The state of Washington has had a medical-marijuana law in place since 1998, but critics say the measure does little to protect patients and caregivers from prosecution on drug charges, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Nov. 13.

Both medical-marijuana users and law-enforcement officials agree that the Washington Medical Marijuana Act is a mess; advocates call it the worst of the 11 state laws that have passed allowing medical use of the drug. "Of all the states that have medical marijuana, Washington protects patients the least," said Paul Stanford, executive director of the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation.

"Anybody who's tried to apply this law has run into problems," agreed Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng. "It's the collision of two worlds: the medical world and the criminal-justice world."

The problem, observers say, is that the wording of the measure gives police great leeway in determining how much marijuana can be legally grown or possessed for medical use. The law does not specifically spell out how much marijuana a patient can legally possess, but rather refers to a "60-day supply." Standards therefore vary from community to community: Seattle allows patients to have up to nine marijuana plants and some dry buds, while Yakima allows none.

Another fundamental problem with the law is that it allows medical use of pot but doesn't make any provision for how users are supposed to obtain the drug.

As a result, some patients and caregivers who believed they were complying with the law are now facing jail time and big legal costs. In addition to questions of quantity, users have run into problems if they grow marijuana outdoors (violating a ban on public cultivation) or don't have their medical-marijuana authorization renewed annually.

In Washington, the burden of proof falls on users to prove that they are legitimate medical-marijuana users. "So even if you are authorized and you have your paperwork, you can still be arrested, charged with a crime and made to go all the way through the criminal-justice process to a trial before you can establish that medical-marijuana defense and be acquitted," said Alison Holcomb of the Washington state ACLU's Marijuana Education Project.

Attempts to amend that law have been frustrated so far. "When people think about voting on a bill that has 'marijuana' in the title, some of our more conservative legislators have a very difficult time with it," said state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle). "They think it could come back to haunt them."