The coalition claims that Leonhart, who is currently the DEA’s acting-administrator, has not demonstrated that she is capable of leading the agency in a thoughtful manner at a time when 14 states have enacted medical marijuana laws, and science is increasingly confirming the therapeutic benefits of the substance.

“It is clearly time for President Obama to insist that his appointees adhere to current Justice Department guidelines regarding state laws regulating the medical use of marijuana, and that marijuana be fairly evaluated by all federal agencies, based on science, not ideology,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the nation’s oldest marijuana legalization lobby. “The Obama administration should be working with us to eliminate criminal penalties for the responsible use of marijuana by adults, regardless of whether it is medical use or otherwise.”

Under Leonhart’s leadership, the coalition points out that the DEA has staged medical marijuana raids in apparent disregard of Attorney General Eric Holder’s directive to respect state medical marijuana laws. Most recently, DEA agents flouted a pioneering Mendocino County ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff. Joy Greenfield, 69, had paid more than $1,000 for a permit to cultivate 99 plants in a collective garden that had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff.

Informed that Greenfield had the support of the sheriff, the DEA agent in charge allegedly responded by saying, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.”

The DEA’s conduct is inconsistent with an October 2009 Department of Justice memo directing officials not to arrest individuals “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

Leonhart, opponents say, has also demonstrated that she is unable to be objective in carrying out the duties of the administrator as it relates to medical marijuana research. In January 2009, she refused to issue a license to the University of Massachusetts to grow marijuana for FDA-approved research, despite a DEA administrative law judge’s ruling that it would be “in the public interest” to issue the license. This single act has blocked privately-funded medical marijuana research in this country. The next DEA administrator will likely influence the outcome of a marijuana rescheduling petition currently before the agency. It is critical, the coalition emphasizes, that an administrator with an open mind toward science and research is at the helm.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Len Goodman can’t grow enough marijuana to keep up with demand.

He is one of just 11 growers approved by New Mexico to produce pot for all of the state’s 2,000 registered medical marijuana patients, and his customers routinely wipe out his supply. Once a strain of marijuana is harvested, dried and cured, he sends an announcement that patients can place orders, and the pot is usually gone in 24 hours.

New Mexico has been so cautious in licensing and regulating growers under its 3-year-old medical marijuana law that the small number of providers can’t grow enough, creating a shortage that has forced some patients to the street to buy illegal drugs.

The dilemma in New Mexico could have ramifications elsewhere because the state’s program has been held up as a national model, with other states looking to replicate its strong regulatory structure to avoid the chaos that has prevailed in places like California.

Prospective pot growers are subjected to a painstaking screening process before being granted a license. Once that happens, they are limited to 95 plants and seedlings and an inventory “that reflects current qualified patient needs.”

The providers’ identities and locations are kept secret, avoiding the kind of storefront dispensaries that have flourished in Colorado and California.

State Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil says he must balance patients’ needs against preventing so much legal pot from being grown that it ends up in the illegal market. He said the program is being expanded methodically to ensure sufficient oversight and to get to know producers and how they operate.

He also opposes having hundreds of producers and many thousands of patients, which he said “absolutely takes it out of the arena of use for in-state patients and into the arena of defacto legalization.”

Medical marijuana patient Larry Love sees New Mexico as an example of what not to do. He contends the department approves new growers much too slowly.

Love, who runs a radio blog and has been highly critical of Vigil, got his medical marijuana card in June 2009 but said it was November before he could get a supply from an authorized grower. He said that drove him and other patients to the illegal market, despite the risks.

Goodman’s Santa Fe County business, NewMexicann, has 650 registered patients — five times the number of patients he said he can supply. Other producers are in similar shape, he said.

As a result, he has to ration pot to patients who are chronically ill.

“Sometimes they don’t have enough so they use it when it’s really severe, which is not good,” he said. “It’s like seniors cutting down on their meds because they can’t afford it.”

The situation in New Mexico is being closely watched by other states as medical marijuana becomes increasingly popular nationwide.

