US attorney in Seattle says Wash medical pot system 'not tenable' in light of feds' guidance
The warning came after the agency said it will allow the states of Washington and Colorado to move forward with plans to tax and regulate recreational marijuana sales.
In written statements, U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan in Seattle and U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby in Spokane promised the feds won't hesitate to go after people operating outside the legal framework set up by Washington voters last fall.
The state legalized medical use of marijuana in 1998 but never offered many options for how patients are supposed to obtain the pot. They can grow it themselves or allow someone to grow it for them, but medical marijuana dispensaries are not allowed under state law.
Nevertheless, such dispensaries have proliferated — with no oversight by state government or controls on where the marijuana comes from or where it goes. Federal authorities have raided some they deem to be fronts for criminal activity.
"The continued operation and proliferation of unregulated, for-profit entities outside of the state's regulatory and licensing scheme is not tenable and violates both state and federal law," the nearly identical statements from the prosecutors said. "While our resources are limited, we will continue to enforce federal law in this arena."
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2f56238d194f4a309188a215de990ed9/WA--Legalizing-Marijuana-Wash
http://www.king5.com/news/marijuana/Two-Pot-Systems-221875611.html
The officials say it may be necessary to raise taxes or impose more stringent rules on medical pot to avoid undercutting the new recreational market and the tax dollars it is expected to inject into state coffers. Many "patients," they say, are in reality heavy recreational users who fake or exploit their maladies.
The idea of changing the rules for medical marijuana alarms some patients and providers of the drug as medicine.
Under current state law, a range of medical professionals, including naturopaths and even some nurses can recommend marijuana for health problems ranging from cancer to persistent pain. While Washington state has no patient registry for the drug, officials in Colorado, which also has medical marijuana, have said the overwhelmingly male and relatively young demographics of their patient population line up with statistics for recreational consumers of the drug.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/washington-state-medical-marijuana_n_3283035.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
where it belongs. 
Holders recent announcement was hopefully a step in right direction. 
They think that all illness is "faking it to get attention" and that being ill means you're morally defective (like they all have perfect bodies what with all the alcohol and cigarette consumption that people like Boehner do).
I've run into lots of people of the working class type (I'm trying not to call names here) who think that if you sing and dance or play an instrument, you're just doing it "to get attention" like any kind of attention is a bad thing. I was once married to somebody who thought that if I was sick in bed I was doing it "to get attention" and so he went to the OTHER END OF THE HOUSE so as not to "encourage me". What a psycho bastard. He never noticed that his presence or absence had nothing to do with my being ill.
Repubs think people on disability should just get up and walk, and they're faking their crushed vertebrae or whatever, and damn them, those disabled people should just go out and get a job!! Because being disabled is so much fun and the bennies are SO generous!!!
But Ayn Rand got Social Security. So much for the rugged individual.
