Barack Obama's Hardline Turn on Medical Marijuana Is a Mystery
—By Kevin Drum
| Fri Feb. 17, 2012 11:08 AM PST
Over at Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has a good piece about the Obama administration's sudden about-face on medical marijuana. Initially they made soothing noises and announced that they wouldn't target pot dispensaries that complied with state law. Then, last year, everything changed:
The reversal began at the Drug Enforcement Agency with Michele Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush administration who was renominated by Obama to head the DEA…Almost immediately, federal prosecutors went on the attack. Their first target: the city of Oakland, where local officials had moved to raise millions in taxes by licensing high-tech indoor facilities for growing medical marijuana…Two months later, federal prosecutors in Washington state went even further…In isolation, such moves might be seen as the work of overzealous U.S. attorneys, who operate with considerable autonomy. But last June, the Justice Department effectively declared that it was returning to the Bush administration's hard-line stance on medical marijuana. James Cole, who had replaced Ogden as deputy attorney general, wrote a memo revoking his predecessor's deference to states on the definition of "caregiver."…Pot dispensaries, in short, were once again prime federal targets, even if they were following state law to the letter.As I was reading this piece I kept asking why this had happened. But it was all very mysterious. Finally Dickinson provided the best answer he could:
https://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2...ijuana-mystery