Federal Government does about-face...................

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington."
AP News on Yahoo Finance


Several things caught my attention:

1) The federal government was just this last week cracking down in California by federal agents.
California has made it legal, but the federal government has not. So local police did nothing while federal agents closed them down.

2) This was shown on Yahoo finance.
Let that sink in for a second.
I suspect that the time has come that the state government no longer has the money to stop it, it will plan on taxing it.
I suspect this is why it was in yahoo finance.

3)To be clear, the federal government has not declared it legal, be clear on this.
They have made it a low to no priority and will allow local state governments deal with it as they please.

Interesting article i read it last night on ats

just think of all the state budget-woes that would be absolved if they could find a way to legalize-with-taxes it

reply to post by TXRabbit


In all honesty I think they should legalize weed and treat it like they do Alcohol, if you are pulled over and are high then you get a DUI, You cant drink and drive you shouldn’t smoke and drive, and you cant go to work high either. So just make it freaking legal already and be done with it...

Disclaimer- I think people who do drugs (to include tobacco) are retarded, but if they want to poison there mind and body let them, its none of our business. It only becomes are business if they peddle it to kids, do it in the presence of a child, or operate in such a manner that would cause harm to the General Public. Basically if they want to be stoners let them. And we shouldn’t pay for any of it, through taxes or anything else if they lose there jobs for being high on the job.

reply to post by mrmonsoon


Yep, and Minnesota will be on that list soon too.

There is a very good reason for this about-face.

See the ATS Thread HERE.

reply to post by fraterormus


I read your post and link.

That was very interesting and informative.

For those that did not, in short, it said legalizing it would take money out of the hands of gangs in US and Mexico/other countries.

(Remember all the gang violence in border towns of US/Mexico, so bad, Mexico sent in it's federal troops)

My point in post was strictly the financial issues of states, but now that I think about it, taking money out of gangs hands can save us money as there might be less crime they can/do commit.