The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is balking at a Colorado court’s order to return medical marijuana patient Don Nord’s confiscated plants and equipment. Nord, who legally uses medical marijuana to treat numerous severe ailments – including cancer, diabetes, and chronic pain – won an appeal to reclaim three marijuana plants and two ounces of marijuana taken by the Grand, Routt and Moffat County Narcotics Enforcement Team (GRAMNET), a federal task force. GRAMNET seized Nord’s marijuana – though his possession of the drug was legal under state law – after obtaining a warrant to search his home. Judge Garrecht gave DEA officials who are holding Nord’s marijuana and materiel three weeks to return them. However, Dan Reuter, a DEA special agent and public information officer with the Denver field office, tells the Alliance that the plants are "not alive" and, in any event, he "can't think of a case" where seized marijuana was returned to a person who used it under any circumstances, including medicinally. Reuter also told Denver’s Rocky Mountain News that the DEA "is not in the habit of returning illegal contraband." The DEA’s stance could set up a constitutional showdown between federal and state officials over medical marijuana laws.

The court order to return the plants echoes similar decisions in Oregon and California and is the first of its kind in Colorado, where three years ago voters approved a law amending the state constitution to guarantee seriously ill patients a right to possess and use medicinal marijuana. Nord and nearly 300 other Coloradoans have signed up for the state’s Medical Marijuana Registry, run by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which requires a doctor’s letter showing medical eligibility and payment of $140 to join. Colorado, eight other states and the District of Columbia have passed referenda to allow seriously ill patients access to medical marijuana. (Congress nullified the District’s election results, preventing the will of the voters from taking effect.)