“When federal prosecutors in California announced a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries last fall, pot suppliers and their advocates claimed in a series of lawsuits that the Obama administration broke a promise to leave them alone if they complied with state law…
[A] federal judge in Sacramento has become the first to dismiss one of them, saying the Justice Department remains free to enforce federal drug laws…The suits were filed in November by marijuana suppliers and patients in each of the state’s four federal judicial districts. They relied on the Justice Department’s October 2009 memo to federal prosecutors [known as the Ogden memo] that said they should concentrate on drug trafficking networks, and ‘should not focus federal resources’ on individuals who followed their state’s medical marijuana law…
But US District Judge Garland Burrell of Sacramento said Tuesday the Justice Department memo was a statement of priorities, not a binding commitment, and did not exempt dispensaries from the federal laws against marijuana cultivation and distribution.”
“[T]he Ogden Memo does not contain a promise not to enforce the CSA [Controlled Substances Act], Defendants’ [Justice Department] enforcement of the CSA is not inconsistent with the enforcement policy stated in the Ogden Memo.”