She told the Colorado Independent that she has no involvement in medical marijuana beyond her work in the legislature. The Missoula Democrat, though, has been very outspoken in the legislature, advocating for liberalized medical marijuana laws and also advocating for the federal de-listing of marijuana, so that it becomes an issue that can be decided by individual states.

“Because of the federal supremacy clause, federal law always trumps state law,” she says. “We fought a civil war over this. There is nothing a state can do to make marijuana legal, or even to make medical marijuana legal, but there is a process to change that at the federal level. Now that so many states have made medical marijuana legal, the federal government should remove marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, and let the states regulate marijuana as they see fit,” she says.

“I don’t believe I should be investigated by the DEA for saying that. Any suggestion that the federal government is investigating me is very chilling. I’m an historian, so yes, I connect present activities to past activities, such as the Sedition Act of 1918 and the McCarthy hearings. When you have government officials investigating lawmakers because of how they pursue their official duties, you have a problem,” she contends.

“It is outrageous and absurd that the DEA would investigate a state lawmaker for doing her job: crafting state laws. When he ran for president, Barack Obama said he would not circumvent state medical marijuana laws. The president needs to keep his word and order the Justice Department to back off, and to focus on real crime instead of targeting medical marijuana providers and interfering with states’ democratic processes,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project. “This could have a chilling effect on lawmakers who want to be involved in regulating medical marijuana in any state.”

“This is part of the continuing witch-hunt in Montana,” said Jim Gingery, executive director of the Montana Medical Growers Association. “They have already successfully intimidated law-abiding
businesspeople, and now they are attempting to intimidate any politician who is opposed to full prohibition. This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Gingery said. “They will try to discredit anyone involved in medical marijuana in Montana.”

Sands said her name came up when a DEA agent asked a witness whether Sands was involved in a drug conspiracy case under investigation. That person’s attorney told Sands that her name had come up.

From the Missoulian:

A possible witness in a federal drug investigation was asked whether Sands might be part of a conspiracy to sell medical marijuana. The questions came from Drug Enforcement Administration agents from Billings who were investigating medical marijuana businesses, and Sands learned about the inquiry from the witness’ attorney.

“So now, if you’re a state legislator who has been working on medical marijuana laws, you are somehow part of a conspiracy,” said Sands, who represents House District 95 in Missoula and works as development director for the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. “It’s ridiculous, of course, but it’s also threatening to think that the federal government is willing to use its influence and try to chill discussion about this subject.”

DEA Special Agent Mike Turner, spokesperson for the DEA, out of Denver, told the Missoulian that the debate over medical marijuana is wracked by confusion.

From the Missoulian:

“We’re not interested in sick people, but we are interested in people who are profiting significantly. If they are, they are fair game as long as there is a reasonable expectation for a successful prosecution.”

“It is true that we’ve got competing laws in place here with states with medical marijuana laws, but federal law is clear,” he said. “Marijuana is illegal under federal law. If you are involved in selling marijuana, trafficking marijuana, profiting from marijuana, you are in jeopardy. We get questions about what we’ll investigate and what we won’t, and we can’t give that answer. But if you’re involved with profiting from marijuana, you’re in jeopardy.”

Turner apparently wouldn’t tell the Missoulian whether Sands was under investigation or why.

“What we are doing in Montana is part of an ongoing investigation that we cannot comment on,” he told the Colorado Independent. “This is not confirming or denying anything about Ms. Sands. We typically don’t go to the press to discuss who we are looking at or not looking at.

“As you know, marijuana is illegal federally and there is no exception in federal law for marijuana to be used as medicine,” Turner said.

He said the DEA and the Department of Justice are not investigating individual users or “street level” sellers of marijuana. “We go after folks who are distributing on a significant level. People who are profiting significantly are fair game,” he said.

A year ago the DEA orchestrated a massive raid on medical marijuana businesses in Montana, where voters approved legalizing medical marijuana by a substantial majority.

Congressman Jared Polis and drug-policy reform advocate Ethan Nadelmann argued Wednesday night in Vail that one of the most compelling reasons to legalize marijuana in the United States is to eliminate a major funding source for deadly Mexican drug cartels. Both Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and recently retired DEA agent Anthony Coulson sharply disagreed.

Polis, Suthers (Williams photo).

“There’s no federal nexus for action. This is not a federal issue. In fact, there’s almost a reverse federal nexus. We are contributing to international difficulties, particularly on our southern border, where about 50 percent of the funds for the criminal cartels come from marijuana smuggling operations,” said Polis, a Boulder Democrat whose district includes Vail and surrounding Eagle County.

Suthers, a Republican who has openly expressed his contempt for Colorado’s current medical marijuana industry, said Mexican politicians and law enforcement officials he’s talked to don’t see legalization of marijuana in the United States as the key to ending drug-gang bloodshed in Mexico.

