By CLARKE CANFIELD

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Voters approved a referendum making Maine the fifth state to allow retail pot dispensaries, but medical marijuana advocates say it won’t become like California, where hundreds of marijuana shops have popped up and come under critical scrutiny.

California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island allow for places where medical marijuana patients can legally buy pot. Maine voters gave their approval Tuesday, 59 percent to 41 percent.

Referendum opponents pointed at Los Angeles as proof that cannabis outlets are a bad idea. There, the district attorney has vowed to crack down on places that are selling the drug to people who don’t qualify.

But Ethan Nadelmann of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance said there’s no chance Maine would become like Los Angeles, which he called the “wild west West” of medical marijuana, because of stricter provisions.

Maine law requires that dispensaries be licensed by the state, while California law does not, he said. Maine law also narrowly defines medical conditions for which patients can be prescribed pot, while California allows doctors to recommend it for virtually any ailment.

“You aren’t going to see hundreds of dispensaries popping up all over Maine,” Nadelmann said. “You’re going to see a more regulated system.”

Nonetheless, the director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency said the language of the Maine referendum lacks proper oversight and control. The potential exists for a dispensary to become “nothing more than a storefront for the criminal activity of drug dealing, which is the experience in California,” said Roy McKinney.

“If there isn’t sufficient oversight, inspection, audits, etc., the potential is there for criminal activity to flourish,” he said.

Fourteen states have laws allowing some use of marijuana for medical purposes. Maine’s medical marijuana law, first approved in 1999, allows the use of pot for debilitating conditions such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

The original law allows patients to possess up to 2 1/2 ounces of pot and up to six marijuana plants, but many of those patients don’t have a legal way to obtain it. The new law will give them places where they can buy it.

The number of dispensaries has exploded in California and Colorado. Los Angeles alone has up to 800 of them by some estimates, and Colorado has about 100. New Mexico has one and Rhode Island doesn’t have any.

While many cannabis clubs have sprouted in Los Angeles, most California towns and cities have rules that regulate them on the local level and reflect the local values and attitudes, said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organizatoin for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In Maine, dispensaries are more likely to show up in liberal-leaning cities and towns, he said.

“Obviously, the Portlands of the world will have more than Aroostook County,” he said, contrasting Maine’s largest city with the state’s conservative northernmost county.

More states could adopt measures to allow for marijuana dispensaries with the recent announcement that the Obama administration would not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers under federal laws as long as they conform to state laws, said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project.

“I think it’s a signal to the states, to voters and state legislatures, that this is something we can do without getting into a fight with the federal government, which nobody wants,” he said.

Submitted by Jeremy  from Genesee County CC.

The policy is spelled out in a three-page document quietly enacted last year by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. It states that if deputies determine someone is a qualified patient or primary caregiver as defined by California law and has eight ounces or less of the drug, he or she can keep it and board the plane.

Deputies warn the pot-carrying passengers that they may be committing a felony upon arrival when they set foot in a jurisdiction where medical marijuana is not recognized. But they say they don’t call ahead to alert authorities on the other end.

“We never have. We’re certainly within our right to, but we never have,” said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. “Our notification of the passengers is for their own safety and well-being.”

California voters approved medical marijuana use in 1996, while federal law still bans all possession and use.

But Oakland attorney Robert Raich notes the Code of Federal Regulations says a prohibition on operating a civil aircraft with knowledge that there is marijuana aboard doesn’t apply to carrying marijuana that’s “authorized by or under any Federal or State statute.”

The federal Transportation Security Administration does the screening and when marijuana — or any suspected contraband  is found, the sheriff’s deputies are summoned.

Low profile

Oakland’s airport policy was enacted in February 2008, but Raich said he didn’t want to publicize it until recently lest the Bush administration change federal regulations, or lest it become an issue in Obama administration drug officials’ confirmation hearings.

“All other airports in medical cannabis states should have similar policies but they don’t,” he said, adding that he hears San Francisco International and Los Angeles International airports are relatively kind to medical marijuana users while airports in Burbank, Ontario and San Diego are not.

Raich, who has seen two of his medical marijuana cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and has taught Oakland Police cadets about medical marijuana issues, said medical marijuana users generally didn’t have much trouble when Oakland Police used to patrol inside the airport terminals. But that changed when the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office took over in mid-2007. That summer TSA screeners referred to deputies a traveling medical-marijuana user from Washington state.

“The sheriff’s deputies so harassed this person, it was heart-wrenching,” Raich said. “They took his medicine, they broke his bong, they took his edibles. They were threatening him.”

‘Pinball machine’

Raich said he found that the sheriff’s office was unwilling to change its policy. So he consulted various officials including those at the Port of Oakland, which owns and operates the airport.

“I felt like a ball in a pinball machine,” he said. “I felt like I’d talked to every single employee at the port and they all seemed sympathetic but they all told me the same thing: ‘That’s not our policy “… that’s the sheriff doing that on his own.’ ”

Raich eventually went to the Alameda County counsel’s office.

That office “finally told (Sheriff Greg Ahern) he had to comply with California law whether he liked it or not, and only then did he adopt a policy,” Raich said.

“Greg Ahern is out of touch with the people of California who voted for Prop. 215 and medical cannabis in 1996 and have continued to support it by wide margins ever since,” Raich said. Sheriff’s spokesman Nelson said the sheriff “neither supports nor opposes the medical marijuana law.

“He’s had no position on that,” Nelson said. “He’s just trying to do the best he can when a state law conflicts with a federal law.”

Read the Political Blotter at www.ibabuzz.com/politics.

By Josh Richman
Oakland Tribune

We started the march in good form and fashion, we were lucky to have the Harley Davidson patrol safely cross us down the streets to the capitals front steps. (Just a little constriction in our path) Kinda ,just like our MMP program! Once at the capital the banners and signs were flying high with good karma, the master of the ceremonies was sharp and to the point with our concerns. The protesting and chanting was right on key. We asked Mr. Cox to come out , but no such luck! The speakers were top notch. We did get our word heard!

As the day started to wrap up, the sun came out to warm us, most returned to the cafe for social and networking.

For those of you that had to travel to Lansing for the event and home again I hope that your travels were safe. We did a good job!!!

Amy

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