By: Roxana Amirahmadi

Americans who use or sell marijuana will no longer be prosecuted as long as they adhere to their respective state laws, said the Justice Department on Monday, October 19. Both marijuana suppliers and patients in the 14 states where medicinal marijuana is legal will not be indicted by federal courts, allowing the Justice Department to use its resources in a way that is more “efficient and rational.”

While this statement from the Justice Department does not take any significant steps towards extending decriminalization or medicinal use of marijuana to more states, it shows that the federal government wants state prosecutors in the 14 states where medicinal marijuana is legal to focus more on more pressing concerns.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. wrote in a statement. Clearly, law enforcers will still need to be wary of possible abuses of medicinal marijuana laws that facilitate drug trafficking. In fact, America is the largest source of revenue to the drug cartels in Mexico.

News of the administration’s tone shift towards medicinal marijuana has sparked debate across ideological and party lines. While libertarians and conservatives support the protection of states’ power to control their own policies towards medicinal marijuana, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas claimed that while state power over drug laws are being upheld, such a shift in tone from the federal government would weaken its enforcement of drug laws. Some federal law enforcement officials have even privately voiced their concerns about the fact that the marijuana abused illegally in the United States and the marijuana sold to patients come from the same source: Mexican cartels.

Despite the dissent of some law makers and law enforcers, polls over a span of many years have shown that many Americans support the use of medicinal marijuana for patients who really need to relieve pain from a serious illness. Graham Boyd, the director of the Drug Law Reform Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, applauded the Justice Department’s tone shift, saying to the New York Times, that it is “an enormous step in the right direction and, no doubt, a great relief to the thousands of Americans who benefit from the medical use of marijuana.” He added that many states and cities “will have a strong incentive to create regulated, safe and sensible means of getting marijuana to patients who need it.”

To many supporters of the legalization of medicinal marijuana, this tone shift is a glimmer of hope, especially after the Bush era when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided countless medicinal marijuana clinics, even those that were complying with their state laws. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is also reluctant to show its support of extending legalization of medicinal marijuana to other states. “I’m not going to get into what states should do,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said to the New York Times.

However, the Obama administration has also taken many steps towards providing federal prosecutors with standard guidelines outlining how to efficiently identify cases that may involve illegal marijuana abuse. For example, cases that involve illegal possession of a fire arm or sales to minors would require intervention by federal prosecutors.

Beyond the debate of whether or not marijuana should be legalized for medicinal use, the actual health benefits associated with marijuana use are still in question. The DEA has outlined its view on the benefits of marijuana use on its website, stating that “smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science — it is not medicine and it is not safe.”

However, many Americans support the use of marijuana for medicinal reasons, claiming that it can significantly reduce chronic pain, nausea, and other symptoms associated with serious illnesses, including cancer. With California being the first state to allow distribution of marijuana through doctors’ prescriptions in 1996, 13 other states allow medicinal marijuana use: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.