President Obama's Justice Department issued a memorandum today that confirms what's been obvious for years: the administration's war on marijuana will continue regardless of state laws allowing it to be smoked for medicinal or recreational purposes. The memo appears the same day as the Weekly published an article questioning the consistency of Obama's pot policy.
The four page document not only re-emphasizes the federal government's marijuana eradication efforts, but also lays out several key objectives in that effort. The memo makes clear that unless you are growing marijuana for yourself or a sick family member, and have all the state-sanctioned paperwork to prove it, you can expect zero tolerance from the DEA, and even then you should still worry.
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These are the specific potpocalypse “enforcement priorities” the memo lays out:
*Preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors
*Preventing revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels
*Preventing the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states
*Preventing state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity
*Preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana
*Preventing drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use
*Preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands
*Preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property
Despite dropping such clues, the memo doesn't spell out how you can avoid being investigated or prosecuted by the feds. Perish the thought, in fact. “Neither the guidance herein nor any state or local law provides a legal defense to a violation of federal law,” it warns.”
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Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).