It's HIGH TIME Pot is Legalized! Well Sort Of...

Uncle Sam Smoking a Joint

Well it's official. The Fed is not going to enforce the law. Pot smokers don't have to worry anymore because if their state passes a law legalizing pot then it's   a-l-l   g-o-o-d   m-a-n...

I don't smoke pot so I don't really have a dog in this fight. Do I think that pot legalization is the end of the world? No. Would I rather be trapped in a jail cell with 10 dudes that are high, or 10 dudes that are drunk? I'd rather not be in jail! People are going to do what they are going to do. Some people might be deterred by the law, but most aren't. After all like Maurice said, "...I don't wanna hurt no-one."

I just have issue with the way that this going down. The Justice Department has unilaterally decided that it doesn't want to enforce the law. Obama took an oath to uphold The Constitution, the Justice Department is part of The Executive Branch --Eric Holder is part of Obama's Cabinet. So, where does it go from here? Oh, that's right! The Justice Department is also not enforcing federal immigration laws either. See this memo (quoted below).

One of ICE's central responsibilities is to enforce the nation's civil immigration laws in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). ICE, however, has limited resources to remove those illegally in the United States. ICE must prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency's enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system. These priorities are outlined in the ICE Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities memorandum of March 2,2011, which this memorandum is intended to support.

Because the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address, the agency must regularly exercise "prosecutorial discretion" if it is to prioritize its efforts. In basic terms, prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide to what degree to enforce the law against a particular individual. ICE, like any other law enforcement agency, has prosecutorial discretion and may exercise it in the ordinary course of enforcement. When ICE favorably exercises prosecutorial discretion, it essentially decides not to assert the full scope of the enforcement authority available to the agency in a given case.

The strangest thing is the disclaimer???

Disclaimer

As there is no right to the favorable exercise of discretion by the agency, nothing in this memorandum should be construed to prohibit the apprehension, detention, or removal of any alien unlawfully in the United States or to limit the legal authority of ICE or any of its personnel to enforce federal immigration law. Similarly, this memorandum, which may be modified, superseded, or rescinded at any time without notice, is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter.

That's right, because if you don't follow written law you are going to be in big trouble --after we just told you it's OK to not follow the law.

So it's not a directive to not follow the law. It's a memo telling you that if you choose not to follow the law there will be no consequences. Oh, and it's a good idea to not follow it, you just don't have to not follow it...

This is a very troubling precedent. Right now discretion might be applied in a "mostly" logical manner, but what happens when it's not? What happens when the laws that directly protect citizens are also ignored? Discretion is an extremely vague term and differs depending on who is exercising it.

So if you get pulled over in a state where pot is legal, just ask the police officer if you wants a toke, he might use discretion and let you go.