Editorial: States, not fed, should rule on medical marijuana

By: Editorial | Opelika Auburn News
Published: October 20, 2009

The federal government does not always have to mandate individual state law. Instead, it has plenty of other issues to concern itself with to waste time with state matters, particularly menial ones.
For now, 14 states have approved the use of marijuana (medical cannabis) for healing or therapeutic purposes. But just because some states say it’s OK, that doesn’t make it legal in the United States.

But Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said prosecution for those using medical marijuana should be up to the states, not the federal government.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. “But we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal.”

Don’t get this wrong … this stance is not soft on crime. It’s lenient toward states’ rights. The book should continue to be thrown at dope dealers, and arguably harder than it has in the past.

The federal government must use law enforcement resources for crimes of more pressing matters such as the importing and trafficking of cocaine and heroin, neither of which are grown in the United States. It has plenty more pressing issues (health care, the federal deficit, War on Terror, etc.) than to waste taxpayer dollars prosecuting a woman attempting to cope with her cancer by use of medical marijuana.

Many believe the use of medical marijuana can reduce chronic pain, nausea and other ailments associated with cancer.

By no means do we advocate the legalization of medical marijuana. What we do advocate is the federal government letting state law in this case set the precedent by which people are governed.
Let the states figure this out.

So far, 14 have legalized medical marijuana’s use. Those states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.