Obama administration to allow recreational marijuana laws to stand

This will be very interesting. Let's see if he calls off the alphabet boys now.

 

LA Times

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration announced Thursday a limited pullback on federal enforcement of marijuana, saying it will not interfere with new state laws that permit recreational use of marijuana.

The Justice Department said it will not seek to veto new state laws in Colorado and Washington that legalize the recreational use of marijuana, and it will not bring federal prosecutions against dispensaries or businesses that sell small amounts of marijuana to adults.

A department official stressed, however, that marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and that U.S. prosecutors will continue to aggressively enforce the law against those who sell marijuana to minors and to criminal gangs that are involved in drug trafficking.


Atty. Gen. Eric Holder described the Obama administration’s middle-ground approach to marijuana enforcement in a call to the governors of two states.

Holder also sent new guidance to U.S. attorneys telling them to focus their prosecutions on certain federal priorities. They include preventing drug sales to minors and stopping traffickers from moving marijuana across state lines.

Under the new guidance, a marijuana dispensary will not be targeted by federal prosecutors solely because of its size or its volume, an official said.

This change could have an immediate impact in California and the other states where medical marijuana is legal under state law.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/polit...rijuana-legalization-20130829,0,5074054.story

 

Attorney General Eric Holder, in a conference call Thursday morning, notified the governors of Colorado and Washington that the department, for now, will not seek to pre-empt those states' laws, which followed voters' approval of ballot measures that legalized recreational marijuana use.

It's about fucking time.

I'm booking a plane for Denver.

Tom

 

Excellent news!

 

These baby-steps will become strides soon enough.

 

Maybe this is like his stance on gay marriage.
Slowly evolving until it becomes moral (or in line with morality).
Let's hope so.

 

U.S. allows states to legalize recreational marijuana within limits

U.S. allows states to legalize recreational marijuana within limits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a move marijuana advocates hailed as an historic shift, the Obama administration on Thursday began giving U.S. states wide leeway to experiment with pot legalization and started by letting Colorado and Washington carry out new laws permitting recreational use.

The Justice Department said it would refocus marijuana enforcement nationwide by bringing criminal charges only in eight defined areas - such as distribution to minors - and giving breathing room to users, growers and related businesses that have feared prosecution.

The decisions end nearly a year of deliberation inside President Barack Obama's administration about how to react to the growing movement for relaxed U.S. marijuana laws.

Advocates for legalization welcomed the announcement as a major step toward ending what they called "marijuana prohibition."

alasdair

 

^^^This is great news but at the rate we are going it will only take another sixty years for the Federal government to reschedule Marijuana. Lets not forget that each state will have to legalize marijuana on there own accord and that's going to be a tough sell in the bible belt. Marijuana will heal humanity but expect certain people/organizations to fight it tooth and nail

 

The fed needs to legalize cannabis outright for every state. They will never legalize it in California because scumbag drug dealers make too much money off it being illegal.

 

This is pretty worthless, IMO. His kingship might let it stand, but the Federal laws on the books are unchanged. He has changed his mind before and will probably do it again.

These allowances are just to give the dispensary system time to get setup so that the Fed can raid them all when the time is right. In other words, it's yet another bait and switch.

I will have more faith when cannabis is decriminalized at a Federal level.

 

Can't wait for my pot vacation. Amsterdam has made enough off me. This is like Amsterdam I can drive to in a couple hours.

 

^^^This is great news but at the rate we are going it will only take another sixty years for the Federal government to reschedule Marijuana. Lets not forget that each state will have to legalize marijuana on there own accord and that's going to be a tough sell in the bible belt. Marijuana will heal humanity but expect certain people/organizations to fight it tooth and nail

I think it will be legalized at the Federal level in less than a decade.


Problem is, states will still be allowed to maintain their current laws, so if you live in Oklahoma or Arkansas where the laws are fucking absurd, it might be 60+ years before you are legally allowed to smoke marijuana there.

Hopefully, certain states will begin legalizing cocaine and MDMA in that time frame, paving the way for full scale legalization of all drugs, from marijuana to LSD to heroin. I think that a gradualist approach is actually the way to go in terms of ramping down the drug war, as legalizing everything all at once would have devastating society wide effects, mostly related to the sudden loss of income that would be faced by individuals the drug war has turned into psychopaths. It's better to chip away at that income slowly over time, making the business decreasingly lucrative over the course of decades.

 

This is pretty worthless, IMO. His kingship might let it stand, but the Federal laws on the books are unchanged. He has changed his mind before and will probably do it again.

These allowances are just to give the dispensary system time to get setup so that the Fed can raid them all when the time is right. In other words, it's yet another bait and switch.

I will have more faith when cannabis is decriminalized at a Federal level.

