Obama Admin Says It Won't Fight Looser Marijuana Laws, With Conditions

schwit1 writes with news that the Obama administration has released a memo stating that it will not fight liberalized marijuana laws in states like Colorado and Washington, but made that promise conditional on a set of guidelines, such as requiring efforts to dissuade underage use. From the Washington Post's coverage: "Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole detailed the administration's new stance, even as he reiterated that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The memo directs federal prosecutors to focus their resources on eight specific areas of enforcement, rather than targeting individual marijuana users, which even President Obama has acknowledged is not the best use of federal manpower. Those areas include preventing distribution of marijuana to minors, preventing the sale of pot to cartels and gangs, preventing sales to other states where the drug remains illegal under state law, and stopping the growing of marijuana on public lands."

Comments

Discouraging underage use?

[cold fjord]

Maybe this is why?

Is Marijuana a Safe Drug? Teenage Brain at Risk for Drug Abuse

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.

A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.

You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

Marijuana impairs attention. That seems to be the linkage that most people cite. But I find no hard statistics on this either.

Since there is no legally recognized impairment level for Marijuana, and no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests, its hard to prove the extent to which it is present in accident situations. So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.

University of Washington cited an Australian study showing that the research is a total mess in this area. So a local TV station then went out and did their own tests.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

No, they are statistical science. They say nothing about the behavior of individuals, but make useful predictions about the statistical distribution of behaviors in the population. Just like the gas laws, Zero Kelvin.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is exactly what it does. If you think the executive has ever enforced all the laws on the book, you are a fool. The resources simply have never existed.

It's just the highest level of prosecutorial discretion.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Frobnicator]

In the United States, both selective enforcement and selective prosecution are generally legal.

You can go back over a century to Yick Wo v Hopkins (1886) to see SCOTUS rulings on that. There are probably older rulings than that, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

Impartial selective enforcement is legal to a degree. On its face police cannot enforce every law on the books. Even if they do intervene, the officer may know there is insufficient evidence for a known violation. Even if they intervene and there is likely sufficient evidence, they may believe a lesser action is appropriate, such as giving an individual a warning for a minor offense. Similarly for selective prosecution, the state is not required to blindly prosecute every offense, but to use prudence in selecting which cases to prosecute. Yes sometimes it is abused, but generally it is to the citizen's favor of dropping a case rather than abuses of prosecuting aggressively.

Prejudicial selective enforcement is not legal. Only applying the law to people of a specific skin color or economic status or age or other aspect, that is unlawful.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[PraiseBob]

Also relevant: DEA bans Armored car services from picking up Pot Shop cash

Step 1) Prevent credit cards from being used
Step 2) Prevent armored car services from being used
Step 3) Complain about the high number of robberies and crime that type of business "attracts" and use that as justification for more regulation / bans