Holder in Senate Testimony Today: 'Still Considering' Response to Marijuana Legalization
Senate Judiciary CommitteeAttorney General Eric Holder is
still
not quite ready, four months after voters in Colorado and
Washington approved marijuana legalization initiatives, to say how
the Justice Department might respond to that historic development.
Testifying this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Holder was given an opportunity to say, for example, whether the
Justice Department will try to prevent those states from allowing
sales of marijuana for recreational use by arguing in court that
their laws are pre-empted by the Controlled Substances Act, whether
it will arrest and prosecute people who operate state-licensed
marijuana stores or growing operations, whether it will target
people who grow marijuana at home for their own use and to share
with friends (as permitted by Colorado's law), or whether it will
use the threat of civil forfeiture to shut down cannabis businesses
that comply with state law. When the committee's chairman, Sen.
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), asked him about marijuana legalization in
Colorado and Washington, Holder said the Obama administration is
"still considering" how to respond. Last week he
promised a policy "relatively soon," the same phrase he used in
December. Around the same time, Leahy
said he plans to hold a hearing on the issue this year.