“They think that [violence is] so ingrained at this point, [and the cartels are] very flexible,” Suthers said. “When the drug market dries up, they kidnap people. Until we get some meaningful change in the Mexican criminal justice system – it’s kind of a non-player down there – [the cartels are] in charge of the country and they’ll do whatever they need to do to make money regardless of what happens in the U.S.”

Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the non-profit Drug Policy Alliance, countered that argument: “The number one thing you need to go into other businesses is capital. The number one source of capital for the Mexican gangs is the illegal drug business. Legalizing marijuana removes a major source of capital for them and will undermine their capacity to expand into other areas.”

Coulson, who formerly directed the federal government’s drug enforcement strategy in southern Arizona and now serves as a drug-policy consultant and director of ADAPTE International, agreed that legalizing marijuana in the States would be a major blow to the cartels.

“Dr. Nadelmann, Congressman Polis are correct that marijuana is the largest cash-generating operation of a cartel,” Coulson said. “If there was no marijuana, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine would collapse on itself – just logistically not enough money for a cartel to traffic in those drugs. Now you might say that that supports [their argument] on legalizing marijuana … After 28 years that’s not a conclusion that I would come to.”

Instead, Coulson favors keeping marijuana illegal, dramatically increasing federal spending on treatment and prevention and sanctioning the Mexican government and power structure.

“What controls Mexico? Not the Mexican government. The oligarchy. The few rich 200 families in Mexico and the cartels control Mexico. The only impact that we’ll have is sanctioning the government of Mexico for not cooperating with us and sanctioning the oligarchy,” Coulson said.

The former DEA agent went on to say Mexico’s culture of violence will persist even without a major U.S. drug market.

“I would suggest that the violence in Mexico is not a product of our consumption use, although it’s a contributing factor,” Coulson said. “The reason for violence in Mexico is because it is something that they have inherited from their colonial masters, the Spanish and the French, a long time ago.”

During a later question and answer period an audience member who identified himself as being of Mexican descent said Coulson’s comments deeply offended him. He countered that the U.S. drug market has provided a steady flow of cash and guns back across the border that has fueled the rise of the cartels and allowed them to take over human trafficking operations.

Vail has long catered to wealthy Latin American visitors and second homeowners, especially from Mexico, and many of its restaurants and lodges rely on immigrant laborers. Suthers seemed keenly aware of his audience.

“Almost without exception, the people on these panels advocating the legalization of drugs have either been academics, paid affiliates of public policy institutes, editorialists or law enforcement officers or politicians in ski resorts and areas of great affluence,” Suthers said.

Polis, a millionaire entrepreneur whose family owns property in Vail, disputed that notion. While he says he’s never smoked marijuana himself and very rarely even drinks alcohol, Polis said he’s dealt with addiction in his own family and saw a high school friend die of a heroin overdose.

But pot is not heroin, he said, and the ease with which is can be obtained illegally makes it all the more imperative to regulate marijuana for strength and purity and to keep it away from those under the age of 21. Plus, legalization will neuter the cartels and boost the U.S. economy.

“If you had legal, regulated marijuana production in this country, not only is it going to create jobs here, it deals a blow to the cartels,” Polis said. “Will they still exist? Yeah, they still work in heroin and cocaine and whatever else they’re doing. But half of their money, half of the crime will disappear overnight on our southern border and be much more containable by the police resources which we will also be able to buffer by the increased focus on violent crime and the increased resources that come in from regulating and taxing marijuana.”

Nadelmann, Coulson (Williams photo).

“I personally would prefer legalization of marijuana to the medical marijuana regimen we currently have in Colorado,” Suthers said. “I believe the retail dispensary model in Colorado, whereby marijuana is grown in large grow operations and sold in retail dispensaries to people who allegedly have a debilitating medical condition has become a complete joke. It’s nothing more than state-sanctioned fraud on the part of thousands of patients and a few dozen doctors.”

Nadelmann warned that even if Colorado becomes the first state to fully legalize recreational marijuana use, it will not be an easy process.

“It’s not a panacea,” he said. “And I can tell you that if Colorado votes to legalize in 2012 – and please do and I hope the same is true for folks in Washington state, which may also have an initiative – it’s not going to be simple and easy. There’s no flip the switch and we move into an orderly regulated world. The attorney general is going to be called upon to enact that law and implement that law in good faith and I hope he will if it wins.”

Nadelmann added, however, that Colorado has a chance to show the rest of the nation what sensible drug policy looks like.

“You guys can lead,” he said. “You can actually provide the future, and it’s a future in which we’ll have drug policies grounded not in ignorance, fear, prejudice and profit but in science, compassion, health and human rights.”

