By Mike McPhee

Published February 24, 2010

U.S. prosecutors wrestling the legal issues of an Oct. 20, 2009, raid on a marijuana-growing operation in Fort Collins say federal law trumps an amendment to the Colorado Constitution making it OK to use or sell medical pot.

“Possession or distribution of any quantity of marijuana, for any purpose, remains illegal as a matter of federal law throughout the State of Colorado. (Federal prosecutors have) the discretion to prosecute individual cases of possession and distribution without regard to state law,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Podolak last week in a brief supporting the Drug Enforcement Administration raid on the home of Martin Pieper.

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By John Hoeffel

Published February 18, 2010

City sues three collectives and moves to evict 18 others from their stores, saying they have violated state laws. The actions stem from undercover police operations at the dispensaries.

By John Ingold

Published February 13, 2010

Federal drug-enforcement agents Friday raided the home of a Highlands Ranch man who a day earlier bragged in a 9News report about the large and profitable medical-marijuana-growing operation in his basement.

Along with the raid, Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special agent in charge of the Denver office, sent a message to anyone involved in Colorado’s increasingly profitable medical-marijuana industry.

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By National Public Radio

Published February 10, 2010

Colorado is one of more than a dozen states to legalize medical marijuana. Denver psychiatrist Christian Thurstone argues that the state’s relaxed laws have made the drug widely available — and irresistible — to too many adolescents.

See Original Text

– TRANSCRIPT –

NEAL CONAN, host:

And now the dark side of medical marijuana laws. Pot is legal in more than a dozen states if you have permission from a doctor. Federal law continues to ban marijuana as a controlled substance. But last year the Obama administration announced it would not prosecute users who comply with state laws. Those laws vary from state to state. But in Colorado patients with one of several conditions, cancer or AIDS, for example, can legally smoke pot.

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1374. (09-0022)

Changes California Law to Legalize, Regulate, and Tax Marijuana. Initiative Statute.

Summary Date: 09/08/09

Withdrawn: 02/04/10