Beware the Checkpoint

Santa Feans who use medical marijuana to alleviate their pain, reduce their blood sugar or increase their appetite in the face of cancer or AIDS would be well-advised to steer clear of US Border Patrol checkpoints in the southern part of the state.

Federal officials are reportedly seizing medical pot along the I-10 and I-25 corridors, and a Deming man, Raymundo Marrufo, this week filed a lawsuit in Albuquerque federal court, taking to task the US government's actions.

Marrufo contends that the possibility that his medicine may be seized some day, and the questions posed by federal agents every time he drives through a checkpoint, fly in the face of a federal provision that says the US government has no right to interfere with the state's card-carrying patients, according to his Santa Fe-based attorney, Jason Flores-Williams, who spoke to SFR on Thursday.

While Marrufo's legal tactic is pre-emptive, state Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces, tells SFR that medical pot seizures are all too common for some of his constituents, especially when they travel in and out of Las Cruces to purchase their medicine and have to go through checkpoints either north or west of the city along the interstate.

Originally set up back in the mid-1980s to keep Mexican nationals from entering further into the United States without some sort of screening, the Border Patrol checkpoints have become unofficial drug checkpoints, and some claim that the civil rights of US citizens are often violated when they are detained and questioned in their own country.

In 2014, 3 million pounds of marijuana, some of it part of the state's legalized medical cannabis program, were seized at checkpoints across the country, according to the US Border Patrol website.

And in the last year and a half, both Flores-Williams and McCamley say the violations of civil rights, and what are paramount to illegal searches and seizures, have expanded into the realm of medical marijuana, which is legal in New Mexico but illegal in the eyes of the federal government.

Although the industry was legalized in New Mexico in 2007, the perceived illegality on the part of the federal government has long been a point of contention, not just in New Mexico but across most of the nation, where dispensaries have a hard time getting bank loans and run into other challenges because of the state-by-state rules.

"It's silly," McCamley tells SFR on Thursday in a phone interview. "They're taking people's medicine, and they're arresting them, but they can't prosecute them. That's the bottom line. So it's a waste of time and money, and nobody is going to get convicted. They're just going to suffer by not having their medicine, and we're talking about cancer patients, people who need their prescriptions, not someone who is using recreationally."

The problem, says McCamley, is twofold: Marijuana, either medical or otherwise, is considered a controlled Schedule 1 substance, but only under the auspices of the US Department of Homeland Security. Another federal agency, the US Department of Justice, says it will not prosecute patients under what is commonly referred to as the "Cole Memo."

In that document, the US Justice Department agreed to let patients with small amounts pass checkpoints but wanted to make sure that nobody was driving "drugged" and that patients weren't buying their medical marijuana and then selling it or distributing it in large amounts.

But as far as the Border Patrol is concerned, any cannabis is illegal, and any amount is subject to seizure, in keeping with the provisions set forth by the Department of Homeland Security, the chief enforcement agency.

"The only solution," says McCamley, "is to do away with this notion that marijuana is a controlled 1 substance. But until that happens, nothing is going to change."

At the center of the lawsuit is Marrufo, 50, who uses medical pot for PTSD, the result of having grown up in an abusive environment, says Flores-Williams.  "Right now," he says,"marijuana is a controlled 1 substance and is considered just as serious an offense as possessing heroin."

Editor's note :An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported what Flores-Williams said about Murrafo's childhood. The lawyer said his "environment" was abusive, not his "family," as SFR originally reported. 

Santa Fe Reporter