New Jersey, Iowa, Maine, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and some California municipalities have called about New Mexico’s law, Health Department spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer said. They have been asking how the state manages producers and how it’s kept some control over legal pot while avoiding problems with federal agencies, since marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

New Jersey and Rhode Island have laws that are closer to New Mexico’s system than California’s much more freewheeling one.

New Mexico passed its medical marijuana law in 2007 with a groundbreaking provision to license production and distribution.

The Health Department spent more than a year crafting regulations, electing to go with a state-licensed system of nonprofits that places strict restrictions on how much pot they can grow.

Patients can get licenses to grow their own, but most turn to the state-sanctioned growers. The first producer wasn’t approved until March 2009. The health Department OK’d four more in November, then six more last week. It takes five to six months for a grower to ramp up to production.

In the meantime, patient rolls have grown to about 2,000. New Mexico approved 200 patients in the program’s first year; now it’s approving about 200 a month.

While Love praised the approval of the new producers, he said New Mexico still will have only about half the supply it needs for current patients. He claims the state needs at least 10 more producers by the end of the year to keep up.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Joseph Daniel Lightfoot and Amber Brooke Wildenstein, both 29, were arrested after police noticed the grow operation when they were called to the home on a domestic-violence report from a neighbor earlier this month.

A police investigation found that “it had only been a verbal argument, so no domestic-violence crime had been committed,” said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword.

Three children, ages 7, 9, and 11, live in the home with the couple.

Because of the presence of the children, Lightfoot and Wildenstein are each facing one count of felony child abuse, according to the district attorney’s office. They were released on $50,000 bond each.

Colorado law allows marijuana to be grown and used for medical purposes, and has since 2000. Authorities admit that the marijuana growing operation in the couple’s home was licensed and had all the proper paperwork.

But the couple was charged under a state law which says knowingly manufacturing a “controlled substance” in the presence of a child, or where a child is found or lives, equals child abuse.

Remember, medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, and that the marijuana grow operation was licensed and above-board — so the argument that the couple was “manufacturing illegal drugs” is patently absurd.

“It’s state law, and we don’t pick and choose the laws we enforce and prosecute,” said Kimbrough, obviously unaware of the irony of her words. “We have an obligation to go forward with what’s on the books, and marijuana is a controlled substance.”

“What’s the actual danger here?” asked attorney Brian Vicente of patient advocacy group Sensible Colorado. “You’ve got people who are ostensibly following state law. They have the proper paperwork to lawfully engage in this action. So for the DA’s office to be wantonly prosecuting them for doing this in their home, it’s concerning.”

Kimbrough said she hopes the medical marijuana community will “familiarize themselves” with the child abuse statute being used against Lightfoot and Wildenstein.

“Maybe there is some public awareness that needs to take place,” Kimbrough said, in what could be taken as an implied threat.

“People in all walks of life get sick — anyone from parents to grandparents,” Vicente saikd. “And I think we need to encourage the DA’s office to use discretion, and not penalize people for being ill.”

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The Board of Supervisors on Wednesday ruled that dispensaries in unincorporated county areas must be located at least 1,000 feet from homes, schools, playgrounds and churches. Officials say that leaves 16 available sites.

The dispensaries also must be licensed—at a cost of up to $20,000 each—undergo inspections, have security and keep precise records of transactions.

Dispensaries have proliferated since California voters passed an initiative in 1996 permitting marijuana use for medical reasons.

Supervisors sued to overturn the law in 2006 but lost. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case last year.

The Portland City Council unanimously rejected the proposal Monday night. It would have prohibited dispensaries for six months and prevented patients and caregivers from receiving or growing medical marijuana.

An hour before last night’s council meeting, a rally was held calling on councilors to reject the proposal.

Ralliers said the moratorium would have prevented medicine from being delivered to patients with chronic illnesses.

In the end the council voted 9 to zero against the moratorium.

The council then unanimously approved a change to the city’s zone code to allow dispensaries in certain business zones.

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