The DOJ ‘Intended to Discourage’ a Historic Medical Marijuana Bill
By what measure is it anything less than a violation of the separation of powers for the DOJ to meddle in legislation? To lobby with deceit in a kind usually associated with the NRA. Puts the lie to “we have nothing to fear” from DOJ.
An internal Department of Justice memo leaked this week reveals that in the days leading up to last year’s historic passage of a federal medical marijuana protections measure, the DOJ passed around “informal talking points” to members of Congress that were “intended to discourage passage” of the statute due to concerns about overreach — concerns that would later turn out to be incorrect.
In May 2014, the House passed an appropriations amendment, introduced by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Sam Farr (D-Calif.), that blocked the DOJ from using funds to target state-legal medical marijuana operations. These historic protections for medical marijuana patients and providers were eventually signed into law by President Barack Obama as part of a larger federal budget bill.
This week saw the leak of a February 2015 memo revealing that before last year’s House vote, the DOJ was concerned that the proposed amendment could effectively “limit or possibly eliminate the Department’s ability to enforce federal law in recreational marijuana cases as well.”
Within a year of the amendment passing, though, the DOJ would decide that it actually wasn’t that concerned after all. The department admits in its own memo that it no longer interprets the Rohrabacher-Farr statute as “placing any limitations on our ability to investigate and prosecute crimes involving recreational marijuana.”
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