Riverside County will begin issuing photo identification cards to local medical marijuana users today, the first Southern California county to comply with a state law intended to shield medical patients from arrest.
"The county is trying to comply with the law approved by the voters and develop a procedure that'll do that," said Marion Ashley, Riverside County Board of Supervisors chairman. "This will probably remove the anxieties ... legitimate, card-carrying users of medical marijuana may have."
Still, the cards will be issued at a time when state and federal laws conflict over the use of medical marijuana, leaving users and their suppliers in danger of facing federal charges.
California's Proposition 215 legalized the drug for therapeutic purposes in 1996, and 2003 state legislation provided for ID cards. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that federal authorities could still seize and destroy medical marijuana plants and arrest their growers and consumers -- even in the 10 states that allow medical marijuana use.
While federal authorities primarily target "large-scale drug trafficking organizations," individual medical marijuana users remain vulnerable, regardless of whether they have a state-issued ID card, said Sarah Beers, spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Agency in Los Angeles.
"In the eyes of the federal government, [a card] means absolutely nothing," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. "Under federal law it is illegal to possess, to sell or to cultivate marijuana."
However, the cards could help protect medicinal users of the illegal drug from prosecution by local law enforcement, county health officials said.
The Riverside County district attorney's office "recognizes that we have to follow the law, and there is a legitimate need," spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said.
"Those people that have [the card] will now be properly identified," Wyatt said, while "we'll be able to prosecute those who try to abuse the system."
Wyatt said the county district attorney's office reviews each medical marijuana case individually, and has prosecuted only "a handful."
The optional cards will feature a medical marijuana user's photo and a computer-generated identification number, but no name, address or medical information, said Victoria Jauregui Burns, county public health department program chief.
State estimates indicate 3,000 to 4,000 potential cardholders in Riverside County each year.
