White House weighing action against the pro-pot states.

[Direckshun]

Put yourself in the White House's shoes.

I imagine most of us in this forum are pro-legalization. But you are the White House here, and you are tasked with enforcing a federal law classifying marijuana as flatly illegal.

So? What do you do?

You have to put down the states and maintain the national supremacy clause, right? Or do you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/us...ling.html?_r=0

Administration Weighs Legal Action Against States That Legalized Marijuana Use
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: December 6, 2012

WASHINGTON — Senior White House and Justice Department officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations.

Even as marijuana legalization supporters are celebrating their victories in the two states, the Obama administration has been holding high-level meetings since the election to debate the response of federal law enforcement agencies to the decriminalization efforts.

Marijuana use in both states continues to be illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. One option is to sue the states on the grounds that any effort to regulate marijuana is pre-empted by federal law. Should the Justice Department prevail, it would raise the possibility of striking down the entire initiatives on the theory that voters would not have approved legalizing the drug without tight regulations and licensing similar to controls on hard alcohol.

Some law enforcement officials, alarmed at the prospect that marijuana users in both states could get used to flouting federal law openly, are said to be pushing for a stern response. But such a response would raise political complications for President Obama because marijuana legalization is popular among liberal Democrats who just turned out to re-elect him.

“It’s a sticky wicket for Obama,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Austin, saying any aggressive move on such a high-profile question would be seen as “a slap in the face to his base right after they’ve just handed him a chance to realize his presidential dreams.”

Federal officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. Several cautioned that the issue had raised complex legal and policy considerations — including enforcement priorities, litigation strategy and the impact of international antidrug treaties — that remain unresolved, and that no decision was imminent.

The Obama administration declined to comment on the deliberations, but pointed to a statement the Justice Department issued on Wednesday — the day before the initiative took effect in Washington — in the name of the United States attorney in Seattle, Jenny A. Durkan. She warned Washington residents that the drug remained illegal.

“In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance,” she said. “Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6 in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.”

Ms. Durkan’s statement also hinted at the deliberations behind closed doors, saying: “The Department of Justice is reviewing the legalization initiatives recently passed in Colorado and Washington State. The department’s responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged.”

Federal officials have relied on their more numerous state and local counterparts to handle smaller marijuana cases. In reviewing how to respond to the new gap, the interagency task force — which includes Justice Department headquarters, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the offices of the White House Counsel and the director of National Drug Control Policy — is considering several strategies, officials said.

One option is for federal prosecutors to bring some cases against low-level marijuana users of the sort they until now have rarely bothered with, waiting for a defendant to make a motion to dismiss the case because the drug is now legal in that state. The department could then obtain a court ruling that federal law trumps the state one.

A more aggressive option is for the Justice Department to file lawsuits against the states to prevent them from setting up systems to regulate and tax marijuana, as the initiatives contemplated. If a court agrees that such regulations are pre-empted by federal ones, it will open the door to a broader ruling about whether the regulatory provisions can be “severed” from those eliminating state prohibitions — or whether the entire initiatives must be struck down.

Another potential avenue would be to cut off federal grants to the states unless their legislatures restored antimarijuana laws, said Gregory Katsas, who led the civil division of the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration.

Mr. Katsas said he was skeptical that a pre-emption lawsuit would succeed. He said he was also skeptical that it was necessary, since the federal government could prosecute marijuana cases in those states regardless of whether the states regulated the drug.

Still, federal resources are limited. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department issued a policy for handling states that have legalized medical marijuana. It says federal officials should generally not use their limited resources to go after small-time users, but should for large-scale trafficking organizations. The result has been more federal raids on dispensaries than many liberals had expected.

[Cannibal]

Obama had better find a way to look the other way on this. A majority of the people that reelected his ass fervently support legalization.

[Cannibal]

Hell he used to ****in smoke it himself. Jesus this guy needs to get some balls.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Cannibal

Obama had better find a way to look the other way on this. A majority of the people that reelected his ass fervently support legalization.

Yup.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Is the DEA an independent agency? How much pull/legitimacy does the White House's political wishes have over this agency?

