Pubdate: Sat, 15 Dec 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold
Page: 4A

FEDS WON'T ARREST FOR POT IN COLO.

Obama Says the Government Won't Go After Individual Marijuana Users 
in States That Have Legalized the Drug.

President Barack Obama, in an interview aired Friday, said the 
federal government will not arrest individual marijuana users in 
states that have legalized the drug.

Obama's comments - excerpts from a longer interview with Barbara 
Walters that aired Friday on "Good Morning America" - square with 
what federal officials said this fall, as Colorado and Washington 
voters considered ultimately successful measures to legalize use and 
limited possession of marijuana.

Obama left unanswered, though, the larger question of whether the 
Justice Department will move to block portions of the laws in both 
states that allow for marijuana to be sold in specially regulated 
stores. That question looms over the laws, as legislators in both 
states begin to craft regulatory structures for a recreational 
marijuana industry.

Walters asked Obama during the interview whether he supports 
marijuana legalization.

"I wouldn't go that far," he said. "But what I think is that, at this 
point, (in) Washington and Colorado, you've seen the voters speak on 
this issue. And, as it is, the federal government has a lot to do 
when it comes to criminal prosecutions. It does not make sense from a 
prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug 
users in a state that has already said that, under state law, that is legal."

In further comments reported on ABC News' website, Obama said the new 
laws should prompt a larger discussion in Washington, D.C., about 
marijuana's legal status.

"This is a tough problem because Congress has not yet changed the 
law," Obama said. "I head up the executive branch; we're supposed to 
be carrying out laws. And so what we're going to need to have is a 
conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still 
says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it's legal?"

Marijuana activists responded with caution to the president's comments.

In a commentary on The Huffington Post website, Ethan Nadelmann, the 
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said Obama's comments 
about not arresting individual marijuana users "is not news."

But, he said, Obama's willingness to engage marijuana as a policy 
topic is promising for supporters of changes to marijuana laws.

"What stands out here are the words about the 'need to have ... a 
conversation' and the fact that he is framing the conflict between 
federal and state law as a question to be resolved as opposed to one 
in which it is simply assumed that federal marijuana prohibition 
trumps all," Nadelmann writes.

Erik Altieri, a spokesman for the National Organization for the 
Reform of Marijuana Laws, took a wait-and-see approach.

"This is a great start and an encouraging sign that the federal 
government doesn't intend to ramp up its focus on individual users," 
Altieri wrote on the organization's website. "Though considering it 
is extremely rare for the federal government to handle possession 
cases . and that this is the same stance he took on medical cannabis 
before raiding more dispensaries than his predecessor, his 
administration's broader policy will be the one to watch."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom