Arkansas officials are not pausing their rollout of the state's voter-approved medical-marijuana program after the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it will again allow federal agents to crack down on the drug in states that have legalized its use.
Medical marijuana is not yet available to patients in Arkansas, but the state's Medical Marijuana Commission is reviewing hundreds of applications to license businesses to grow and sell the drug.
A spokesman for the Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees the commission, said Thursday that the agency has not received any directive or guidance from the federal government.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he would rescind a federal policy issued during President Barack Obama's tenure that protected states that had legalized marijuana use from intervention by federal agents.
Marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Sessions' single-page memo gave U.S. attorneys the go-ahead to enforce the federal law.
"We don't know what this will or won't mean for Arkansas until an official announcement takes place and formal guidance is received," said finance department spokesman Scott Hardin in an email. "Until then, we will continue to work to implement Arkansas' medical marijuana program as we monitor the situation."
The lack of clear guidance left state politicians in Little Rock and Washington, D.C., to react with uncertainty when asked how the new policy will affect Arkansas' medical-marijuana industry.
The U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of Arkansas referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice. In the Eastern District, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens said the office will exercise "prosecutorial discretion," although he declined to say whether that meant prosecutors would go after marijuana businesses operating legally under Arkansas law.
A spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Boozman said the state's senior Republican senator was awaiting guidance from the Justice Department. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., called the effect "rather nebulous" and declined to comment.
Other members of Arkansas' congressional delegation did not respond to requests for comment.
Speaking to reporters in his office at the state Capitol, Gov. Asa Hutchinson -- a former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration -- said Sessions should take guidance from President Donald Trump. Hutchinson opposed the 2016 ballot measure -- now Amendment 98 -- on legalizing medical marijuana in Arkansas.
Hutchinson said the president thinks medical marijuana is "an appropriate exception to federal enforcement policy," although the governor said he has not discussed the topic with Trump or other officials during recent trips to Washington.
"There needs to be a difference of view between medical marijuana and recreational use of marijuana," Hutchinson said.
David Couch, a Little Rock attorney who led the campaign for what became Amendment 98, said medicinal use of marijuana is still protected through an amendment to the federal budget that prevents the Justice Department from using funds to stop states from legalizing medical marijuana.
But Joel DiPippa, the senior counsel for the finance department, said that's an "incomplete" view.
The Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, DiPippa said, is part of ongoing negotiations in Washington for a long-term spending plan. The federal government's current spending plan, including the amendment, expires Jan. 19.
When signing an earlier spending plan last year that also included the amendment, Trump inserted a statement saying he would "treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
DiPippa said that statement has left open a legal question about whether Trump gave himself the authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act at his discretion.
A statement released Thursday by the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Association called on Arkansas' congressional delegation to vote to reauthorize the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment.
The conservative Family Council, in a competing statement, praised Sessions' move and called on the state's U.S. attorneys to use the new directive to prosecute medical-marijuana businesses established under the state's new constitutional amendment. Family Council President Jerry Cox said the amendment is lax enough to allow recreational marijuana "masquerading" as a medical drug.
Under the most recent timeline agreed to by the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission, the state will start issuing licenses to marijuana cultivators in late February. It will be later in the year before dispensaries will be licensed to sell marijuana.
Including Arkansas, 29 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. Eight states have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
Sessions' move comes on the heels of marijuana shops legally opening for the first time in California, the largest state to legalize recreational use of marijuana.
A Section on 01/05/2018