An email from the Drug Policy Alliance:

The DEA and a regional narcotics task force raided the home of a paraplegic medical marijuana patient in what appears to be a cruel publicity stunt designed to intimidate New Mexico patients and policymakers.

With the help of supporters like you, the Drug Policy Alliance passed legislation earlier this year in New Mexico that legalized marijuana for medical use. Since the law took effect, 38 patients have been approved by the state’s Department of Health to possess and use marijuana to alleviate their conditions. The day after our medical marijuana legislation was signed into law, however, U.S. Drug Czar John Walters publicly expressed his disappointment with state policymakers. While we expected then that federal agencies would try to interfere with New Mexico’s efforts to fully implement the medical marijuana law, we didn’t believe they would go after those most vulnerable in the state - the patients.

On Tuesday, agents of the Pecos Valley Drug Taskforce in conjunction with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration searched the home of a registered medical marijuana patient who has lost the use of his legs and suffers chronic pain and muscle spasms due to a spinal cord injury. They seized his medicine and are now threatening to prosecute him in federal court where there are no legal protections for medical marijuana patients. This intimidating raid comes at the very time New Mexico officials are debating the best way to develop a state-licensed production and distribution system for medical marijuana.

A press release issued by the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force illustrates the political nature of the raid, reading in part, “Citizens of New Mexico need to be aware that they can still be prosecuted on the federal level even though New Mexico has a law permitting marijuana for medicinal use.” The Pecos Valley Drug Task Force is part of the Southwest Border HIDTA, a local, state, and federal law enforcement partnership financed and managed by the drug czar’s office.

This cruel misuse of law enforcement resources is only the latest scandal to be connected to regional narcotics taskforces. DPA has been trying to cut off federal funding to these corruption-prone taskforces for years. From the wrongful conviction of dozens of people in Tulia, Texas to the harassment of electronic music lovers in Flint, Michigan, these taskforces are at the center of some of our country’s worst civil rights abuses.

Please take a minute today to e-mail your members of Congress and ask them to protect medical marijuana patients and reform federal law enforcement grant programs.

• DPA-NM Director Reena Szczepanski’s blog post on the Huffington Post
• La Cruces Sun-News article on the raid
• Associated Press article on the debate within New Mexico on a state-licensed production and distribution system for medical marijuana.

One interesting note from the AP article:

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House drug policy office, said it’s up to federal prosecutors and the Justice Department to decide what drug cases to prosecute. “The federal government doesn’t spend time prosecuting low-level marijuana possession cases. It’s drug traffickers who go to jail and it’s drug traffickers who get prosecuted,” said Riley. “There is a charade going on here with people who are interested in drug legalization using genuinely sick people as pawns to get sympathy to get their agenda through.”

Sort of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? First Riley says that the federal government does not spend time prosecuting low-level marijuana possession cases, though in this case they obviously did spend the time and the guy they went after is clearly not a drug trafficker. And then he blames the federal government’s decision to go after a genuinely sick person on those who support medical marijuana!