See Also: Sheila Polk's Letter to Brewer Misstates AZ U.S. Attorney's Position on Medical Marijuana
See Also: Medical Marijuana Dispensary Lottery Coming Tuesday, and Will Be Streamed Live Online
A letter about medical marijuana to Governor Jan Brewer by Yavapai County Sheriff Scott Mascher, and signed by other sheriffs, contains the same BS about a federal official's intentions that we debunked last week.
For the record, we don't know what President Obama's newly appointed pick for Arizona U.S. Attorney, former Pima County Judge John Leonardo, will do about the medical-marijuana dispensaries expected to open soon around the state.
But we do know that when Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk told Brewer on July 24 in a letter signed by 12 other county attorneys that she'd heard Leonardo "fully intends" to shut down the stores, it was apparently based on false info. Polk told us that she heard it from a retired DEA agent, who then told New Times that Leonardo "never said what he was going to do one way or another."
The Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office backs the idea that Polk's just a rumormonger, saying her representation of Leonardo' s intentions was "inaccurate."
Sheriff Mascher's July 30 letter to Brewer uses the exact same sentence as Polk's did: "I have been told that the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, John Leonardo, fully intends to prevent any dispensaries from operating in Arizona by seizing each and every one as it opens and commits violations of the CSA."
Did Mascher get his info about Leonardo's intentions from a different, perhaps more credible source, then coincidentally decide to express that info as Polk did, word-for-word? Nah. It's just more BS.
We called Mascher this morning for comment, but his staff says he's not in the office yet. We'll let you know his response when he calls back.
When we told Polk that her story and retired DEA agent Tony Coulson's story didn't match up, the prosecutor e-mailed us that, "I wrote in my letter to the Governor what Tony told me."
Besides passing along twisted gossip to the governor, these crack law enforcement officials have an important message about how federal law should trump the wishes of state voters.
But they're all fouled up on that one, too.