Would you like some irony with that baggie of medical marijuana? Well, like it or not, you’re getting some. Medical marijuana has been legal for a decade or so in various U.S. states but it wasn’t until the Ogden memo of 2009 that it really took off.

That was the memo from the Department of Justice that states and medical marijuana providers took to mean the feds would stand down and look the other way as long as medical marijuana patients and providers were in clear compliance with state laws.

Then somebody at the Department of Justice apparently decided that maybe it wasn’t cool for the feds to look the other way as states began flaunting their defiance of the Controlled Substances Act, and medical marijuana states got a raft of new letters from new DOJ attorneys, culminating in the Cole memo which said that state laws are not a defense when it comes to breaking federal laws.

So, on the one hand you have the Department of Justice essentially launching the medical marijuana boom with a memo that seemed to spell out the fact that the nation’s top law enforcement agency would respect state law and pretty much stay out of medical marijuana. Then, on the other hand you have that same agency saying “Now, wait a minute, that’s not what we meant at all.”

“It is very disappointing that the Obama Administration has backed off significantly from what they promised. (Attorney General Eric) Holder was very clear earlier that the Ogden memo applied to entities such as dispensaries and not just to patients,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policy for the Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, D.C.

You can read the Ogden memo here.

As people in the medical marijuana field look from the Ogden memo to the Cole memo, their moods darken.

From The Miami Herald:

In October 2009, medical marijuana advocates celebrated a U.S. Department of Justice memo declaring that federal authorities wouldn’t target the legal use of medicinal pot in states where it is permitted.

The memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden was credited with accelerating a California medical marijuana boom, including a proliferation of dispensaries that now handle more than $1 billion in pot transactions.

But last month brought a new memo from another deputy attorney general, James Cole. And this time, it is stirring industry fears of federal raids on pot dispensaries and sweeping crackdowns on large-scale medical pot cultivation.

Cole asserted in the June 29 memo that state laws “are not a defense” from federal prosecution, saying, “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug” – and that distributing it “is a serious crime.”

It isn’t just the vague threat to crack down on medical marijuana providers that concerns people, as it is the overall disconnect.

When the Drug Enforcement Administration ruled earlier this summer that marijuana has no medical use, that ruling flew in the face of the federal government’s own research.

From Alternet:

Most recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration rejected a formal citizen petition filed nine years ago to reschedule marijuana to make it available for medical use. When the DEA considered a similar petition during the Reagan administration, the agency’s administrative law judge concluded, “Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people.” The Obama administration’s rejection of the petition claims marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States … lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision… [and] has a high potential for abuse.” Lest one think the DEA’s ruling is just law enforcement run amok, the White House released its 2011 National Drug Control Strategy earlier this week, calling marijuana “addictive and unsafe.” That document devotes five pages attacking marijuana legalization and medical marijuana.

The administration’s disconnect from science is shocking. A federally commissioned study by the Institute of Medicine more than a decade ago determined that nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety “all can be mitigated by marijuana.” The esteemed medical journal the Lancet Neurology reports that marijuana’s active components “inhibit pain in virtually every experimental pain paradigm.” The National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, notes that marijuana may help with nausea, loss of appetite, pain and insomnia. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, home to 90 million Americans, have adopted laws allowing the medical use of marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other ailments. The federal government itself cultivates and supplies marijuana to a handful of patients through its “compassionate-use investigative new drug program,” which was established in 1978 but closed to new patients in 1992.

“It’s an outrageous betrayal. It’s anti-scientific to claim marijuana has no medical value,” O’Keefe told the Colorado Independent. “Half a million Americans use medical marijuana, recommended by their physicians to alleviate pain. There’s never been a known overdose. It’s less addictive than alcohol.”

She said Obama has turned his back on his campaign promises and left medical marijuana states looking at a federal law enforcement situation that is “clear as mud.”

Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado, agreed.

“With each new memo President Obama seems to be getting further away from his campaign promise to allow states to take the lead on medical marijuana policy. Paradoxically, his views reaffirm protections for medical marijuana patients, while threatening larger producers who provide medicine to those very patients. It seems Obama would prefer patients to get medicine from the black market as opposed to obtaining it from strictly regulated and taxed providers who are licensed under state law.”

A few days after the Drug Enforcement Administration ruled that marijuana has no medicinal use, and a month or so after a prestigious international commission concluded the drug war was a colossal failure, The Denver Post documented the ongoing drug war with a story about Mexican tour bus operators busted for bringing tens of millions of dollars of pot to Denver. That same day, July 11, TIME Magazine led its weekly print issue with this quote, “The carnage will end only when drugs are legalized.”

You could say these are interesting times for people interested in drug policy, wise allocation of resources and cancer research, to name just a few subjects.

