From the article:
Moen, 36, quit his post in Portland late last year and is now working for Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm specializing in acquiring businesses in the burgeoning marijuana industry. The attorney who once spent long days dismantling drug rings throughout the Pacific Northwest will now help the company with state and federal compliance issues.
Public opinion of the drug has seemingly changed dramatically as well. In October, for the first time, a Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans now favor legalizing the drug after reaching 50 percent in 2011. Seizures of marijuana by the DEA, meanwhile, dipped to 354,023 kilograms in 2012, the lowest amount since 2006, according to its website.
Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, however, although 20 states and Washington, D.C., allow for medicinal usage. Recreational use has also been legalized in Colorado and Washington state, where 7,000 applications for producing, processing and selling the Schedule I drug are currently being considered. And efforts in at least five other states, including California and Florida, are ongoing to marijuana measures on the ballot this year.
Do you think that the DEA and Congress needs to just “throw in the towel” on this one ? If the states get by with bucking the Feds on this issue.. what is next.. after all our Republic was founded on the premise that each state was the right to establish its own laws..
Filed under: General Problems
I believe we’re in the wait and see mode as for rescheduling marijuana under the Controlled Substance Act or putting it under the control of the ATF(M).
I read the book “Last Call” by Daniel Okrent, and in it he describes how many localities and even the entire state of Maryland refused to enforce prohibition. In the final days of the prohibition era many of the illegal sellers found ways to enter the forth coming legal market. Lots of Kennedy family lore is based on prohibition windfalls.I predict, when the alcohol and tobacco companies find away to tap into this potential profit stream the proverbial towel will be thrown in and they will stop opposing marijuana legalization as it will enhance rather than detract from their profits.