US Attorney Spars with Hastings Law Students Over Pot Laws
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Hastings law students with the munchies and a keen interest in how changes in federal priorities on marijuana enforcement would affect
Hastings student Elizabeth Leeper grabbed a slice of pizza and
looked around at the McAllister Street campus lecture hall and
surmised: "This is kind of like who are the stoners of Hastings. This
is very incriminating. I'm definitely not signing in."
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These are heady times in the pot wars: In February, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced legislation that would legalize and tax marijuana for adult use in the state. In March, US Attorney General Eric Holder indicated that the feds would stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in states that allow them. A week later, as if to spite that very claim, DEA agents busted just one such dispensary in the city.
On stage right was Joseph Russoniello, the hard-line US attorney for the Northern District of California, most recently appointed by Bush II and a self-described cynic about California's medical marijuana laws (pointing the finger at all those "self-medicating" potheads and doctors handing out prescriptions as if they were candy). Though he declined to talk about specific cases, he said nothing has changed in the pot enforcement since Holder's pronouncement. The reason? The state's US attorneys haven't focused on legitimate users of marijuana since Prop. 215 was passed in 1996, which allowed marijuana for medical uses, he said.
"We're not interested in users...we're not even interested in those person who contend they're cultivating marijuana to provide it to qualfiied users...we could care less about it," Russoniello said. "But we differentiate between those who claim such [legal] conduct and those who are engaged in cultivation, trafficking, or distribution of marijuana for profit."
On stage left was Joe Elford, the chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access, who said he was "delighted" to see that the feds would no longer investigate and prosecute legal dispensaries. But he said that didn't excuse the people who have been busted by the feds or "rogue law enforcement officials in California" already, seizing marijuana from dispensaries or folks with a doctor's recommendation.
Elford also said he'd like a stronger affirmation from Russoniello that he wouldn't prosecute legitamite dispensaries, not satisfied with his claim that there's "little likelihood."
"You don't trust me?" the US attorney asked, getting a laugh from the students. Pretty good comic timing for a pot hater.
"I certainly trust you that there's a little likelihood," answered Elford, "but ... it still allows some people a certain amount of doubt, and unfortunately that certain amount of doubt carries with it a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence."
While the debate between the panelists remained cordial, the Hastings students came out ready for fisticuffs, and Russoniello was all-too-ready to take them on. One student told the US attorney "Alcohol is so much more dangerous than marijuana" to loud applause from her peers. Then, a Hastings graduate in an Obama polar fleece got into a mud-slinging match on various details, the one that must be recorded for posterity being: "[Stoners] stay home and watch cartoons!" Russoniello shot back that stoned train operators and airline pilots crash their respective vehicles with frequency, roaring, "The notion that people using marijuana are staying home and watching cartoons is so fanciful, it's absurd!"
"That's where you're absurd!" the woman screeched back.
Children, children.
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