Pa. medical marijuana growers and patients open to prosecution under new federal policy

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed an Obama-era policy that kept federal prosecutors from going after states that legalized marijuana. The move has raised questions about what this means for states, including Pennsylvania, that have established medical cannabis programs.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Pennsylvania since 2016, but to the federal government it’s been effectively illegal since 1937.

States pushed back against federal law throughout the years, and in 1996 California passed a proposition allowing medical marijuana use in some cases. That ruling put the state at odds with federal law, though the federal government largely was inactive on the issue.

In 2013 President Barack Obama signed a policy that formalized that inaction, stating that federal prosecutors wouldn’t target marijuana producers in states that had legalized it.

In a memo Thursday, Sessions ended that practice.

The memo announces “a return to the rule of law and the rescission of previous guidance documents,” according to a Justice Department news release. It adds, “Since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, Congress has generally prohibited the cultivation, distribution, and possession of marijuana.”

“In the memorandum, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directs all U.S. Attorneys to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to follow well-established principles when pursuing prosecutions related to marijuana activities. This return to the rule of law is also a return of trust and local control to federal prosecutors who know where and how to deploy Justice Department resources most effectively to reduce violent crime, stem the tide of the drug crisis, and dismantle criminal gangs.”

The Attorney General’s memo drew swift criticism from states that have embraced the prior administration’s policy and reaped financial rewards from marijuana tourism. Republican U.S. Senator of Colorado Cory Gardner blasted Sessions on Twitter, pointing out that the ruling goes against President Donald Trump’s prior position that he wouldn’t interfere with states’ policies.

While recreational marijuana use appears to be threatened in those states, the policy change also raises the question of whether federal prosecutors will target Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program. The memo comes on the same day that the state issued its first dispensary license, and comes as the first crops of medical cannabis are being grown.

State Auditor General Eugene Depasquale says while it may be unlikely that FBI agents start throwing cancer patients in jail for marijuana possession, the policy change does allow the FBI to do just that.

“Certainly, U.S. attorneys and the FBI could start raiding facilities,” he says. “What he signed off today makes that possible.”

Governor Tom Wolf’s spokesman J.J. Abbott says it’s uncertain whether this signals a plan to prosecute the medical marijuana industry, or if it’s aimed at recreational marijuana businesses in places like Colorado and California.

Abbott says the governor is working to prevent the federal government from stopping the state’s fledgling program.

Republican State Senator Mike Folmer said in a news release that Sessions’ comparison of marijuana to heroin is factually incorrect. The senator, who has led the state’s efforts to craft medical marijuana legislation, pointed to a Journal of American Medical Association study that shows evidence opioid overdoses were lower in areas where patients had access to cannabis as an alternative pain treatment to opiates.

“Children with seizures, Veterans with PTSD, cancer patients – these are not the people I think of when hearing ‘serious priorities related to criminal activity.’  Attorney General Sessions has a very skewed view and I pray that he nor any of his family will ever need to utilize this God-given plant as medication,” said Folmer.  “These are the people we need to be helping the most, not prosecuting and causing them further harm.  This decision is just both disheartening and difficult, if not impossible to understand.”

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