From TIME, on the DEA decision:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ruled on Friday that marijuana has “no accepted medical use” and should therefore remain illegal under federal law — regardless of conflicting state legislation allowing medical marijuana and despite hundreds of studies and centuries of medical practice attesting to the drug’s benefits.

The judgment came in response to a 2002 petition by supporters of medical marijuana, which called on the government to reclassify cannabis, which is currently a Schedule I drug — like heroin, illegal for all uses — and to place it in Schedule III, IV or V, which would allow for common medical uses.

The DEA ruled that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” has a “high potential for abuse,” and “lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.”

Not only does this decision conflict with state laws, however, it also conflicts with a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the branch of the National Academy of Sciences charged with answering complex medical questions for Congress. Way back in 1999, the IOM said:

Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs, primarily THC, for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation; smoked marijuana, however, is a crude THC delivery system that also delivers harmful substances.

If the DEA was not already a laughingstock for having lost the war on drugs so convincingly, it has now declared that marijuana is not medicine, despite more than a dozen states having said otherwise. Despite thousands of cancer and HIV patients having said otherwise, despite the federal government’s own National Institute of Health having said otherwise.

Like so many wars, this one perhaps is destined to go on long after even the most devout loyalists know the score.

Even the august International Business Times got a few guffaws out of this one.

From Columnist J.D. Fain:

The DEA is wrong by not reclassifying marijuana federally as a drug suitable for use as prescriptive medical treatment.

I’m not justifying casual, un-needed marijuana use, since studies have repeatedly shown that marijuana is no different than alcohol or tobacco, legal products, in that it can and does cause problems among users, including increased risk of pulmonary infections, cell damage, a weakened immune system and psychological alterations like the drug’s famous apathy effects.

But in denying marijuana for medical use, the federal government is taking a political stand rather than dealing with the facts of the matter in terms of how it impacts individuals and the nation.

Estimates suggest that more than 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana. Most of it was purchased illegally, at potency and mixes developed without any proper supervision at all.

It seems ironic to suggest marijuana be federally allowed for medical use while arguing at the same time that it has negative, if not dangerous side effects in many instances. But it seems foolish when studies have shown marijuana to actually have some medical benefit for the DEA to categorically deny that it does for reasons political.

No sitting president or political party in search of re-election votes wants that issue on their legacy, so they ignore the problem, allowing it to continue as a problem.

…

(The DEA is) wrong that marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” Many studies and physicians have shown over the years that marijuana can be beneficial in treatment for AIDs and cancer patients. There can be side effects that negate the benefits — and that’s a valid point of argument, but in saying there currently no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, all credibility is lost.

Stimulants like Aderrall which are legally precribed have few health benefits and many side effects but the DEA allows those, presumably because drug companies lobby with millions of dollars to make it happen.

Of course, the pot press is also having a good time with this. 420 Times this week urged President Obama to stick with his campaign pledge of not interfering with state’s rights to legalize marijuana for medical uses.

It isn’t just the alternative press noticing the Obama administration’s movement toward stricter enforcement. NPR sees it as something of a trend.

When federal agents led a raid on medical marijuana businesses in Montana last week, questions were raised as to whether these businesses were raided because they were suspected of selling out of the proverbial back door to people without medical marijuana permits–or whether they were raided simply for being medical marijuana businesses.

While answers are not readily forthcoming, facts suggest it was a little of both.

When asked that question point blank, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office said she could provide no information that was not in the official press release, which is below.

The Colorado Independent, though, has copies of one of the search warrants and also one of the applications for a search warrant, which is signed by the DEA agent applying for the warrant, and Magistrate Judge Jeremiah C. Lynch.

While this is only one of 26 search warrants issued, it is significant for a couple of reasons.

It alleges both back door dealings and normal business operations as among the reasons for the raid.

Among the crimes alleged are that a DEA agent purchased marijuana and a “sniper rifle” from the owner of a medical marijuana business. The purchase was made at the seller’s home where the seller also had possession of a handgun for his personal protection during the transaction. No mention is made of whether the undercover DEA agent presented a medical marijuana license when making the purchase.

The application, though, also cites as reasons for the search numerous activities that are either legal under Montana’s medical marijuana law–such as growing marijuana–or ambiguous under that law.

Specifically the application alleges that the business conducted trade with other medical marijuana businesses–that businesses buy marijuana product from each other, and sell marijuana product to each other.

People involved in the medical marijuana community in Montana say it is that contention that is most troubling in these raids.

John Masterson, founder and director of Montana NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) says there is currently a legal action making its way through the process which will clarify whether caregivers and dispensaries can buy and sell with each other.

“It appears it is this caregiver to caregiver trade that is seen as “wholesale trafficking” by the U.S. Attorney’s office, and that is very troubling for a number of reasons.”

