[USATODAY] The Justice Department will not attempt to challenge state laws that allow for the medical and recreational use of marijuana as long as the drug sales do not conflict with eight new federal enforcement priorities.
Those include the distribution of marijuana to minors and sales that assist or act as cover for trafficking operations, according to a directive being issued Thursday to federal prosecutors across the country.
Although the directive issued by Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder ... aka Mister Fast and Furious... will apply nationwide, it will largely affect the 20 states and the District of Columbia that allow for medical marijuana use, and Colorado and Washington where state laws allow medical and recreational use by adults.
A Justice official, who was briefed on the directive but not authorized to comment publicly, said Holder briefed the governors of Colorado and Washington earlier Thursday on the new prosecutorial directive in a conference call. Federal prosecutors were expected to begin briefing authorities in other states later Thursday.
The new guidelines do not change marijuana's classification as an illegal drug, the official said. But the document effectively discourages the pursuit of individual non-violent marijuana users who have no links to criminal gangs or cartel operations.
The document contains a list of eight new federal enforcement priorities, which is expected to guide federal authorities when weighing decisions on marijuana prosecutions. It also notified state authorities that the federal government will intervene if the states violate those priorities, including the distribution of marijuana to minors.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2013 00:00 ||
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#8
I suppose illegal drug user's votes matter as much as illegal immigrants, maybe more so, since they generally need ID to get pot so easier for them to get to the polls.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
