A bill introduced in the California legislature by a coalition of Democratic lawmakers would prohibit local police and sheriff’s deputies from aiding in any type of federal crackdown on state-licensed marijuana businesses.
The intent, the bill’s backers say, is to reassure marijuana businesses that they won’t be targeted unfairly by the Department of Justice as long as they comply with state laws, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The measure again underscores the growing disconnect between state and federal marijuana policy, given that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions could technically prosecute law-abiding marijuana businesses for distribution of a controlled substance. And without a clear policy position from the Trump administration on the burgeoning cannabis industry, states have increasingly been taking measures into their own hands.
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).