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"A Critical Appraisal of the Department of Justice?s New Approach to Medical Marijuana"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this new paper by Rob Mikos now available via SSRN.  Here is the abstract: The Obama Administration has embarked upon a much-heralded shift in federal policy toward medical marijuana. Eschewing the hard-ball tactics favored by earlier Administrations, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in October 2009 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would stop enforcing the federal marijuana ban against persons who comply with state medical marijuana laws. Given the significance of the medical marijuana issue in both criminal law and federalism circles, this Article sets out to provide the first in-depth analysis of the changes wrought by the DOJ?s new Non Enforcement Policy (NEP). In a nutshell, it suggests that early enthusiasm for the NEP is misguided; on close inspection, the NEP represents at most a very modest change in federal policy...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 28, 2011 (boomark / email).