WASHINGTON AND LOS ANGELES — U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that the Justice Department has no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries that are operating legally under state laws in California and a dozen other states -- a development that medical marijuana advocates and civil libertarians hailed as a sweeping change in federal drug policy.
In recent months, Obama administration officials have indicated that they planned to take a hands-off approach to such clinics, but Holder's comments -- made at a wide-ranging briefing with reporters -- offered the most detailed explanation to date of the changing priorities toward the controversial prosecutions.
The Bush administration targeted medical marijuana distributors even in states that had passed laws allowing use of the drug for medical purposes by cancer patients, those dealing with chronic pain or other serious ailments. Holder said the priority of the new administration is to go after egregious offenders operating in violation of both federal and state law, such as those being used as fronts for drug dealers.
"Those are the organizations, the people, that we will target," the attorney general said.
Medical marijuana activists and civil libertarians embraced Holder's latest statement as the most forceful affirmation of what long had been anticipated: a landmark turnaround from the Bush administration's policy of zero tolerance for cannabis use by patients.
"Whatever questions were left, today's comments clearly represent a change in policy out of Washington. He's sending a clear message to the DEA," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Cultivating, using and selling medical marijuana are allowed in some instances under California law. But such actions are outlawed entirely under federal law, which supersedes those of the states. A dozen other states have laws similar to California's, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, an organization that supports the legalization of the drug.
In the 13 years since California voters made the state one of the first to legalize medical marijuana, federal officials have won all the major legal battles, including one at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 in which their right to prosecute marijuana sellers was upheld. But supporters of medical marijuana have fought back on the political front, and Holder's announcement is their biggest victory so far.
