June 22, 2011 08:21 PM UTC

Polis Pushes Feds to Leave Medical Marijuana Alone

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• by: Colorado Pols

From The Hill:

Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) are urging the Obama administration this week to reiterate earlier vows to leave the enforcement of medical marijuana laws up to states.

The lawmakers want Attorney General Eric Holder to re-avow his commitment to a 2009 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum – known as the Ogden Memo – that said the agency won’t target medical marijuana patients or providers if they are not violating state law.

“Recent actions by United States Attorneys across the country have prompted states to deny patients safe and reliable access to their medicine,” the lawmakers wrote in a June 20 letter to Holder.

The letter was prompted by the lawmakers’ concerns that several correspondences this year from DOJ to state and local attorneys indicate the agency is walking back the Ogden Memo in the face of conservative criticism that the administration has been too lenient in the war on drugs.

One of the biggest drivers of the growth of the above-board medical marijuana industry in Colorado, a business that now supplies millions of dollars in sales tax and licensing revenue to the state and local governments here, was the memo from the Department of Justice in 2009 that indicated Barack Obama’s administration would not prosecute marijuana producers and consumers who are compliant with state law. More recently, DOJ has told local officials in California that they may indeed enforce marijuana prohibition in medical marijuana states.

Obviously, a legitimate business depends on continued legitimacy–a lot of local stakeholders, from medical marijuana patients and dispensary owners to state and local governments enjoying this substantial new revenue stream, have an interest in getting the matter settled.