American Civil Liberties Union

On Wednesday, the Obama Justice Department issued a new memo to all U.S. Attorneys clarifying the DOJ's position on federal prosecutions of state-sanctioned medical marijuana use. It's not good news.

According to Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, the new Obama DOJ policy states that only medical marijuana patients and caregivers should be left alone by federal prosecutors. But those who cultivate or distribute marijuana are fair game. Cole writes:

June 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator. Throughout the month, we’ve run daily posts about the drug war, its victims and what needs to be done to restore fairness and create effective policy.

Today, we got some encouraging news: the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to retroactively apply the new Fair Sentencing Act guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was enacted. This decision will help ensure that over 12,000 people — 85 percent of whom are African-Americans — will have the opportunity to have their sentences for crack cocaine offenses reviewed by a federal judge and possibly reduced.