Well, I did some digging around. The DEA is under the Dept. of Justice. The DOJ is lead by the Attorney General. The Attorney General ( a member of the cabinet) is nominated by the POTUS and confirmed by Congress. The POTUS can dismiss cabinet members at will. So, if Obama wants state's rights to prevail in this issue, he can basically tell the Attorney General to make it happen or GTFO.

Originally Posted by nstygma

according to http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock $38bil has been spent so far this year on the drug war. that's supporting a lot of agents and their families!

Yup. The "war on drugs" is a war on the people of this country. That we are paying for.

[CoMoChief]

The Obama admin will tighten down on federal drug laws because the banks that launder billions of drug money need it to be illegal to keep the prices up on the black market.

This is primarily why marijuana is illegal on the federal level in the first place. Just like everything else at the federal level, it's all one giant scam.

That's why we're still in Afghanistan and why we probably won't ever leave that region. Our military over there is growing shit tons of opium, that and to keep the Russians and Chinese away from the regions oil.

[nstygma]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Yup. The "war on drugs" is a war on the people of this country. That we are paying for.

an utter failure. drugs are more readily available now and profits are greater.
its a huge business.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Well, I did some digging around. The DEA is under the Dept. of Justice. The DOJ is lead by the Attorney General. The Attorney General ( a member of the cabinet) is nominated by the POTUS and confirmed by Congress. The POTUS can dismiss cabinet members at will. So, if Obama wants state's rights to prevail in this issue, he can basically tell the Attorney General to make it happen or GTFO.

Interesting.

I wonder what the precedent is for the AG basically telling a drug agency to do their job differently.

It must have happened at some point before.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Interesting.

I wonder what the precedent is for the AG basically telling a drug agency to do their job differently.

It must have happened at some point before.

I am having a hard time finding anything definitive. I'm pretty sleepy though, if I remember I'll dig around some more tomorrow. I did find this interesting article:


Attorney General Eric Holder hints that DEA MMJ Raids Not US Policy

On Wednesday, February 25th, Attorney General Eric Holder made an off the cuff but important statement concerning medical marijuana while speaking at a press conference devoted to operations against the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel. Obama's Attorney General declared that ending medical marijuana raids is now American policy.

This was in response to a question posed by a reporter who asked, "shortly after the inauguration there were raids on California medical marijuana dispensaries...do you expect these to continue?" The reporter noted that the President had promised to end the raids in his campaign.

Holder responded, "What the President said during the campaign...is consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement. He was my boss in the campaign....He is my boss now. What he said in the campaign is now American policy." You can hear this for yourself in the C-SPAN video, the question appears about 25 minutes into the press conference found on the C-Span video. If you do not want to listen to the whole press conference video follow this YOUTUBE link to hear the question on the medical marijuana raids and Attorney General Holder's response.

Accompanying the Attorney General at the press conference was DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart. Note that Leonhart is a Bush administration holdover who authorized raids against California medical marijuana clinics shortly after the election.

Please take a moment to thank Attorney General Holder for taking this brave and compassionate position. You can e-mail the new Attorney General at: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov. Or you can call the Office of the Attorney General at: 202-353-1555. If you are calling, be courteous and do so during east coast business hours. For additional contact information see http://www.usdoj.gov/contact-us.html.

http://ohiopatientsnetwork.org/index...=50:dea-evants

[alnorth]

The administrative difficulty is that a petition to reschedule has to be accepted for a hearing, but the last such petition (originally filed in 2002!) was just denied in 2011. Maybe there's a new, active petition out there, but if not, I'm not sure what can be done.

If an active petition asking the DEA to hold a hearing on whether to reschedule MJ exists, then Obama can direct his AG to order the DEA hold the hearing and ultimately reschedule it. The reason why the petition was denied was because of conclusions reached by HHS. He can order that new, independent people be assigned to examine the issue again, directly or indirectly by telling his HHS secretary.

If MJ is ultimately rescheduled, the "legalize it!" folks might be disappointed, because then Marijuana would still be a controlled substance that can be prescribed by a doctor, but is very illegal if you don't have a prescription, like certain pain pills.

