Federal Medical Marijuana Protections Temporarily Extended, Again
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)
WASHINGTON, DC After a brief governmentshutdown, congressional leadership voted to enact a six-week continuing resolution that maintains present federal spending levels and priorities through March 23, 2018.
The resolutionextends medical cannabis patient protectionsimposed by the Rohrabacher-Blumenaueramendmentuntil that date.
The amendment, which has been in place since 2014, maintains that federal funds cannot be used to prevent states from implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.
Without these protections, medical cannabis cultivators and dispensaries exist with a greater threat than normal of federal enforcement of national prohibition, yet the certainty that these protections will be honored have been in doubt throughout the entire Trump administration.
When President Trump signed the first Continuing Resolution in 2017, heissueda signing statement regarding the amendment, essentially stating that his administration believes they can ignore these protections if they do not view them to be Constitutional:
Under this mentality, Attorney GeneralJeff Sessionscould movein to shut down medical marijuana facilities at any point. Should Sessions crackdown, we are confident that we would win a court challenge, given previousrulingson this very question. However, it would be a reactive exercise after an enforcement action, and during that process, the patients who relied on a supply chain to get them their medication would not have a lawful means to do so.
So now, the government reopens under another CR, the protections are back in place, and we are right back where we were; in an uneasy dtente. The threat of Sessions on one side and medical patients in a state-lawful system ...
