Old administration line: We won’t raid medical-marijuana facilities where they’re legal. New administration line: Heck, yes, we’ll raid them, but we aren’t going to talk about it. Mike Riggs at the Daily Caller tells the tale:
According to Americans for Safe Access spokesman Kris Hermes, this is one of the more notable differences at Obama’s DOJ, where Bush-appointee Michele Leonhart is now Obama’s choice to run the Drug Enforcement Agency. “There was a time under the Bush administration that [the DEA and U.S. Attorneys] were quite proud of their attempts to undermine state marijuana laws,” Hermes told The Daily Caller.
“Either these are rogue DEA agents and U.S. Attorneys operating in violation of Holder’s memo, or the DEA and the DOJ want to be able to go about continuing a policy of undermining state marijuana laws without drawing attention.”
Hermes suggested that the withholding of information may be a political tactic. While Pres. Barack Obama hasn’t said much about drug policy since assuming office, during his campaign, he said multiple times that he would end raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Hermes and other marijuana activists think that the president is hiding a broken promise.
The administration, Riggs reports, also is trying to have more cases sealed under court order to prevent publicity.
A little federalism, anybody?