Jim Gingery, director of the Montana Medical Growers Association, agrees.

He said his organization and others have been discussing the question of caregiver to caregiver business with legislators and law enforcement agencies for years without coming to any agreement, other than to agree that under Montana law, it is a gray area.

“The attorney general tells us it is a legislative matter, and the legislature is currently considering three different bills that address this issue.”

In the meantime, he said his group filed a declaratory action in court, asking a judge to rule on the legality of caregiver to caregiver sales, and that they expect a ruling soon.

“If caregiver to caregiver sales is the reason for the raids, then the raids are in conflict with Montana law, where this is an unresolved issue at this time.”

Denver attorney Rob Corry, who does a lot of work with medical marijuana clients, said that if business to business sales was the underlying justification for the raids then the same logic could be used to justify raids in Colorado.

“Under that rationale, they could raid every medical marijuana business in Colorado. They could put them all under. It happens a thousand times a day in Colorado. It happens in every kind of business. No business can stay in business without buying from other businesses,” he said.

“There is a plan in place to stop these dispensaries,” said Boulder attorney Dennis Blewitt. “There is a lot of money at stake. Police departments do not want to lose all the money they get for marijuana enforcement and marijuana-related incarceration.”

“I have no doubt that in Montana, where they do not have (U.S. Rep. Jared) Polis barking in the ear of the DEA, and where they think the public no longer supports medical marijuana, that they think they (the DEA) have the support of the community, and so they think they can do this,” he said.

“And, if they can do it in Montana, they can do it here,” he added.

Katie Cannata, communications director for the ACLU in Montana, said the ACLU is monitoring the situation but is not directly involved.

“We don’t know what is going on. It is not entirely clear (whether the raided businesses are suspected of anything more than being dispensaries),” she said last week.

“We are concerned that there will be patients who will not be able to get their medication, and we find that distressing,” she said.

From Reuters:

A medical marijuana law in the state of Montana is being used for large-scale drug trafficking, federal prosecutors said, days after the U.S. government raided facilities across the state.

The raids… capped an 18-month investigation of marijuana trafficking statewide, the U.S. Attorney for Montana, Michael Cotter, said in a statement.

Seizures also were carried out at financial institutions in three Montana cities under civil warrants seeking up to $4 million in connection with the alleged drug trade, he said.

The sweep prompted an outcry from medical marijuana advocates, who accused the government of cracking down on growers and distributors who were operating legally under the state’s seven-year-old medical marijuana law.

But Cotter said in his statement that the raids were conducted “where there is probable cause that the premises were involved in illegal and large-scale trafficking of marijuana.”

“When criminal networks violate federal laws, those involved will be prosecuted,” he said.

In a press release, Cotter said he was not targeting patients:

“Individuals with illnesses who are in clear and unambiguous compliance with state law are not the focus of this investigation.”

He also includes a statement that makes it seem those operations that were raided may not be suspected of anything other than what they admit they are doing: cultivating and selling medical marijuana, which according to Cotter’s statement, “has no… medical use”:

Congress placed marijuana in Schedule I of the CSA. Under federal law, growing, distributing and possessing marijuana (other than in a federally authorized research program) is a violation of the CSA. A substance listed under Schedule I has: (a) a high potential for abuse, (b) no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and (c) a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. Because of the danger posed by Schedule I substances, the Department of Justice continues to focus its enforcement and investigative efforts in targeting large-scale drug organizations that cultivate, manufacture, distribute, or sell marijuana.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Victoria Francis, when asked if the raided businesses were thought to be involved in anything more than legitimate medical marijuana sales, said, “We can’t say things like that. All we can say is what is in the press release.”

Noting that 26 search warrants were issued, Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said, “To put it lightly, I’m skeptical. My position is the same as President Obama’s which is that if a business is working in compliance with state law, then the feds should leave them alone.”

Complete text from U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter’s press release:

The United States Attorney for the District of Montana, Michael W. Cotter, announced today the culmination of a 18-month multi-agency investigation into the drug trafficking activities of criminal enterprises operating throughout the State of Montana. In furtherance of that investigation, a total of 26 criminal search warrants were executed on March 14, 2011, at premises in the following communities: Belgrade, Big Sky, Billings, Bozeman, Columbia Falls, Dillon, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, Miles City, Missoula, Olney and Whitefish. Items seized by law enforcement may be disclosed after search warrant returns are filed with the United States District Court.

In addition, Civil Seizure Warrants for financial institutions in Bozeman, Helena, and Kalispell seeking up to $4,000,000 were executed.

