The United States Department of Justice has recently launched a reinvigorated campaign against medical marijuana dispensaries in the state of California, according to an article in Tuesday’s Huffington Post.
In a reversal of President Barack Obama’s earlier policy to leave the shops be as long as they abided by state law, the Justice Department is now promising to shut down shops that currently have a license to sell and distribute marijuana and are regulated by the state and local governments.
As if that weren’t enough, the IRS has also decided that marijuana clinics cannot deduct salaries, rent, the cost of the product or other expenses of operation, and because of this, the tax bill these stores face each April tends to almost always exceed their profits.
The main issue with this whole debacle is that there is an inconsistency when it comes to federal and state policy. The state of California okayed the institution of these shops in 1996 and now the federal government is trying to implement conflicting policies to shut them down. Federal and state laws need to be more cohesive when it comes to marijuana, or contradictions like these will continue to pose an ominous problem for those invested in the business.
Moreover, it goes without saying that the federal government has much bigger fish to fry right now than closing down small-time pot shops in California. Calling in the Department of Justice to shut down operations is nothing more than a waste of resources that should be funneled into any one of the myriad of social problems facing our society today.
Granted, some of these shops are simply fronts for larger drug cartels, and those deserve to be shut down, because they pose a real threat to society. But not all marijuana dispensaries are part of a large drug trafficking operation.
It seems that the federal government is neglecting to think about the customer before they condemn these dispensaries, and that they are making the assumption that these users are recreational and exploit the industry of medicinal marijuana. What about those cancer patients who need that prescription and dispensary? Not all customers at marijuana dispensaries are miscreants or pot enthusiasts, although admittedly those do exist.
Another aspect of this issue to consider is the economic side. What will the condemnation of medicinal marijuana shops do to California’s already dismal economy? Any business that is thriving and generating revenue in California should be lauded for staying afloat, not shut down by the interference of the federal government.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
