What was hard for pot entrepreneurs before appears to have taken on a whole different level of difficulty if the Feds are successful with their just-announced plan:
"Trump administration targets recreational pot, placing thousands of marijuana businesses in California at risk" (L.A. Times, 04-Jan-2018)[0]
> In 2014, in the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment to an appropriations bill, Congress prohibited the Department of Justice from using federal money to "prevent" states from implementing laws making medical use of marijuana legal. Courts have found that this amendment may prohibit federal prosecutions for medical marijuana activities that are legal under state law.
Rohrabacher-Farr has to be passed anew with each spending authorization and the current one expires later this month. If the administration decided they really don't want it, they can go hard line on that, though there's political risk involved.
It explicitly also applies only to medical marijuana laws even as previously drafted; even if they don't go hardline against it they could either seek to have Congress revise it slightly to provide a clearer delineation of the medical boundary, or just go full-out against non-medical operations in recreational-use states and let the courts sort out the boundary; start a few RICO and/or Continuing Criminal Enterprise prosecutions with the associated broad forfeiture that can come with those (and the 20-year, or if your business is more successful, life) mandatory prison sentences available under the latter, and you'll drive lots of people that aren't yet being prosecuted out of “legal” pot and supporting businesses even before any legal challenges are resolved.
I respect Popehat a lot, but I think that while the minimization of the legal risk to individual users is accurate, it misses the real risk, which is to trade as a whole through selective targeting of major operations and supporting businesses. Individual users lose out because the “legal” industry goes away from legal risk, not because they are individually targeted for prosecution.
If the administration decided they really don't want it, they can go hard line on that, though there's political risk involved.
It's not like the administration has a whole lot of political capital to play with right now. Vetoing their own appropriations bill doesn't seem like a winning strategy, though obviously rational political calculus doesn't count for much in the White House these days.
> It's not like the administration has a whole lot of political capital to play with right now.
Sure, and if this administration showed any sign not of conserving political capital based on consistent coherent priorities rather than burning it on a whim, that'd play a bigger role in my assessment of the risk of them deciding to stand and fight on this.
Then again, if they had been doing that, they'd also probably have a lot more political capital pright now.
> Vetoing their own appropriations bill doesn't seem like a winning strategy
OTOH, threatening to over Rohrabacher-Farr might be—at least in the immediate term; it's quite possible that Congress isn't willing to shutdown the government over it but would believe the President might be.
Sure, but who's to say over the counter purchasing of marijuana isn't medical by definition?
It's a drug. It would certainly be a plausible argument that rescinding the need to have a doctor's prescription or some other formality does not change that fact.
Presumably allowing aspirin or bandages to be sold at gas stations or supermarkets doesn't stop them from being medical devices.
> Sure, but who's to say over the counter purchasing of marijuana isn't medical by definition?
In the first instance, the Department of Justice.
If people disagree, it becomes a dispute in the courts as people try to rollback the DoJ’s actions.
I’ve pointed out that this argument is available in another subthread, but you really don't want to be in the position of having to make it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16075569
Banking system is federalized though. Both currency and deposit insurance. They'll make it harder and harder for any weed dispensary or manufacturer to use banks, which is hilarious to imagine the crime around a liquor store having to use cash for every transaction.
But step back for a moment, and realize that they have probably 20 more policies just like this already in the hopper for a "rainy day", like yesterday, so they can completely control the media/narrative due to the outrage. Its literally the strategy that they state publicly. The problem of course is all the collateral damage, but at this point red state voters only care about sticking it to blue states. We're turning into a bi-cultural country to the point not seen since the civil war.
Really not a fan of the glib condescending style, and then:
> Practically speaking, it will be an impediment to personal-use prosecutions as well to the extent defendants claim they are in business to produce for medical use.
That defense is gonna last right up until the moment you find sales records to any not-strictly-medical distributor, which will be basically every one in legal recreational states. So yes, the door is completely open to federal prosecution of the vast majority of people in the business.
You can make an argument (though media typically characterizes it as “recreational”), that the states that have authorized pot withoit a physician recommendation have actually legalized it for OTC medical use like any of the wide range of drugs people are free to buy and use according to their own interpretation of their medical needs.