Search warrants and civil seizure warrants were issued based on judicial findings that probable cause exists to believe that the premises located in thirteen Montana towns are involved in criminal enterprises that have violated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) related to marijuana, a Schedule I controlled substance. Specifically, it is alleged in the search warrants, civil seizure warrants and related documents that the premises or property identified were involved in some or all of the following violations of federal law: manufacture of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and distribution of marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841, conspiracy to commit the offenses of manufacture of marijuana, possession with intent to distribute marijuana and distribution of marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, structuring or assisting in structuring any transaction to evade currency reporting requirements or causing or attempting to cause a domestic financial institution to fail to file Currency Transaction Reports in violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 5324(a)(1) and (3).

Congress placed marijuana in Schedule I of the CSA. Under federal law, growing, distributing and possessing marijuana (other than in a federally authorized research program) is a violation of the CSA. A substance listed under Schedule I has: (a) a high potential for abuse, (b) no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and (c) a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. Because of the danger posed by Schedule I substances, the Department of Justice continues to focus its enforcement and investigative efforts in targeting large-scale drug organizations that cultivate, manufacture, distribute, or sell marijuana.

United States Attorney Cotter said that “Twenty-six search warrants were carried out yesterday where there is probable cause that the premises were involved in illegal and large-scale trafficking of marijuana. When criminal networks violate federal laws those involved will be prosecuted.”

Individuals with illnesses who are in clear and unambiguous compliance with state law are not the focus of this investigation.

The following federal, state and local law enforcement agencies participated in the execution of the search warrants and the seizure of the civil assets at multiple locations across the state of Montana: the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Environmental Protection Agency-Criminal Investigation Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection-Border Patrol, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These federal agencies were assisted by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigations, and local High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task forces, the Northwest Drug Task Force, the Kalispell Police Department, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office, the Missoula Police Department, the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, the Missoula High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the Great Falls Police Department, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, the Central Montana Drug Task Force, the Billings Police Department, the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office, the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the Dillon Police Department, the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office, the Park County Sheriff’s Office, the Bozeman Police Department, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, the Missouri River Drug Task Force, the Helena Police Department, the Lewis & Clark Sheriff’s Office, and the Eastern Montana Drug Task Force – Miles City.

The information contained in the search warrants, civil seizure warrants and related documents are based on the information discovered during the course of ongoing investigations. To date, no federal criminal charges, indictments, informations or complaints have been filed against any of the named individuals identified in the search warrants, civil seizure warrants and related documents. All named individuals and locations identified in the search warrants, civil seizure warrants and related documents are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

In speaking with the Montana press since the raids, Cotter has indicated that Obama’s informal policy of leaving legitimate medical marijuana businesses alone is still the rule of the land.

From the Missoulian:

Recent raids by federal and local authorities on medical pot businesses in Montana does not mean the Obama administration has abandoned its policy of leaving legitimate medical marijuana patients and providers alone, the U.S. Attorney for Montana says.

“The policies of the Department of Justice have not changed,” Mike Cotter told a gathering of 60 lawyers at a meeting of the State Bar of Montana last week.

…

“When the attorney general visited here in February, he stated illegal sale of marijuana under the guise of medical marijuana will be prosecuted,” Cotter said. “That is the policy.”

…

Attorneys at the meeting questioned Cotter on whether they could lose their legal licenses if they offered advice to people growing marijuana.

“I would give them a copy of the Ogden memo and say ‘I am advising you that no state can authorize violation of federal law, ‘” Betsy Brandborg, counsel for the State Bar of Montana, told them.

The Ogden memo, written by assistant attorney general David Ogden, is here.

People on the street, though, are not convinced it is business as usual in the world of state-sanctioned medical marijuana.

“Has Obama changed his mind, or is there something else going on here?” asks Gingery.

If medical marijuana suppliers can no longer do business with each other, Gingery says, they will be out of business.

“Even if each dispensary has to grow all of their own stock, they will be out of business. They have to get their seeds somewhere. How can they do that, if not from another legal source?” he asks.

“What happens in Montana will change the face of medical marijuana nationally,” he said.

Corry too questions what Obama and Holder are thinking, and wonders what the U.S. policy really is on medical marijuana.

“The feds just can’t make their minds up,” he said. “Attorney General Holder can’t make up his mind. He says there will be no federal money spent on enforcement, and yet here they go,” he said.

Some, echoing Blewitt, think it is all about the money. The feds have long made a business of seizing the assets of drug traffickers and using those assets in the war on drugs, and some say that is exactly what is happening here.

It may be about the money, but in Montana it is also about the law and the Legislature there this week began considering a sweeping overhaul of the existing voter-approved law. Having failed in efforts to throw the law out altogether, legislators this week began debating changes to the law that would probably cut back on both the number of dispensaries and the number of patients.

In any event, recent actions and announcements by the IRS and the U.S. Attorney General’s office and U.S. Attorneys office make it clear that the medical marijuana business is not for the faint of heart.

