What has federal law enforcement said about medical marijuana?
General Reference (not clearly pro or con)
Mark Quinlivan, US Department of Justice Attorney, told the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a Mar. 27, 2006 hearing on a medical marijuana case, as reported in the Sacramento Bee on Mar. 28, 2006:
"The federal government always has focused on large-scale distributors and growers.... I know of no federal marijuana prosecutions based solely on personal possession."
Richard Meyer, special agent and public information officer for the US Drug Enforcement Administration's San Francisco office, told the Lake County Record-Bee, as reported on Aug. 19, 2004:
"According to the United States Constitution there is a supremacy clause, which says that in case of conflict federal law precedes state law.
According to federal law, there is no such thing as medical marijuana. Marijuana is a dangerous drug that the United States Congress has classified as a Schedule One substance. A Schedule One substance doesn't have any accepted medical use in the United States and has a high potential for abuse."
Carol O. Lam, US Department of Justice Attorney for the Southern District of California, told the San Diego Tribune in a Mar. 6, 2003 interview, published on Mar. 23, 2003:
"I think Prop. 215 [California's Medical Marijuana law] has put us all in a difficult position because it's clearly a law that suggests something that's contrary to federal law. And the passage of 215 and the adoption of the guidelines by the San Diego City Council have now placed the federal government in a position where we will have to increase enforcing in that area because it violates federal law.
Our view is that if people want to persuade the FDA and the DEA and Congress that marijuana is truly medicine, that's the route it should take. Until that's done, we'll continue to enforce that."
