Obama Administration Cracks Down On Medical Pot

I think the raids are a response to Colorado legalizing pot.

Today federal agents, assisted by local police, staged the biggest crackdown on marijuana dispensaries in Colorado since the state legalized cannabis for medical use in 2000. The Denver Post reports that the raids hit more than a dozen dispensaries in the Denver area, plus businesses in Boulder and elsewhere.

Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for John Walsh, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, said the operation “comports with the Department’s recent guidance regarding marijuana enforcement matters.” The August 29 memo to which Dorschner refers indicated that the feds would not interfere with marijuana businesses that comply with state law unless their activities implicated one or more of these eight “enforcement priorities”: 1) “preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors,” 2) “preventing the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states,” 3) “preventing drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use,” 4) “preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands,” 5) “preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property,” 6) “preventing revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises,” 7) “preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana,” and 8) “preventing state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs.”

I don’t see how the Feds can determine that a dispensary promotes #3.

And given studies to date – Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Traffic Deaths – why would they want to? Assuming they are rational. I do get it though. They have private prisons and prison guard unions to support.

I found this comment entirely on point:

…the fraudulent prohibition is purely a pork barrel that renders nothing but destruction. Many powerful groups profit from the persecution of millions of American marijuana consumers.

Law enforcement, prosecutors, prisons, the industries of alcohol, pharmaceuticals and drug testing/”treatment,” banks and other corporations that launder black-market cash, bizarrely – the emerging medical marijuana industry – where it is no secret the majority of their customers are really recreational consumers, and the drug gangs themselves – whose billions of dollar buy influence everywhere.

Crony “capitalism” at its finest.