Following are three video clips explaining the Obama position on medical marijuana. In the first, candidate Obama explains he won’t put a lot of resources toward medical marijuana. In the second, President Obama reiterates that position, and in the third Attorney General Eric Holder says those are his orders as well.

The mayor, the police chief and a city councilman in the small New Mexico border town of Columbus were arrested on drug trafficking and firearm charges Thursday. The arrests were part of raids by agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

So far the exact charges on mayor Eddie Espinoza, city council member Ross Gutierrez and police chief Angelo Vega have not been released to the press. KOAT reported, “According to the US Attorney’s office, the men face firearms violations and drug trafficking charges.”

A total of eleven people were reportedly arrested.

KOAT also reported that New Mexico ICE is also conducting operations in Columbus, New Mexico.

NMPolitics.net notes that this came a day after high profile gang indictments in El Paso.

The arrests in Columbus come a day after prosecutors indicted 35 members of the Barrio Azteca gang in El Paso and Southern New Mexico. Among those indicted were 10 charged in connection with the killing of three people – including two Americans – linked to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez last year.

According to DEA spokesman Mike Turner, since marijuana is still illegal under federal law, the plants are contraband, whether or not the marijuana in question eventually is determined to be legal by state standards. That means Bartko’s plants and everyone else’s seized here by the DEA are going to be destroyed. The federal agents merely have to analyze a small amount to verify the plants are really pot and then wait for an official destroy order. Pot seized by the DEA is typically incinerated.

Turner wouldn’t say where the incineration takes place in Colorado but a source once told Westword that the DEA deals with evidence like this at a facility near Denver International Airport. Turner would neither confirm nor deny to the Colorado Independent that the Big Burn would take place near the airport sometime soon.

Turner also told Westword he doesn’t envy local police departments. He said he heard that a Montana town had to hire someone to care for a warehouse full of confiscated live pot plants until the court made a ruling in the case. In medical marijuana states, meticulously engineered pot plants amount to genuine business assets.

If all 224 of Batko’s plants had been flowering and correctly harvested, they would have yielded around 500 ounces of marijuana worth more than $110,000 at a dispensary, a medical marijuana caregiver told the Colorado Independent.

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Sweetin and his agents were apparently embarrassed. They bombed into the Bartkowicz basement the next day, confiscated 120 marijuana plants and took Barkowicz into custody. Sweetin admitted that the “tip” came from 9News, that he became suspicious mainly because Bartkowicz said he aimed to earn around $400,000 a year growing pot.

“Four-hundred-thousand dollars a year goes beyond ‘I’m just a caregiver for sick people,’” Sweetin told the AP.

Does it? Under Colorado law, if all 120 plants were flowering, Bartkowicz would need to be a licensed caregiver for 20 patients. If only half the plants were flowering, he would need to be designated caregiver for 10 patients.

It’s not clear yet how many patients Bartkowicz was serving or how many of his plants were flowering at the time of the arrest.

Colorado’s voter-approved Constitutional amendment allows patients to possess up to 2 ounces of marijuana or for them or their caregivers to grow up to six marijuana plants for each patient– but the law also allows people to assert in court that they need more marijuana to treat patient ailments. Robert Corry, the state’s most prominent medical marijuana attorney, who has not spoken to Bartkowicz and is not representing him at the time, told the Colorado Independent Monday, that this could well be the situation with Bartkowicz.

“I doubt he would go so public if he didn’t think he was acting within the law,” Corry said.

Corry said that, regardless, the decision to raid Bartkowicz’s residence violated not only the Obama administration’s directive against enforcing federal marijuana laws in the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana but also disregarded the Colorado constitution.

On Saturday Corry filed a complaint against the Justice Department and the DEA, calling Sweetin a “rogue agent” and alleging waste, fraud and abuse and misconduct of powers. He asked the department’s inspector general to discipline Sweetin and the other agents involved.

“The Department of Justice formal guidelines instruct federal agents to refrain from using federal resources for the investigation and prosecution of individuals who are in compliance with state laws governing the medical use of marijuana,” Corry wrote in the letter. “The guidelines evidence an appropriate respect for the voters’ will in states that have legalized medical marijuana.”

The policy in question, laid out in a three-page memo in October, states that authorities shouldn’t target people in clear compliance with state laws on medical marijuana. It also stated that agents should still be on the lookout for those posing as medical marijuana operators but marketing pot illegally. Indicators that people aren’t in compliance with the law, according to the memo, include amounts of marijuana and financial gains inconsistent with business approved by state law.

The October memo follows up on a March promise made during a press conference by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations established legally under state law. The announcement was hailed by medical marijuana advocates as signaling a major policy shift.

“What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American policy,” Holder said during the press conference.

