Another incremental bit of federal crackdown on pot dispensaries in Colorado
This is a weird one. The Feds should be seeking to get rid of medical marijuana shops, under existing drug laws. Instead, they're targeting ones they deem to be too close to schools.
Which sounds like a zoning issue — and Colorado state law takes that into account. But selling pot within a certain distance of schools triggers additional federal penalties, so I guess there's some vague rationale for it.
Whether our federal tax dollars are best spent pursuing this kind of activity is another matter.
This whole mess is another example of cross-purposes in federalism vs. states rights. I suspect that most conservatives — the ones always talking about how we have too much central government and the states should be able to set their own policies in a variety of ways — are whole-heartedly behind the hardly-beloved Feds cracking down on dispensaries, even when legal in a state (and even when that legality is a direct result of popular referendum). Whereas most liberals (cough), who usually push for a uniform federal policy to trump states are the ones crying out for states rights here. #ddtb
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Colorado medical-pot dispensaries to get letters from feds saying they're too close to schools – The Denver Post
Federal prosecutors in Colorado made their strongest move to date against the states medical-marijuana industry Thursday, sending letters to 23 dispensaries ordering them to close.