MSNBC: DEA to halt medical marijuana raids
Saturday, February 28th, 2009US Attorney General, Erik Holder, confirms states to have final say on use of drug for pain control.
“What the president said during the campaign … will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement,” he said. “What (Obama) said during the campaign … is now American policy.”
“My attitude is if the science and the doctors suggest that the best palliative care and the way to relieve pain and suffering is medical marijuana, then that’s something I’m open to,” Obama said in November 2007 at a campaign stop in Audubon, Iowa. “There’s no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain.”
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro hinted at the policy shift shortly after the California raids, telling The Washington Times that the dispensaries were legal in California and that the Obama administration’s stance was that “federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws.”