Obama Cues up the Next Round of the Federal Government's Attack upon the States

Federal prosecutors are targeting medical marijuana dispensaries across California, warning them to shut down within 45 days or face federal criminal and civil penalties regardless of whether they are operating within state and local laws.
Prosecutors have sent letters to at least 16 dispensaries -- or their landlords -- warning them they are violating federal drug laws. There have been no reports yet of East Bay or South Bay dispensaries receiving the letters, although 12 in San Diego and a few in San Francisco and Marin counties have received them. The action marks a resurgence of the ever-present tension between federal law's blanket ban on marijuana and California's 1996 law permitting the drug's medicinal use.
The U.S. Attorneys for all four of California's federal districts have scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. Friday in Sacramento to "outline actions targeting the sale, distribution and cultivation of marijuana in California." A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco didn't return messages Thursday, but a cannabis industry lawyer said he expects they'll announce a multipronged approach to squelch California's permissive stance on marijuana by any means necessary.
"What they're getting at is basically the Obama Administration war on medical cannabis is exactly the same as the Bush Administration war on cannabis," attorney Bill Panzer of Oakland said.
Panzer said these letters go hand-in-hand with Tuesday's
news that the Internal Revenue Service wants Oakland's Harborside Health Center dispensary to pay $2.4 million in back taxes because it can't claim the same deductions as other businesses. "You've got a lot of things happening all at the same time all trying to stem the tide of medical cannabis," he said.
Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee, who bankrolled 2010's unsuccessful Proposition 19 for recreational marijuana legalization, says the federal action could be the result of cities and counties limiting medical cannabis to a few large, permitted dispensaries rather than a network of smaller, private-membership clubs that could stay under the federal radar.
Oakland has allowed only four dispensaries; Lee owns one, the Coffeeshop Blue Sky on 17th Street, but declined to say whether he or his landlord have recently received a federal prosecutor's letter.
The Drug Enforcement Administration some years ago made similar threats to some landlords renting space to medical marijuana outlets, yet rarely followed through, Lee noted. But Panzer said the new letters strike a different tone, both because they come from the U.S. Attorneys, who have authority to pursue asset forfeiture in federal court, and because they set a 45-day deadline for compliance.
"That's a little different from what we saw before," he said.