Remember the end to prosecutions of state-sanctioned medical marijuana use that the White House announced back in October? Turns out the DEA is still raiding facilities. Even worse, Obama has nominated Bush appointee, Michele Leonhart, as head of the DEA. More broken promises it seems...
Here's the original story back from October:
The Obama administration delivered new guidance on medical marijuana to federal prosecutors Monday, signaling a broad policy shift that will mean fewer crackdowns against dispensaries and the people who use them.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. instructed government lawyers that in 14 states where medical marijuana use is legal, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher level drug traffickers or people who use the state laws as a cover story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Here's what happened Friday:
Last Friday, the DEA raided a medical marijuana producer in Colorado. The story needs some fleshing out, but at the moment it appears that Chris Bartkowicz wasn't violating any state law. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado. His offense appears to have been boasting about how much money he makes growing the drug for patients.
Here's what happened last friday:
DEA agents converged on the house Friday afternoon and, before leaving several hours later, removed dozens of marijuana plants in black plastic trash bags as well as numerous high-powered growing lights.
On Thursday night, 9News promoted a story about Bartkowicz's operation, and on Friday morning, Bartkowicz was featured in a 9News story posted to its website and published in The Denver Post. The story was to air on television Friday night. He told the station he serves as a caregiver to a number of medical-marijuana patients and hoped to turn a profit this year in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
http://www.denverpost.com/...
http://reason.com/...
And here's more on Obama's nominee to the DEA, Michele Leonhart:
Over all these years of drug raids on medical dispensaries and patients in the LA area, this Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division was calling the shots, as commander of the DEA offices and enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area, Nevada, and several other states.
Leonhart was appointed and promoted by George W. Bush, and under him she oversaw the Bush administration’s tactic of raiding the homes of desperately ill individual medical marijuana patients in California, Change.org reminds us.
"Ms. Leonhart also has a record of adamantly fighting against allowing scientific research of the potential medicinal value of marijuana. Ignoring the ruling of a federal judge, Ms. Leonhart single-handedly blocked applications from respected university researchers studying medical marijuana."
http://www.salem-news.com/...
Yet another case where Obama flat out continues Bush's policies, while making empty promises to the left.