The Federal Response to State Marijuana Legalization: Room for Compromise
![handle is hein.journals/orglr91 and id is 1055 raw text is: ALEX KREIT*
The Federal Response to State
Marijuana Legalization: Room for
Compromise?
Introduction ............................ ......1 029
I. The Fear of Another Big Tobacco and Insights from the
Netherlands. ......................... ..... 1031
II. Permitting Retail Sales While Prohibiting Commercial
Manufacture..............................1 034
Conclusion ........................... ....... 040
INTRODUCTION
E ver since Californians voted to legalize medical marijuana in
1996, state and federal drug laws have been on something of a
collision course. In the years since, the United States Supreme Court
has decided two medical marijuana cases affirming federal authority
to enforce prohibition laws against patients and providers acting in
compliance with state laws.' And, with the exception of a brief
interval at the beginning of President Barack Obama's first term in
office,2 federal officials have exercised this - power with great
* Associate Professor and Director, Center for Law and Social Justice, Thomas
Jefferson School of Law.
I See Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 9 (2005) (holding that the federal government
could criminalize the noncommercial intrastate possession and manufacture of marijuana
as an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity); United States v. Oakland
Cannabis Buyers' Coop., 532 U.S. 483, 494-95 (2001) (holding that medical necessity
was not a viable defense to prosecution for the manufacture and distribution of marijuana
under the federal Controlled Substances Act).
2 See Memorandum from David W. Ogden, Deputy Attorney Gen., U.S. Dep't of
Justice, on Investigations and Prosecutions in States Authorizing the Med. Use of
Marijuana (Oct. 19, 2009), available at http://blogs.justice.gov/main/archives/192
[1029]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/orglr91&div=38&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Federal Response to State Marijuana Legalization: Room for Compromise
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