War on Weed: Obama’s Department of Injustice

GUEST POST:

The Obama administration has been working very hard lately enforcing the letter of the federal law.  No, they aren’t considering prosecuting even a single person for the financial frauds which nearly collapsed the markets. Nope, not protecting our border either. Obama and his scandal-plagued Dept. of Justice, DEA, ATF & IRS are staging a crushing blow to legal and safe access to cannabis for America’s ill.

Four U.S. Attorneys from California–along with their respective counterparts  in Washington D.C. from the DEA and IRS declared that a statewide crackdown against large-scale medical cannabis cultivators and sellers with national implications is currently underway.

• Earlier this week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a long-awaited $2.5 million ruling against a major medical cannabis dispensary in California. Citing an obscure part of the US tax code meant to target drug cartels, the federal agency is barring dispensaries, even those licensed under state law, from taking any business-related tax deductions and is seeking millions in dollars in back taxes.
This adverse ruling has the very real potential to stop the regulated sale of cannabis
currently underway in California, Colorado, Maine and New Mexico; and planned in
Arizona, Montana, Delaware, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) issued a heavy-handed one-page memo to every gun and ammunition dealer nationwide informing them that they must, by law, deny sales to physician-recommended cardholding patients who use medical cannabis– effectively denying their Second Amendment rights to own a firearm for personal safety, hunting, or simply to avoid a tyrannous federal government.
• Federal regulators cracked down on banks in Colorado, California and Michigan that had
previously conducted business with medical cannabis dispensaries, barring these financial institutions from accepting cash deposits or processing credit/debit cards from state or locally approved canna-businesses.
• U.S. Attorneys in California sent warnings to local dispensaries in San Francisco, San Diego,and elsewhere warning that locally compliant facilities are still subject to federal
prosecution for violating federal ‘drug free school zones’ legislation — leaving these facilities with no choice but to either move or close.
• Federal attorneys in California have sent hundreds of legal warnings to the landlords of properties that rent to medical cannabis businesses (retail, delivery, cultivation and testing) warning that their properties and assets are subject to swift civil forfeiture proceedings, and that they personally could face decades in prison. In addition, the DOJ is assaulting our first amendment rights, also targeting all radio, TV, print and other media outlets that currently advertise  medical marijuana businesses.
• Rhode Island’s governor Lincoln Chafee pulled the plug on the state’s nascent medical
cannabis dispensary program, despite it having been previously approved 102 – 3 by the state legislature. Why? Governor Chafee cites recent memos from the Department of Justice threatening to federally prosecute employees involved in the state-licensed production or distribution of cannabis.
• Michigan courts, the legislature and the state’s Attorney General are steadily dissembling the state’s medical cannabis program, despite the law having passed with 63 percent public approval.

So why the about-face?  It could be simply a distraction from  Eric Holder & the ATF’s Fast & Furious scandal.  Perhaps to blame is fear that the cannabis industry is gaining strength & funds to fight this.  Is the Obama administration flexing its muscle or attempting to appeal to the tough-on-drugs Republicans?

Or, maybe…..the Obama administration is simply assisting GW Pharma & Novartis with eliminating the competition in preparation for the release of Sativex.  Essentially, under the guise of FDA safety, patients will be forced to buy an expensive pharmaceutical that they could grow themselves for pennies.   From GW’s website:

Q.

Does approval of Sativex by a national medicines regulatory authority mean that herbal cannabis will also be legal in that country?

No. Regulatory approvals from medicines regulatory authorities are specific to Sativex® – there is no change in the law relating to cannabis. Any changes in regulations to permit Sativex to be prescribed would apply only to such an approved product and would have no direct consequence for the legal status of herbal cannabis for recreational and medical use. This is true for all countries around the world, including the United States.

If the FDA approves Sativex, and it appears they will; how will they justify allowing Big Pharma the right to pursue the profitable medical marijuana market, while threatening thousands of patients using state-licensed cannabis with federal intervention, asset forfeiture and prison terms? And how will they ever explain all of the lies?