California’s Effort To Become A Sanctuary State For Marijuana
The war against legalization of marijuana isn’t quite over yet. U.S Attorney General Jeff Sessions has issued a federal directive which would allow federal prosecutors to still arrest growers and sellers even though it has been legal in the state since the beginning of 2018. California has answered with the revival of a proposal, Assembly Bill 1578 that would make it a sanctuary state free from any federal intervention.
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer called Sessions actions an “outdated federal war on drugs.” And said the last time California supported the federal government there was a higher incarceration of minorities than ever before. The Assembly Bill 1578 aims to prevent state and local agencies from cooperating with federal prosecutors without a court order. This would help significantly as we’ve seen in the past with the legality of medical marijuana, it still suffered from unfair federal prosecution by the DEA.
State officials are still seeking other ways to counteract Sessions directive. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra for example is aggressively trying to get more information from the Department of Justice and U.S. attorney in California on how they plan to implement Sessions directive. And has also not ruled out a lawsuit. “We’re ready to protect the state’s laws when it comes to marijuana,” he said, while insisting that they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure California laws are obeyed.
Although marijuana is federally illegal and Sessions plans to make that known in California, the best advice at the moment for growers and sellers is to learn and follow California marijuana laws to the fullest extent.