While you are no doubt right that it should be decriminalized or legalized, it is also true that Obama could have been much more aggressive about this.
I have no faith that he won't change his mind or wait until the time is right to swoop down, but now it will look much worse if he does.
If he had immediately said "we won't tolerate challenges to federal law", he would have looked strong and consistent.
And, as I said above, his views may be changing (with the changing views of voters, no doubt, but still...).
So, to me, this is a good thing, and not at all worthless.

 

I think Pandora's box has been opened on a federal level. This is akin to the feds just saying "we surrender". The ball is in our court.

 

I think it will be legalized at the Federal level in less than a decade.


Problem is, states will still be allowed to maintain their current laws, so if you live in Oklahoma or Arkansas where the laws are fucking absurd, it might be 60+ years before you are legally allowed to smoke marijuana there.

Hopefully, certain states will begin legalizing cocaine and MDMA in that time frame, paving the way for full scale legalization of all drugs, from marijuana to LSD to heroin. I think that a gradualist approach is actually the way to go in terms of ramping down the drug war, as legalizing everything all at once would have devastating society wide effects, mostly related to the sudden loss of income that would be faced by individuals the drug war has turned into psychopaths. It's better to chip away at that income slowly over time, making the business decreasingly lucrative over the course of decades.

I see no evidence that drugs (other than cannabis), will ever be legal. The only reason that pot was legalized in Colorado and Washington was because of NORML's lobbying. There's an organization called LEAP, whose goal is to legalize all drugs (not just marijuana), but in order for a drug to become legal, the people of the states have to vote on it. According to certain polls, while many people support legalizing pot, very few people support legalizing any other drugs.

 

This is pretty worthless, IMO. His kingship might let it stand, but the Federal laws on the books are unchanged. He has changed his mind before and will probably do it again.

These allowances are just to give the dispensary system time to get setup so that the Fed can raid them all when the time is right. In other words, it's yet another bait and switch.

I will have more faith when cannabis is decriminalized at a Federal level.

Sadly I have to agree with you. This is the same song and dance that he's been pulling since his first term, when he claimed the feds would no longer prosecute medical marijuana operations who were in compliance with state law.

If we don't see any raids in the next 12 months, then I'll believe this is more than just hot air.

 

I see no evidence that drugs (other than cannabis), will ever be legal. The only reason that pot was legalized in Colorado and Washington was because of NORML's lobbying. There's an organization called LEAP, whose goal is to legalize all drugs (not just marijuana), but in order for a drug to become legal, the people of the states have to vote on it. According to certain polls, while many people support legalizing pot, very few people support legalizing any other drugs.

There are increasing numbers of sociologists, psychologists, medical doctors, pharmacologists, molecular biologists, neurologists, lawyers, former law enforcement officers, and even the occasional politician, who feel that The War on Drugs needs to come to an end. We are a long way from majority support, but if influential and prominent individuals across multiple disciplines are all saying the same thing for a long enough time, public perception will shift eventually. Just five years ago somebody would have said there is absolutely no chance marijuana would be legalized anywhere within the U.S. within the next 10 years.

 

Sadly I have to agree with you. This is the same song and dance that he's been pulling since his first term, when he claimed the feds would no longer prosecute medical marijuana operations who were in compliance with state law.

If we don't see any raids in the next 12 months, then I'll believe this is more than just hot air.

I don't believe Obama is responsible for the raids on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. Nor do I believe that George W. Bush was responsible for them when they happened under his presidency.

The DEA is at this point a rogue organization operating under the guise of being a federally controlled agency. They answer to no one and only act in their own self-interest. There is no way a U.S. president would admit he does not have control over one of the arms of his own government, which in effect forces him to take credit for the actions of the DEA, or risk appearing weak. This goes all the way back to Jimmy Carter, and it likely predates him.

Ultimately, despite the Justice Department's subtle urging of the DEA to be lenient and allow these states to smoke marijuana in peace, the DEA is going to do whatever the fuck it wants to do. At least Obama isn't challenging the constitutionality of the law, we should be fortunate for that.

 

When i was growing plants in my old apt i noticed i didnt need my xanax as much. It was great tending to my girls, making cuttings, making sure they had enough food and the ph was on. Not to mention having the final product. If md ever had dispensaries id buy enough to last me while i had a grow and they matured. Just keep cloning and have a mother plant like a tree. Was really soothing growing them lol

 

There are increasing numbers of sociologists, psychologists, medical doctors, pharmacologists, molecular biologists, neurologists, lawyers, former law enforcement officers, and even the occasional politician, who feel that The War on Drugs needs to come to an end. We are a long way from majority support, but if influential and prominent individuals across multiple disciplines are all saying the same thing for a long enough time, public perception will shift eventually. Just five years ago somebody would have said there is absolutely no chance marijuana would be legalized anywhere within the U.S. within the next 10 years.

However, while pot legalization has already happened in two states and will probably happen in many more states very soon, other drugs probably won't be legalized anytime soon, for the reasons mentioned above.