Justice Department Prosecution of Marijuana Unchanged, Memo Says
June 30, 2011, 8:31 PM EDTMORE FROM BUSINESSWEEK

By Joel Rosenblatt
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Department of Justice remains committed to prosecuting large-scale cultivation, sale and distribution of marijuana, even in states that have enacted legislation permitting the use of the drug for medical uses, according to a Justice memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

The June 29 memo, from Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole to U.S. attorneys, says a 2009 memo issued by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden -- referred to as the “Ogden Memo” -- remains in effect.

The Ogden letter advised prosecutors that enforcement efforts against people using marijuana to treat cancer or other serious illnesses in accordance with state laws may not be “an efficient use of federal resources,” according to Cole’s memo. The Ogden memo was “never intended to shield” larger scale cultivation, Cole wrote.

“Within the past 12 months, several jurisdictions have considered or enacted legislation to authorize multiple large- scale, privately operated industrial marijuana cultivation centers,” according to the June 29 memo. “Some of these planned facilities have revenue projections of millions of dollars based on the planned cultivation of tens of thousands of cannabis plants.”

State laws or local ordinances are “not a defense” to civil or criminal prosecution of such cultivation, according to the memo.

--Editors: Michael Hytha, Peter Blumberg

To contact the reporter on this story: Joel Rosenblatt in San Francisco at jrosenblatt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

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