Cleanup Effort in Wake of 215

In the Nov. 5 election, a solid 56% of California voters supported Proposition 215, an initiative calling for legalization of the medical use of marijuana. Since then, legislators in Sacramento and Washington have succumbed to what political wags are dubbing “reefer madness,” a confused and urgent struggle to square the proposition’s requirements with federal law that makes possession of marijuana a felony.

The depth of the frustration was evident in the words of Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration anti-drug czar, when he called the passage of 215 a “tremendous tragedy.” At a stormy hearing Monday in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, however, Republicans wisely said the time has come to dispense with rhetoric and focus on what can be done to safeguard Californians against the abuses possible under Proposition 215.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), committee chairman, asked McCaffrey and DEA Administrator Thomas A. Constantine to present him with a series of recommendations by Jan. 1 or sooner. Constantine and McCaffrey will be seeking ways to counter the negative effects of the California proposition’s fuzzy wording, which allows medical professionals to prescribe the drug for not only cancer and AIDS--whose symptoms, studies say, can be eased by marijuana--but for “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”

On the enforcement side, Judiciary Committee staffers say it’s possible that federal law could be changed to allow state and local officials to make arrests for unauthorized medical use of marijuana on the federal government’s behalf. And some California officials, most notably Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates, say they are willing to make such arrests.

But local officials should not crack down on every Californian who uses marijuana medicinally. They should take into account the fact that both the California Medical Assn. and the California Academy of Family Physicians have given qualified endorsement to using marijuana in certain cases. Similarly, Sacramento legislators, who are now crafting “cleanup bills” to clarify Proposition 215’s wording, should focus on limiting, rather than nullifying, the proposition.