Obama's Misguided Crackdown on Medical Marijuana

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Why is the government cracking down on medical marijuana, a $1.7 billion business in California alone — and one of the few that seems to be thriving in a moribund economy?

In early October, the Justice Department announced it would be targeting medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Calling large dispensaries "profiteers" that "hijacked" California's medical marijuana law and were "motivated not by compassion but by money," the state's four U.S. attorneys announced the arrests of two major dispensary owners and a lawyer they accused of making millions from growing the drug.

It was a reversal of President Obama's campaign promise to end the previous administration's legal pursuit of medical marijuana. Although Obama's justice department had previously abided by a memo, which said that prosecuting marijuana providers and patients who followed state law was not an "efficient use of federal resources," over the summer the administration changed tactics, expressing concern about "an increase in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana for purported medical purposes." It began sending letters to dispensaries and their landlords threatening forfeiture of the property if marijuana sales did not stop.

The IRS has also begun its own crackdown on California dispensaries. It now claims that the dispensaries owe back taxes because all of their business deductions are illegal. In addition, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms recently warned gun dealers not to sell to users of medical marijuana.

MORE: More Evidence That Marijuana-Like Drugs May Help Prevent PTSD

Ironically, national support for medical marijuana is currently at a high, at about 70%, and more and more advocates are calling for total legalization of the drug. For the first time ever, Gallup found last week that more Americans support making marijuana use legal: 50% of Americans support legalization, with 46% opposed. That's up from just 12% in favor in 1969.

Support for legalization is even higher in younger age groups: 62% of those aged 18 to 29 want legal marijuana, while just 31% of those over 65 favor changing the current law. As boomers and even more weed-friendly Gen-Xers age, pro-legalization sentiment continues to grow.

Now add to that, support for legalization from the California Medical Association, the state's largest group representing doctors, with some 35,000 members. In this context, medical marijuana doesn't seem like a crime voters are clamoring to prosecute.

It's not likely that the federal crackdown will actually affect marijuana consumption, either. Studies repeatedly find little effect of law enforcement spending on demand for drugs. Indeed, a recent marijuana price analysis by a collective of geographers called The Floating Sheep (you can't make this stuff up!) — based on crowd-sourced data on the street value of marijuana by quantity, quality and location — found no correlation between the local cost of marijuana and the number of arrests for dealing or possession in the state.

MORE: Medical Marijuana Sales Grow to Rival Viagra's: New Report

Rather, price is correlated with location. As the Atlantic's Richard Florida describes it:

Their main finding is that marijuana prices rise the further a location is from the major center of production. Decreased supply leads to a rise in transportation costs and risk. Clearly pot prices are as low as they are in the Pacific Northwest and Florida for the same reasons that potatoes are cheap in Idaho and corn is cheap in Iowa — because they're close to the source, the places where the product is either grown, imported, processed, or all three.

(Incidentally, the nationwide average price for an ounce of high quality smoke: $377.02)

It seems unlikely that spending scarce federal dollars during a recession on a medical marijuana crackdown is going to win any awards for "efficient" use of government resources from either the right or the left. In fact, I seem to recall that there's a Senate committee desperately seeking quick budget cuts around now: in view of these facts, do you think they should slash schools, meals for seniors, health care spending, cancer research, unemployment benefits, firefighter or police salaries — or the war on medical marijuana?

MORE: U.S. Rules That Marijuana Has No Medical Use. What Does Science Say?

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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Obama's healthcare law appealed to Supreme Court

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Opponents of the proposed U.S. health care bill are pictured during a rally outside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, March 21, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON | Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:43pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to back the centerpiece of Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare overhaul -- the requirement that all Americans have health insurance.

The appeal was largely expected as a high court ruling against the law could be a fatal blow to the president's signature domestic policy achievement and could have major implications for his re-election bid.

The same day the administration filed its appeal, 26 states and a major business group urged the justices to strike down the entire law, which would have a far-reaching impact on future healthcare coverage for Americans and company costs.

The case is likely to be heard and decided in the Supreme Court's upcoming term that begins next week and lasts through June 2012. A ruling is likely in the midst of the campaign for the November 2012 elections.

The administration and the opponents of the law called for a quick ruling by the high court to resolve uncertainty affecting the federal government, states and companies about the law's key provisions that are taking effect.

The 26 states and National Federation of Independent Business argued in their appeals the entire law should be invalidated because Congress exceeded its powers requiring that Americans buy health insurance or face a penalty.

The Obama administration filed its own appeal in which the Justice Department argued the so-called individual mandate, due to take effect in 2014, was constitutional and said the issue was appropriate for Supreme Court review.

"Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed," the Justice Department said.

"We believe the challenges to Affordable Care Act ... will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law," the department said in a statement.

White House adviser Stephanie Cutter said the administration asked the Supreme Court to hear the case "so that we can put these challenges to rest and continue moving forward implementing the law to lower the cost of health care and make it more secure for all Americans."

At issue was a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in Atlanta in August that declared unconstitutional the individual insurance requirement but refused to strike down the entire law.

That decision conflicted with rulings by other appeals courts that have upheld the law or have rejected legal challenges, including a lawsuit by the state of Virginia that was dismissed earlier this month on procedural grounds.

The law, passed by Congress and signed by Obama in 2010 after a bruising political battle, is expected to be a major issue in the 2012 elections as Obama seeks another four-year term. Republican presidential candidates oppose it and Republicans in Congress have pushed to repeal the law.

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Obama, a Democrat, has championed the law as a major accomplishment of his presidency and as a way to try to slow soaring healthcare costs while expanding health insurance coverage to the more than 30 million Americans without it.

The Supreme Court long has been expected to have the final word on the law's constitutionality. The dispute has important legal, political and financial implications for companies in the healthcare field.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said the states sought Supreme Court review of their lawsuit.

"This healthcare law is an affront on Americans' individual liberty and we will not allow the federal government to violate our constitutional rights," she said.

Legal experts have said the nine-member Supreme Court, with a conservative majority and four liberals, most likely will be closely divided on whether the individual mandate requiring insurance purchases exceeded the power of Congress.

The Obama administration earlier this week said it decided against asking the full U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit to review the August ruling by a three-judge panel of the court that found the insurance requirement unconstitutional.

That decision cleared the way for the administration to go to the Supreme Court.

The states in their appeal also argued the law's expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that provides health care to low-income Americans, was unconstitutionally coercive, forced upon the states.

A senior Justice Department official told reporters that political considerations played no role in moving for Supreme Court review. The official said it was important to get a ruling soon so planning for the far-reaching law can proceed.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bill Trott)

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