Oregon U.S. Attorney: ‘I Don’t Care About Medical Marijuana’
By Steve Elliott of Toke of the Town
Oregon’s new federal prosecutor said that while she’s “concerned” about the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, she’s not going to prioritize going after medicinal cannabis providers.
“People say, ‘You’re the U.S. Attorney; are you going to go after medical marijuana?’ No, I’m not,” Amanda Marshall told Nigel Duara of The Associated Press. “I don’t care about medical marijuana.”
Marshall’s office estimates the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon as at least 100, most of which are in the Portland metro area. Her predecessor in 2010 joined his counterparts in other medical marijuana states in sending warning letters which threatened medical marijuana providers and their landlords with civil asset forfeiture if they continued to operate.
Marshall told the AP that Oregon’s medical marijuana law itself isn’t so much the problem as is the “lack of oversight” of medicinal cannabis grows and distribution.
Her backing away from the Obama Administration’s crackdown on medical marijuana may have been at least partially inspired by the political fate of former interim Oregon U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton, who had criticized the state’s medicinal cannabis program as a “train wreck.”
Holton’s ill-considered words mobilized marijuana advocates to lobby against him in his race for Oregon Attorney General, and while it’s impossible to know for sure how much of an impact the cannabis issue made on the race, Holton lost badly in last week’s Democratic primary (37 percent to 63 percent) to retired judge Ellen Rosenblum. At least a quarter of Rosenblum’s fundraising came from the marijuana community, AP reports.
Rosenblum will serve as the state’s next Attorney General, since the Republican Party isn’t fielding an opponent to Rosenblum on November’s general election ballot.
Article From Toke of the Town and republished with special permission.
