{"id":7975,"date":"2018-01-07T13:31:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T13:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=7765"},"modified":"2018-01-07T13:31:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T13:31:17","slug":"california-defiant-in-face-of-federal-move-to-get-tough-on-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/california-defiant-in-face-of-federal-move-to-get-tough-on-marijuana\/","title":{"rendered":"California Defiant In Face Of Federal Move To Get Tough On Marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/california-defiant-in-face-of-federal-move-to-get-tough-on-marijuana\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>The sale of recreational cannabis became legal in California on New Year\u2019s Day. Just four days later, the Trump administration acted in effect to undermine that state law by allowing federal prosecutors to be more aggressive in prosecuting marijuana cases.<\/p>\n<p>A memo by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday was widely interpreted in the nation\u2019s most populous state as the latest example of Trump vs. California, a multifront battle of issues ranging from immigration to taxes to the environment.<\/p>\n<p>And on marijuana, once again California reacted with defiance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no question California will ultimately prevail,\u201d Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, said. \u201cThe public has accepted legalization\u2019s inevitability. It will be very difficult for Sessions to bring us back to a mind-set that existed five years or a decade ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The head of California\u2019s Bureau of Cannabis Control, Lori Ajax, said legalization would proceed as planned, \u201cconsistent with the will of California\u2019s voters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although medical marijuana is legal in some form in 29 states and recreational marijuana is sold in six states, it remains banned by the federal government and is classified in the same category as heroin.<\/p>\n<p>It is too early to tell how federal prosecutors around the country will interpret the Sessions memo, which rescinded guidance by the Obama administration that had discouraged the bringing of charges involving marijuana-related crimes in states that have legalized the drug.<\/p>\n<p>The memo reminded prosecutors that \u201cmarijuana activity is a serious crime.\u201d Mr. Sessions said in a statement that \u201cstricter enforcement by prosecutors will help tackle the growing drug crisis, and thwart violent crime across our country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Leading voices in California\u2019s marijuana industry said Thursday that while the announcement by Mr. Sessions might have punctured some of the excitement surrounding legalization, it did not change their plans to take part in what is the world\u2019s largest legal market for recreational pot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has changed zero on the ground for us,\u201d said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of Harborside, a company with dispensaries in Oakland and San Jose.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think this is going to result in any serious attempt to shut down the legal cannabis industry,\u201d Mr. DeAngelo said. \u201cIt\u2019s more of a delaying tactic than a knife to the throat of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Californians approved Proposition 64, which allowed for recreational use of the drug, by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin in a November 2016 ballot initiative.<\/p>\n<p>Carla Lowe, the Northern California director for the advocacy group Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana, said she hoped the Sessions memo would focus attention on a drug that was being produced at much higher levels of potency than in previous decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m concerned what this is doing to developing brains in young people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would hope this would get the attention of some of the people who are law-abiding citizens,\u201d Ms. Lowe said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s much hope in California.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers who specialize in cannabis said they were skeptical that federal prosecutors would be more aggressive in California for several reasons, including a perceived reluctance of jurors in the state to convict marijuana cases, especially small-scale ones, that do not involve other crimes. Lawyers also point out that the Trump administration has not yet appointed its own federal prosecutors in California.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, lawyers said the Justice Department is constrained by the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which has been attached to congressional budget bills in recent years, and prohibits the Justice Department from spending money on the implementation of state medical cannabis laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe message to the industry is that nothing has really changed,\u201d said Sean McAllister, a lawyer who specializes in cannabis cases in California and Colorado. \u201cThe industry has flourished in an environment of uncertainty for the past 20 years. Sessions\u2019s memo does not create any additional uncertainty that did not already exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the uncertainty is nonetheless substantial. The Sessions announcement may give further pause to large companies that have been reluctant to invest in the marijuana business because of fear of retaliation by federal authorities. And small-scale veterans of the industry \u2014 the cottage marijuana businesses in the famed Emerald Triangle of Northern California, among others \u2014 face potential threats of forfeiture, as they always have. If prosecutors were to crack down, sellers and anyone caught in possession of the drug could go to jail.<\/p>\n<p>Yet as a practical matter, officials from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration have said that combating opioid trafficking is much more important than cracking down on marijuana given the agency\u2019s stretched resources.<\/p>\n<p>Russ Baer, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in an interview last year that most of the agency\u2019s resources were being spent on combating opioids. \u201cWe are spread thin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Local law enforcement is also stretched. Thomas D. Allman, the sheriff of Mendocino County, one of the three counties in the Emerald Triangle, said Thursday that investigating marijuana cultivation was not a high priority, unless it was \u201cout of control\u201d or involved other crimes, such as the environmental damage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf somebody is obeying state law, I\u2019m going to say there are not many local law enforcement agencies who are going to be rushing out to do an investigation,\u201d Sheriff Allman said. \u201cThere are many other crimes we can focus on that impact the safety of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hezekiah Allen, the executive director of the California Growers Association, a cannabis industry group, says while marijuana growers are concerned about the more aggressive federal posture, longtime growers have seen it before.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFolks that have been at this for a few generations remember that this is a cycle,\u201d Mr. Allen said. \u201cFederal enforcement ebbs and flows and it has for decades. This is another enforcement cycle but this time we have a state government that is working with us. And frankly enforcement wasn\u2019t all that effective in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, among customers at the Berkeley Patients Group, a dispensary that sells recreational marijuana, there was defiance and eye-rolling among those asked about the Sessions memo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo me, they\u2019ve always wanted to destroy everything Obama did. It\u2019s all in that vein,\u201d said Barry Alexander, 61, a supervisor at a Whole Foods supermarket. Mr. Alexander was skeptical that the Trump administration could do much to change legalization in California. \u201cWe\u2019re like Texas, we\u2019re our own country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ian Carr, 23, a construction worker who bought cannabis at another dispensary in Berkeley, the Cannabis Buyers Club, shrugged off the prospect of a federal crackdown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been using marijuana since before it was legal,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I\u2019d just go back to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sale of recreational cannabis became legal in California on New Year\u2019s Day. Just four days later, the Trump administration&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/news\/international-cannabis-news\/california-defiant-face-federal-move-get-tough-marijuana\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7462,1616,9,1,3],"tags":[7476,4184],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}