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Board should OK medical marijuana ID cards

The Orange County Board of Supervisors was to consider today whether to implement a program of photo identification cards, issued through the health department, for medical marijuana patients. Such a program, mandated by state law, is long overdue. It should be helpful both to patients and law enforcement personnel.

One can understand concern about getting the details right. What puzzles us are concerns attributed to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and others who oppose the program.

According to a Register news story, Mr. Rackauckas, in a letter to supervisors, said that "federal law, which prohibits the use of marijuana, trumps state law. If county employees issue the cards, they could be the subject of a federal prosecution."

Mr. Rackaukas' letter may have been more nuanced. But whether federal law on this issue "trumps" state law is still a matter of debate.

For instance, when the first medical marijuana case, regarding the Oakland Cannabis Cooperative, was before the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsberg asked the government's lawyer why the federal government did not invoke the doctrine of federal supremacy, under which a federal law does preempt or invalidate contradictory state law. The government attorney replied that this was an instance, as was to be expected in a federalist system, where state and federal law simply differ.

The California constitution, moreover, says that state officials may not refuse to enforce a state law based on the opinion that it differs from federal law, unless an appellate court has ruled that federal law trumps state law. More than 10 years after voters passed California's Compassionate Use Act, the only effort to get California's law invalidated was thrown out of court late last year (though it has been appealed).
County officials, including the district attorney, are sworn to uphold state law. The county supervisors should do so today by beginning a voluntary ID program for medical marijuana patients.



Copyrite: OC Register
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