Thanks, but we won't be needing your services.

January 18, 2007 4:50 AM

What can communities do to thwart the actions of the DEA?

Reading about the recent large-scale plunder of medical marijuana dispensaries by DEA agents, I'd like to know: how can the community force the DEA out and prevent this kind of heavy-handed enforcement? Is it even possible, perhaps via ballot measure similar to a recent one that made marijuana policing the lowest enforcement priority?

posted by mullingitover to law & government (15 comments total)

Vote the bastards out.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:17 AM on January 18, 2007

Wait, there are state and local laws making these dispensaries legal? Then the state and local governmental police forces should have the right to forcefully deny the DEA from making raids. Of course I have no idea of the legal implications involved here but it seems to me that the feds are overstepping their jurisdiction. Pressure the county sheriff's office to protect the dispensaries. Either that or start filing class action lawsuits against the DEA.
posted by JJ86 at 5:38 AM on January 18, 2007

Your state could abdicate from the Union.
Otherwise, federal drug laws supersede state legalization of drugs, and the Feds are lawfully charged with prosecuting Federal offenses, so they do.

The other option is to get the Federal drug laws/schedules revamped, which will not happen (anytime soon).
posted by whoda at 5:46 AM on January 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sorry JJ86, the Constitution does not support you here: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land"
posted by Xalf at 5:48 AM on January 18, 2007

It ought to be a state matter under the Tenth Amendment, but somehow or other SCOTUS decided that the "interstate commerce" clause also applied to intrastate non-sales of marijuana and thus gave the Feds jurisdiction.

Which means that until and unless SCOTUS reverses that, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:14 AM on January 18, 2007

Local law enforcement can (but won't) refuse to help the DEA in any way, but they can't stop the DEA from doing anything. That would be breaking federal law.

If more states had medical marijuana, they'd probably be less inclined to do that sort of thing, as the entire reason they're doing it now is to "send a message," in an attempt to make it obvious to other states that medical marijuana is more trouble than it's worth.
posted by wierdo at 6:20 AM on January 18, 2007

To clarify: could taxpayers pass a ballot measure that states something like, "No City (or County, or better yet, State) funds shall be used to cooperate with the DEA for the purpose of investigating marijuana-related issues?"

Could something simil
posted by mullingitover at 6:34 AM on January 18, 2007

*Could something similar be done with the FBI? I
posted by mullingitover at 6:35 AM on January 18, 2007

argh I'm getting gooder at writng i swear
posted by mullingitover at 6:36 AM on January 18, 2007

> there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

Except find an airtight case, getting permission to sue hte government, and taking that suit all the way to the Supreme Court and getting it's earlier ruling reversed or clarified. I haven't looked at it so I don't know which is needed.

I've no idea of where to start with that, beyond knowing the community would need outside support, and a lot of it. Since it is the interstate commerce ruling it need not be over marijuana though. Abortion also works, but I'll bet there is something nice and simple out there, one that won't yeild a morality/church/state debate.
posted by jwells at 6:49 AM on January 18, 2007

Or, they could just follow the example set forth back in the 1700's. Stuff like the Boston Tea Party. Or, citizen's hiding out behind walls and such, doing what is needed to resist the damn red coats feds.
posted by Goofyy at 7:17 AM on January 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

could taxpayers pass a ballot measure that states something like, "No City (or County, or better yet, State) funds shall be used to cooperate with the DEA for the purpose of investigating marijuana-related issues?"

Yes. Under Printz v. United States, the feds cannot order the executive branch of the states to do anything.

States would be reluctant to take this approach, though, because the federal government may coerce states to do things by making receipt of federal funding contingent on such acts and lots of federal money goes to state and local law enforcement
posted by Xalf at 7:35 AM on January 18, 2007

County of Santa Cruz et. al. v. Ashcroft et. al
posted by banshee at 8:00 AM on January 18, 2007

mullingitover: Yes, they could, and it would accomplish exactly diddly squat.
posted by drstein at 9:09 AM on January 18, 2007

Or, citizen's hiding out behind walls and such, doing what is needed to resist the damn red coats feds.

Exactly. Big 5 Sporting Goods sells surplus Mosin-Nagant M44 rifles -- a very accurate bolt-action Soviet rifle with a five-shot capacity -- for about $80. 400 rounds of surplus ammo for this rifle goes for about $40, and with a bit of practice you can easily hit a human-sized target with it from 200 or even 300 yards. They have X number of agents, and you have X+Y number of patients, many of whom are already suffering daily and dying from various horrible ailments, so it's not like they'd lose much to go out fighting. Do the math.

Not many people in this country know about WAMM's successful blockade of the agents that raided their farm (described in banshee's link above), but I guarantee you that if their lot of cancer grandmas and AIDS patients had ambushed the caravan and left every one of those agents dead in the dirt, you'd have heard about it.
posted by vorfeed at 11:40 AM on January 18, 2007