If you want to outright legalize it (and not just settle for hoping the feds look the other way), you need congress, because there's no way to completely deschedule marijuana. Under the guidelines of the controlled substance act, alcohol and tobacco would obviously both be illegal, except exceptions were specifically carved out for them.

[listopencil]

To me that seems to imply that the Attorney General acts according to the POTUS' will in these matters. This is the person who is holding it up:

Michele Marie Leonhart is an American career law enforcement officer and the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Since the resignation of Administrator Karen P. Tandy in the fall of 2007, Leonhart also served as Acting Administrator of the DEA. On 2 February 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Leonhart for the position of DEA Administrator;^[1] the nomination was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration (nomination no. PN1430-111).

Leonhart has consistently turned down research into the therapeutic and medicinal benefits of marijuana, and has a track record of undermining state law with regard to legal medical marijuana. On July 21, 2010, several pro-legalisation groups called on President Obama to withdraw his support of Leonhart, including SSDP, MPP, NORML, LEAP, and DPA. ^[10]

In 2011, the Washington Post reported that "994 people younger than 18 were killed in drug-related violence between late 2006 and late 2010" and that "[i]n 2009, the last year for which there is data, 1,180 children were killed, half in shootings."^[11] In response to these statistics, Leonhart declared that while it "may seem contradictory, the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs.”^[11]

In 2012, Leonhart testified before Congress and refused to say that marijuana is less addictive or harmful than methamphetamine, heroin, or crack-cocaine

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The administrative difficulty is that a petition to reschedule has to be accepted for a hearing, but the last such petition (originally filed in 2002!) was just denied in 2011. Maybe there's a new, active petition out there, but if not, I'm not sure what can be done.

If an active petition asking the DEA to hold a hearing on whether to reschedule MJ exists, then Obama can direct his AG to order the DEA hold the hearing and ultimately reschedule it. The reason why the petition was denied was because of conclusions reached by HHS. He can order that new, independent people be assigned to examine the issue again, directly or indirectly by telling his HHS secretary.

If MJ is ultimately rescheduled, the "legalize it!" folks might be disappointed, because then Marijuana would still be a controlled substance that can be prescribed by a doctor, but is very illegal if you don't have a prescription, like certain pain pills.

If you want to outright legalize it (and not just settle for hoping the feds look the other way), you need congress, because there's no way to completely deschedule marijuana. Under the guidelines of the controlled substance act, alcohol and tobacco would obviously both be illegal, except exceptions were specifically carved out for them.

Great information. Thanks.

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The administrative difficulty is that a petition to reschedule has to be accepted for a hearing, but the last such petition (originally filed in 2002!) was just denied in 2011. Maybe there's a new, active petition out there, but if not, I'm not sure what can be done.

If an active petition asking the DEA to hold a hearing on whether to reschedule MJ exists, then Obama can direct his AG to order the DEA hold the hearing and ultimately reschedule it. The reason why the petition was denied was because of conclusions reached by HHS. He can order that new, independent people be assigned to examine the issue again, directly or indirectly by telling his HHS secretary.

If MJ is ultimately rescheduled, the "legalize it!" folks might be disappointed, because then Marijuana would still be a controlled substance that can be prescribed by a doctor, but is very illegal if you don't have a prescription, like certain pain pills.

If you want to outright legalize it (and not just settle for hoping the feds look the other way), you need congress, because there's no way to completely deschedule marijuana. Under the guidelines of the controlled substance act, alcohol and tobacco would obviously both be illegal, except exceptions were specifically carved out for them.

Yup. Sounds reasonable. Republicans could score a big push in popularity if they went along with it instead of shooting it down in Congress. Do they have the balls to do that? I'm still wondering what happens if the Supreme Court gets involved.

[blaise]

Originally Posted by Cannibal

Obama had better find a way to look the other way on this. A majority of the people that reelected his ass fervently support legalization.

Yeah, he's already been elected again.

[Baby Lee]

Fold the DEA into ICE. Boom!!

[scott free]

Originally Posted by Cannibal

Hell he used to ****in smoke it himself. Jesus this guy needs to get some balls.

He needs a reminder from his "choom gang" days.