HUFFINGTON POST: Amid an increased crackdown on medical marijuana producers across the nation, including a recent high-profile raid on a California training school, President Barack Obama faced questions in a new interview with Rolling Stone about the seeming disconnect between his 2008 campaign rhetoric and his administration’s actions since he took office…
“What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana,” Obama said. “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.”
The president continued: “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.’ As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.” … (more)
