California Rep. Barbara Lee won’t be spooked by the Justice Department’s aggressive curtailing of medical marijuana dispensaries in her own backyard.
Lee, a top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, introduced the States’ Medical Marijuana Property Rights Protection Act in Congress this week, which she says would curb the Obama Administration’s efforts to intimidate state medical marijuana dispensaries from setting up shop.
“The people of California have made it legal for patients to have safe access to medicinal marijuana and as a result thousands of small business owners have invested millions of dollars in building their companies, creating jobs, and paying their taxes,” Lee says. “We should be protecting and implementing the will of voters, not undermining our democracy by prosecuting small business owners who pay taxes and comply with the laws of their states in providing medicine to patients in need.”
The bill will make it illegal for the federal government to seize the assets of medical marijuana business owners, a tactic DOJ has begun using to crack down on pot shops. While DOJ rarely takes legal action against businesses that comply with their local and state laws, Americans for Safe Access, a group that is committed to legalizing medical marijuana says the threat alone has been enough to scare roughly 400 medical marijuana dispensaries in the state of California to close their doors.
– Read the entire article at US News.
