Memo: Justice Department Won’t Meddle With States That Legalize Marijuana
Mother Jones
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Mary Jane made a new friend today: an old bearded hippie named Uncle Sam.
In a memo released this afternoon, the Department of Justice signaled that it will not meddle with state efforts to legalize and regulate the consumption and sale of pot. “Basically what it says is that the federal government is waving a white flag,” says Dan Riffle, the director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). “Today’s announcement is a major historic step toward ending marijuana prohibition.”
The federal government typically hasn’t prosecuted individual pot smokers, but the memo breaks new ground by applying a similarly permissive approach to marijuana dispensaries, which have often been the targets of federal raids. Under the new policy, the DOJ will leave recreational and medical pot dispensaries alone in states that it believes are regulating them adequately.
Prosecutors “should continue to review marijuana cases on a case-by-case basis,” the memo says, “and weigh all available information and evidence, including, but not limited to, whether the operation is demonstrably in compliance with a strong and effective state regulatory system.”
The DOJ signaled that it will allow Colorado and Washington to proceed with legalizing and regulating the sale and recreational consumption of marijuana so long as they can prevent:
Cannabis from being sold to minors
Pot revenue from going to criminal enterprises
Legally purchased marijuana from being diverted to states where it’s illegal
State-authorized pot businesses from being used as legal cover for drug trafficking
Violence related to drug cultivation
Stoned driving
The cultivation of marijuana on public lands
Marijuana possession on federal property
“Those are all reasons we’ve cited for why we should tax and regulate marijuana,” the MPP’s Riffle points out.
But other pro-marijuana activists are concerned that the memo gives federal prosecutors too much leeway. In particular, it’s not clear whether the feds will stop prosecuting pot dispensaries in California. Unlike Colorado and Washington, California provides little state-level oversight of its medical pot industry, relying instead on a patchwork of local laws.
Continued here:
Memo: Justice Department Won’t Meddle With States That Legalize Marijuana
