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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
No Medical Pot at These Apartments
By Andy Stiny And Olivier Uyttebrouck
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal Of the Journal
A firm that manages 86 New Mexico apartment complexes, including 23 in Albuquerque, will require renters to sign an agreement that prohibits them from growing or using medical marijuana at home.
Monarch Properties Inc., the state's largest apartment management firm with at least 6,000 units statewide, required renters to sign the agreement by today or face possible eviction, according to a memo sent from Monarch's Albuquerque office.
Monarch manages about 500 city-owned apartment units in Albuquerque, a portion of which are reserved for low-income renters, said Doug Chaplin, manager of the city's Community Development Division of Family and Community Services.
Chaplin said Tuesday he doesn't know whether residents of city-owned apartments were required to sign the agreement, nor have city officials decided how to respond to Monarch, he said.
The firm decided to forbid renters from growing or using medical marijuana because many of Monarch's properties are federally financed or subsidized, according to the firm's attorney.
Growing, using or possessing marijuana remains a violation of federal law, Monarch attorney Ron Tucker of Albuquerque wrote in an e-mail.
"Monarch manages a number of properties that are involved in federal housing programs that receive either federal subsidies, financing or other support," he wrote. "Participation in those programs mandates compliance with federal law as well as other federal housing regulations and guidelines."
Dallas-based Monarch operates 14,500 multifamily apartment units, some government-assisted, in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, according to its website.
The government-subsidized rental properties are managed under federal Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.
Fourteen states, including New Mexico and Washington, D.C., have enacted medical marijuana laws, according to the website ProCon. org. New Mexico's law, passed in 2007, allows possession of 6 ounces of usable pot and 16 plants, four mature and 12 immature, for those with a medical marijuana card, the website states.
The federal agencies involved "have sent memoranda concerning medical marijuana, and the preemption of state medical marijuana laws by the Federal Controlled Substances Act and other Federal law," Tucker wrote. "Monarch has adopted a policy and developed a lease addendum based upon those memoranda that specifically deals with medical marijuana."
The New Mexico Department of Health, which administers the Medical Cannabis Program, is powerless against the federal law, spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer said.
"Property owners can do what they want. Unfortunately, this is an issue that can happen in any state that has a medical marijuana program," she said.
"Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about federal law," Busemeyer said. "It's unfortunate when anyone can't get the medicine they need."
Martha Dibella, a public information officer for HUD in Houston, said federal law dictates their policy.
"Marijuana is still a controlled substance under federal law. ... They (tenants of federally subsidized housing) are not allowed to use marijuana."
Housing authorities and property managers are going to protect tenants and "going to err on the side of caution," she said, "and not endanger their properties."
Dibella said she was unsure whether the letters like those Monarch sent are required by HUD, and she was researching HUD regulations. "It's a controlled substance despite what the states say," she said.
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