OTOH, if the DoJ decides to push the limits of its authority, that's an argument that will potentially have to be made after they’ve seized your assets and charged you everyone in your business—and potentially outside business partners who knew what your business is—with major felonies some of which have 20-year mandatory sentences, and maybe offered you a chance to plea down to a few years. So, even pushing the argument will be a big risk.
Look up stats for how much Obama spent on raiding states with legalized pot. The idea that Trump suddenly has a war on pot is ridiculous nonsense. The idea that the Fed's hands were tied before now is ridiculous.
Federal drug policy has long been, and will for the foreseeable future continue to be, dangerous nonsense.
This is typical media over-reaction to all things Trump. Sessions merely ended Obama's policy, which was to have the local federal prosecutors put marijuana enforcement at the bottom of the priority list, while still keeping prosecutorial discretion. Now they have full discretion. It's really not much of a change. What is needed is for Congress to change the law. There is a bill by Cory Booker to remove marijuana from Schedule 1, essentially leaving it up to the states.
I assure you, there was a significant change between Stalin's interpretation of the criminal code of the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev's. The law was more or less the same, but executive enforcement was widely different.
The law, as it is practiced, is much more important then the law, as it is written.
This is a very bad example. USSR had "civil law" system, which, unlike "common law" in the US does not depend on the interpretation. "Civil law" is direct and is not up for interpretation by judges. So, naturally, criminal code under Gorbachev has been very different from Stalin's (as well as civil code and the constitution). For example, the article 58, counter-revolutionary activity, which has been used to send millions to GULAG under Stalin, has been removed in 1960s.
> USSR had "civil law" system, which, unlike "common law" in the US does not depend on the interpretation. "Civil law" is direct and is not up for interpretation by judges.
That's not a accurate at all; language of law always requires interpretation and application to the facts, that doesn't change in a civil law system. Moreover, the different role of the judiciary isn't germane to what GP referenced, which was different approach to executive enforcement practices and priorities.
Yes, but treason was still on the books, and Gorbachev's USSR was less inclined to kidnap and beat people until they confess to plotting against the Glorious Leader, because their neighbour denounced them for hanging a portrait of Stalin ten centimeters lower then the portrait of Lenin.
Even if the law is not under discretionary interpretation[1], prosecution, analysis of evidence, verdicts of guilt or innocence, policing methods, and everything else is. Counter-revolutionary activity was hardly the only thing people were purged for - espionage and treason were other incredibly popular charges. If Stalin's officials were to be believed, half the country earned its daily bread by selling the secrets of the motherland to nebulous foreign powers.[2]
Not to say that the USSR was a shining paragon of legalism in 1987, but the letter of the law was not what made it different from 1937. The USSR had all sorts of, uh, wonderful laws, most of which were enforced with incredible discretion.
[1] Although, given the incredibly broad and poorly defined nature of Article 58, its application was 100% based on discretionary interpretation. http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/uk58-e.html#58-1a
[2] Or at least, that's how Solzhenitsyn tells it.
a) bringing a civil law system to argue a point about a common law. It's like arguing about Linux with BeOS examples.
b) saying that the law was more or less the same while it has changed rather dramatically. Saying the US law has not significantly changed between Coolidge and Reagan would be less false than this.
Mere hours later the state legislature of Vermont voted to legalize pot. Between the lack of enthusiasm for perpetuating prohibition and Sessions' general lack of political capital/support from above, it doesn't look like they care what he thinks. Chances are that any individual businesses he tries to attack will have the state attorneys-general filing amicus briefs in their favor.
Why exactly would a rightist government attack pot business? It's business and rightists are supposed to be pro-business and anti-regulation, are they not? Is this effort just actually backed by alcohol industry giants sponsored lobbyists or what?
And I would expect the Feds to target banks first, particularly the one showcased in the NYT like this:
A division of the credit union, Safe Harbor Private Banking, provides checking accounts expressly for the marijuana industry, in clear violation of federal law.
"Trump administration targets recreational pot, placing thousands of marijuana businesses in California at risk" (L.A. Times, 04-Jan-2018)[0]
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[0]http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pot-sessions-20180...