Watch the exchange beginning at about the 25:00 mark.

After Holder’s announcement, Colorado’s medical marijuana industry bloomed. Less than a year after dispensaries started opening their doors, there are more than 400 in the Denver/Boulder Metro area alone. The number of people on the medical marijuana registry has also expanded, so quickly in fact that the state had to ask for more funds to process applications. There is now a three-month processing backlog. In July 2009 there were around 15,000 people on the registry. By December that number had grown to more than 28,000.

Still, Sweetin claims Bartkowicz was violating state law because he wasn’t taking care of enough patients to warrant growing more than 120 plants.

On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office will review the evidence collected in the raid and decide whether to file charges. Bartkowicz is scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court that day.

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Now the TV reporter who authored the original story that sparked the dust up has weighed in on the issue.Denver CBS Channel 4 news anchor Karlyn Tilley broadcast the report, where DEA special agent in charge Jeffrey Sweetin cited laws to legalize small amounts of marijuana in Denver and a failed state ballot initiative to do the same thing as making Colorado a good market for drugs and organized crime.

The broadcast on Channel 4 also used images taken from a methamphetamine raid, with no indication that the operation was not targeting cannabis drugs.

Tilley responded to Colorado Confidential via e-mail to questions over data in the news report and the choice to use footage of the methamphetamine raid:

The DEA did not share any hard data to show the connection. They said that since the laws changed, the organized crime organizations they’ve seen move into the area have also increased, and that’s what I said in my story.

[Sweetin] also mentioned some surveillance they had done which indicated that certain crime groups felt that way… but obviously wouldn’t/couldn’t share that with me… so I didn’t get into that in my piece.

I did not seek out other sources because the story (in my opinion) was the DEA. It wasn’t about some raid that had happened which involved multiple agencies or anything like that. It was an opportunity to get a one-on-one interview with the local head of the DEA and find out what they were up to. I referenced in my story several times that what I was talking about was said by the DEA and only the DEA… not anyone else.

As far as the video is concerned, my photographer and I both agreed we could use the raid video when we were talking about drugs in general… then use the marijuana video when I specifically referenced that drug. The idea was to give people a look at what they do… at drug busts in general.

Denver voters passed an initiative legalizing personal possession of up to an ounce of the substance for adults 21 years and older in 2005, and another measure to make such cases a “lowest law enforcement priority” for police in 2007.

A state ballot measure to legalize an ounce of pot for adults failed by approximately nine percent in 2006.

Readers can watch the broadcast here.

Now proponents who worked to push pot legalization measures in Denver and throughout the state are crying foul over what they say are baseless claims.CBS Channel 4 news in Denver broadcast a story on Saturday featuring DEA special agent in charge Jeffrey Sweetin.

In the spot reported by anchor Karlyn Tilley, Sweetin cites a law to legalize small amounts of marijuana in Denver and a failed state ballot initiative to do the same thing as making Colorado a good market for drugs and organized crime.

Denver voters passed an initiative legalizing personal possession of up to an ounce of the substance for adults 21 years and older in 2005, and another measure to make such cases a “lowest law enforcement priority” for police in 2007.

A state ballot measure to legalize an ounce of pot for adults failed by approximately 9 percent in 2006.

No hard data were cited in the Channel 4 story regarding the reported increase in organized crime, and there was a good reason, according to a drug agency spokesman.

“I don’t think there’s any numbers I can give,” said DEA media representative Mike Turner about the crime connection to legalization efforts. “It’s just that the ongoing cases we’re seeing I think reflect the fact that that’s what’s going on.”

The Channel 4 story sparked harsh criticism from Denver resident Mason Tvert, the executive director of Safer Colorado, the pro-marijuana legalization group that was behind the ordinance efforts in Denver and the state ballot proposal.

“If the DEA were a student submitting a report on organized crime in Colorado, they’d get a ‘D,’ assuming they spelled ‘DEA’ correctly,” said Tvert. “It is unacceptable for our federal law enforcement agencies to be making such broad and baseless claims without any evidence to support them.”

Turner contended that special agent Sweetin was also trying to present the idea that pot legalization efforts have sent a message to criminal organizations that it’s OK to do businesses in Colorado–a similar claim that federal law enforcement officials made before such legalization measures were decided by Denver and state voters.

The broadcast on Channel 4 also used images taken from a methamphetamine raid conducted by the North Metro Task Force, a law enforcement coalition in the Denver area.

In the video, SWAT officers wearing gas masks carry an infant out of a recently raided meth lab. (Denver alternative-weekly newspaper Westword created a video essay about the raid in June.) Images from the raid were shown alongside pictures of marijuana, with no indication that the operation was not targeting cannabis drugs.

Reporter Karlyn Tilley did not return a request for comment regarding the broadcast.