Although 18 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana, federal law does not recognize or protect medicinal marijuana possession or use; and the federal government can prosecute people who are otherwise protected under state medicinal marijuana laws. Federal law will always trump state law. While it is relatively rare to face federal prosecution as an individual patient, or as a member of a small medicinal marijuana growing cooperative, medicinal marijuana growers and dispensaries have received plenty of negative federal attention.
Under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, marijuana is classified as a
Schedule I substance. By definition, Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and dependency, along with no recognized medical use or value. Any marijuana possession, cultivation or use is a federal crime, subjecting a defendant to possible fines, prison time, or both.
Large scale cultivation and trafficking (transporting/ selling marijuana, often across state lines) incurs harsher penalties, and tends to be the main focus of federal drug enforcement attention.
In spite of this wholesale federal ban, since the mid1990s, 18 states have enacted laws that allow or protect the marijuana for medicinal purposes. Most of these states have decriminalized medicinal marijuana use for patients who follow the law with respect to amounts, registration, and such. Yet, statelevel penalties still apply to those who break these state laws.
Obviously, there is a conflict between federal classification under the CSA, which criminalizes all marijuanarelated activities; and state medical marijuana laws, which recognize and protect medicinal marijuana cultivation, possession, and use. But despite the continued viability of the federal approach, individual medicinal marijuana patients are relatively unlikely to face problems from the federal government.
Federal enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have discretion as to which cases they pursue; and as with other government agencies, they have budget constraints to consider. Accordingly, in 2009, thenDeputy Attorney General David
Ogden released a memo that declared personal medicinal marijuana use (in states that allow it), while still illegal under the CSA, to be a low priority for federal enforcement actions. In his memo, Ogden reasoned that there were better uses of the federal government’s limited financial resources than prosecuting individual medicinal marijuana patients. Instead, Ogden instructed federal enforcement agencies to target largerscale marijuana growers and dispensaries, which were seen as contributing to the illegal marijuana trade by supplying marijuana to nonpatients.
More recently, in 2011, Deputy Attorney General James Cole released a new memo, instructing federal enforcement agencies to increase the priority on prosecuting growers and dispensaries.
Many dispensaries (especially in California) have recently been targeted by federal prosecutors. The prosecutors typically begin by sending cease and desist letters that instruct dispensary owners to shut down the operation or risk federal prosecution. If the dispensary operates in rented space, a second letter often goes to the landlord. The letter warns the
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