Even when many in the mid-'90s considered the drug war a failure, it never lost its appeal for Bennett, the self-appointed watchdog of American virtue, and Walters. Along with John J. DiIulio Jr., whom the current President Bush appointed to the newly created White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the men wrote "Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs." In the book, the authors argue that "moral poverty" is at the root of all crime and that religion is "the best and most reliable means we have to reinforce the good."

Now Bennett and Walters are working together, again. Bennett, co-director of Empower America, a conservative group, is also co-chairman, along with Mario Cuomo, of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. In October, Walters' office and the partnership released a new series of ads focusing on teens and drugs.

Why this new obsession with the wicked weed? Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New York City, which supports state efforts to legalize medicinal marijuana, says the administration is pandering to a small but vocal group of conservatives. "It's not about compassion, it's not about cost-benefit or anything like that. It's simply a moralistic, demonizing perspective on a certain activity," he says. "These people are anti-drug fanatics. They're modern-day Carrie Nations." Nation, an early prohibitionist, was a large woman, almost 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, who carried a hatchet in one hand to smash liquor bottles and a Bible in the other. She once destroyed the bar in Wichita's finest hotel.

California's Prop. 215 tried circumventing the Controlled Substance Act for medical marijuana. The Clinton administration challenged Prop. 215, and in May 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas that the drug "has no medical benefits worthy of an exception" under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Coincidentally, Thomas was the justice Ashcroft chose to swear him in as attorney general.

In doing so, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Ashcroft, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, a way to attack state medical marijuana laws. Within a few months after the high court's decision, the DEA stepped up raids and arrests of state-sanctioned medical marijuana providers in California.

"From their perspective, all the legal issues have been resolved," says Gerald Uelmen, an influential professor at Santa Clara College School of Law and attorney for the Santa Cruz marijuana co-operative, who is challenging the raid on constitutional grounds. "They're treating all the marijuana groups and organizations as though they were illicit drug dealers. They're coming in with guns blazing as though they're crack houses or methamphetamine labs."

A day after the raid in Santa Cruz, California's Attorney General Bill Lockyer fired off a letter to Ashcroft and Hutchinson, complaining that it was "a disheartening addition to a growing list of provocative and intrusive incidents of harassment by the DEA in California." The DEA is conducting raids on state-sanctioned marijuana clubs as a "punitive expedition," added Lockyer, a Democrat. In closing, he asked to have a meeting with Hutchinson and Ashcroft to come up with more "realistic and reasonable" alternatives.

But if California's top law enforcement official was expecting some reconciliation, he must have been disappointed. In a rather starchy, almost condescending reply, Hutchinson, wrote: "Your repeated references to 'medical' or 'medicinal' marijuana illustrates a common misperception that marijuana is safe and effective medicine." Further, he continued, "state 'medical' marijuana laws -- including those in California -- are being abused to facilitate traditional illegal marijuana trafficking and associated crime." In his letter, Hutchinson offered no evidence to prove the claim.

Hallye Jordan, Lockyer's press secretary, said conflicts between state and federal law are bound to continue until the federal government changes the Controlled Substance Act and lets doctors prescribe marijuana to their patients. In the meantime, she said, Lockyer's office will adhere to the state's law and leave medical marijuana operations alone.

The DEA's bullying tactics may have had unintended consequences. For 15 years, the San Jose Police Department has worked with federal agents to arrest drug dealers. But a month after the raid on the Corrals, San Jose Police Chief William Lansdowne pulled his men off of a DEA task force. "The most pressing problem is methamphetamine and that is where we should spend our time, not on medical marijuana," he says. "I think their [the DEA's] priorities are out of sync with local law."

Uelmen, the Corrals' lawyer, has filed a suit against the U.S. government, contending that the search was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the Federal Controlled Substances Act exceeds congressional power to regulate interstate commerce under the Tenth Amendment. Uelmen hopes this case will finally resolve the conflict between state rights to regulate medical marijuana and federal narcotic laws.

In Santa Cruz, meanwhile, it turns out that the DEA didn't get all of Valerie and Michael Corral's stash. Undaunted by the legal obstacles, they continue to hand out pot to their co-operative's members. "The only other option is rolling over," Valerie says. "That means something very dramatic when you're facing death. That means rolling over and dying. And that is not an option for us."

Recent Stories