuana grower ‘liberates’ confiscated weed

October 13, 2009 3:47 PM
LANCE BENZEL / THE GAZETTE

Marijuana’s pungent odor filled the lobby at Colorado Springs police headquarters Tuesday afternoon as former drug suspect Stephan Thomas showed off nearly a half pound of the drug he reclaimed from police custody.

“Liberating medicine!” his attorney, Robert J. Corry Jr. of Denver, cried out as the pair emerged from a back room holding three large Mason jars filled or partially filled with aromatic marijuana buds.

The surreal tableau inside the Police Operations Center on South Nevada Avenue unfolded before a small group of medical marijuana users and their supporters and marked the end of what Corry described as the latest battle over dueling interpretations of the state’s 9-year-old medical marijuana laws.

At issue, Corry said: Whether the constitutional amendment voters ratified in 2000 limits medical marijuana providers to possessing 2 ounces of the drug per patient, or whether, as Corry contends, the law merely includes that amount as a “guideline.”

“The law says you can have whatever is necessary medically,” said Corry, a medical marijuana advocate who says he has defended more than 100 people who were charged with crimes while following the controversial law, including a Boulder man recently acquitted at trial in an unrelated case.

Thomas, 26, of Fountain, was arrested at a traffic stop in December 2008 even though he presented his medical marijuana registration card and signed documents showing that he was the caregiver — or a lawfully appointed supplier — for several medical marijuana users, court documents show.

Dan Zook, an assistant district attorney in the Fourth Judicial District, said the paperwork was incomplete and out of date.

Thomas disputed that claim, and said detectives with the Colorado Springs police Metro Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Unit scoffed when he protested that he was a caregiver: “They kept laughing and saying, ‘Medical marijuana is not real. You don’t know what you got yourself into.’”

Authorities seized just less than 8 ounces — about $4,000 worth of marijuana — and $3,500 in cash, court documents showed.

The felony case against Thomas was dropped Oct. 5, and a judge in Colorado Springs ordered that his marijuana and money be returned. Colorado Springs police referred questions about the dropped charges to the District Attorney’s Office. Zook said the decision was made after a district attorney’s investigator interviewed Thomas’ clients.

Corry chalked it up to the law-enforcement community’s reluctance to follow the law.

“It’s inertia,” he said. “It’s business as usual and old habits dying hard. They’re trained to identify it and prosecute it, and that’s what they did.”

Thomas’ supply was about 40 grams lighter than when police seized it, his attorney claimed, a discrepancy police attributed to sending some of the drug to a lab for testing.

–

Gazette writer John Ensslin contributed to this report.

Springs Man Reclaims Marijuana From Police

Posted: 9:29 PM Oct 13, 2009
Reporter: McKenzie Martin
Email Address: mmartin@kktv.com

A Colorado Springs man arrested on drug charges reclaimed his marijuana from police Tuesday.

Stephan Thomas has a medical license to use and sell medical pot and after an 8-month battle in court he went to the Police Operation’s Center to reclaim almost a half pound of his marijuana that police seized last December.

“Liberating some medicine,” said Thomas’s attorney Robert Corry. “This is how the law is supposed to work where if somebody is encountered by law enforcement and law enforcement confiscates their medicine it’s supposed to come back to them,” Corry said.

Last December Thomas was pulled over for speeding. Inside the car police found three mason jars filled with about 4,000-dollars worth of marijuana.

“I told them I was medical and they pulled us out, they didn’t care, they put us in hand-cuffs,” Thomas said.

Thomas not only has a medical license to use marijuana, he is also a caregiver, he has a license to sell to other patients. “I had the license, I had copies of the patients that I caregive for,” Thomas said.

After dealing with his case for months in court it was dismissed by a judge last weeks ago. The judge ordered that police give him his pot back.

“Just took a very long time to do this, I attribute that to old habits die hard,” Corry said.

And now after so long Corry and Thomas say the marijuana isn’t even good any more because it wasn’t stored properly. But it’s still a victory they say for them and for everyone else who uses marijuana to help ease their pain.

The DA’s office did not return phone calls to 11 News regarding Thomas’ case. Police said they couldn’t comment on this specific case, but said they would never arrest someone unless they believed they were breaking the law.

More than 11-thousand people have medical licenses to use marijuana in our state.