socialuprooting:

Medical Marijuana: Obama’s War On Pot Ramps Up In Colorado, Key Swing State

In its official party platform, the Colorado Democratic Party endorses the legalization of marijuana.

In March, 56 percent of the Denver County Republican Assembly voted to support legal and regulated pot, a question which will be on the November ballot.

And the state’s Department of Revenue has announced it is seeking reclassification of marijuana to allow doctors to prescribe it as medical treatment.

The state has embarked on an ambitious effort to regulate its thriving medical marijuana industry. When it comes to marijuana policy, Colorado’s voters, businesses, tax collectors, doctors and policy makers are moving forward. The lone holdout: President Barack Obama.

On Sunday, 25 medical marijuana centers across Colorado closed their doors in response to a Department of Justice crackdown which did not appear rooted in state or local law, as the administration had previously promised it would be.

The Obama administration, through U.S. Attorney John Walsh, ordered the centers in March to either move, shut their businesses down, or face criminal charges because, according to Walsh, they were within 1,000 feet of a school.

Although nothing in Colorado’s medical marijuana law specifies the distance between a shop and a school, the decision, like most such zoning matters, is left to local communities.

“I can see no legitimate basis in this judicial district to focus the resources of the United States government on the medical marijuana dispensaries that are otherwise compliant with Colorado law or local regulation,” Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett told Walsh in a recent letter. “The people of Boulder County do not need Washington, D.C., or the federal government dictating how far dispensaries should be from schools, or other fine points of local land use law.”