Obama administration finds new way to crack down on medical marijuana

[jct74]

Medical Marijuana Crackdown Leads Feds To Target Landlords Of Pot Businesses

By Brett Wolf

ST. LOUIS, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Federal prosecutors are targeting medical marijuana shops in California, seeking forfeiture of the properties in which they do business.

The authorities are pressuring landlords to shut down the shops or face possible loss of the real estate through the unconventional and low-key use of a civil statute designed primarily to seize the assets of drug-trafficking organizations.

While some states, including California, have legalized medical marijuana businesses, the federal government does not recognize their authority to do so and has targeted the shops for violations of the 40-year-old Controlled Substances Act.

The goal of the Justice Department's effort, part of a crackdown announced last October, is to fight the medical marijuana industry, estimated at $1.7 billion annually, without confronting it head-on with costly and potentially embarrassing criminal prosecutions, industry sources and legal experts said.

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/medical-marijuana-crackdown-landlords_n_1595849.html

[Machiavelli]

Backward policies

[ZENemy]

2008 Obama:

I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to grow their own or start setting up mom and pop shops because at that point it becomes fairly difficult to regulate…. What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue…

2012 lying peice of shit Obama:

I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.” What I can say is, “Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.”

Say it with me

d-o-u-b-l-e speak!

[Intoxiklown]

"While some states, including California, have legalized medical marijuana businesses, the federal government does not recognize their authority to do so and has targeted the shops for violations of the 40-year-old Controlled Substances Act."

I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but I know here in the south this kind of thinking is starting to really piss people off.

[Lucille]

Obama has the PIC and its unions, and big pharma (among other industries) to protect.