Rob Kampia, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project, sent the following email on July 3, 2012:
I’ve had many conversations in the last few days with key allies and friends who aren’t quite sure what the federal government is doing with regard to medical marijuana.
When I speak to them, there are usually two things that surprise them …
The first surprise is that the federal government’s threats and raids are focused primarily in California. But more broadly, the federal raids are happening in states that have no state licensing procedures for medical marijuana dispensaries (which means California, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, and Washington state).
The second surprise is that there have been zero federal raids against state-licensed businesses in the three states that have state licensing — Colorado, Maine, and New Mexico.
Even in Colorado — where a few dozen businesses received letters from federal prosecutors recently — the letters didn’t mandate that the businesses must shut down. Rather, the federal letters said that the businesses must move more than 1,000 feet away from a school.
