Obama Lauded For New Policy On Medical Marijuana

[Joanne98]

Fulfilling a campaign promise, the Obama Administration moved away from DEA raids and crackdowns on legal medical marijuana dispensaries in 14 states. The Administration had previously been criticized for allowing raids to go forward despite rhetoric claiming that they would focus on higher-level drug trafficking than the dispensaries where sick Americans can seek relief. Now they’ve codified the language into new guidelines.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said. “This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws.”

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald called it “one of those rare instances of unadulterated good news from Washington,” and he’s right. The Bush Administration was pre-empting state laws legalizing marijuana for medicinal use and preventing sick patients from care. This will now end.

This comes at a time when the proliferation of dispensaries in California (they now outnumber public schools in Los Angeles) has led local officials to seek a crackdown. A lot of these dispensaries, which are not supposed to be allowed to turn a profit, are taking advantage of lax enforcement and loopholes in the law to sprout up over the past year. Californians may go to the polls next year to allow dispensaries to operate for profit and to tax the sales, but that’s a ways off, so in Los Angeles at least, customers may still face hardships in trying to get their medicine.

Whatever the case, it is far preferable for decisions like this to be made locally than from a federal government simply bulldozing the will of the people in particular states.

UPDATE: A temporary ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles has been ruled invalid by a Superior Court judge, suggesting that the city will be unable to stop the proliferation of dispensaries in the future
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/10/19/obama-lauded-for-new-policy-on-medical-marijuana/

[Canuckistanian]

1. When the DEA raids stop, I'll be impressed

This pronouncement has been made before, with DEA raids following the next day.