Some very interesting news this week out of Capitol Hill (and no, not the flurry of activity around several controversial bill passages). This week, Congress barred Jeff Sessions from going after those in the medical marijuana industry, as reported by Rolling Stone.
How so? Well, we lied a little. This is a direct result of the compromise budget that was passed this week in order to avoid a government shutdown, at least until September. The budget had a special measure that kept the DOJ from using any of it’s resources to going after medical marijuana growers, companies, and more.
That means those in the industry are safe from the DOJ ( at least for the next few months).
Not that there aren’t plenty of people pushing to move things along a negative direction. Several Republicans explicitly stated that Jeff Sessions needs to enforce the federal law, regardless of what states choose to do, in a fairly ironic move, but over the next couple of months we will see things slow down a bit.
Of particular interest, however, is the Heritage Foundation. Considering they have basically given Trump the playbook for several of his initiatives, it’s alarming that several months ago they published an 11-point paper specifically outlining how the Federal government can enforce marijuana laws even as states legalize it. This would seem to show that this administration will be looking to squash medical marijuana when they finally get their opportunity.
There will be plenty about this in the coming months, and we plan on following any details every step of the way.
We’ll keep you posted on further developments.