SAN FRANCISCO -- Three years on, not a single Wall Street banker has been prosecuted after a financial crisis rooted in rampant fraud brought the global economy to its knees. President Obama's Department of Justice has more dangerous miscreants to worry about: medical marijuana shop owners.
The DoJ has launched an assault on medical pot dispensaries, vowing to shut down establishments licensed and regulated by state and local governments, in a reversal of an earlier policy, based on an Obama campaign promise to leave the shops alone as long as they followed state law.
And while major corporations have managed to get their federal tax bills down to zero, the IRS has determined that pot clinics can't deduct salaries, rent, the cost of bud or other operating expenses on their tax returns. If a business can't deduct those expenses, its tax bill almost always winds up exceeding even its profits.
Despite a previous DoJ memo that targeting medical marijuana is an inefficient use of time and resources, this past Friday morning, four California-based U.S. Attorneys and their staffs gathered in front of Sacramento's capitol building to announce an aggressive new crackdown on medical marijuana operations throughout the state -- this one aimed at the landlords who manage buildings in which dispensaries operate.
Detailing an industry that has "swelled to include numerous drug-trafficking enterprises," the federal officials warned they would be taking action against dozens of dispensaries they accused of abusing California's medical marijuana laws.
"The California marijuana industry is not about providing medicine to the sick," said U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy. "It's a pervasive for-profit industry that violates federal law."
Meanwhile, medical marijuana in California is experiencing a renaissance. While the U.S. attorneys held their press conference, the West Coast Cannabis Expo had just opened its doors in San Francisco, drawing pot enthusiasts from across the state for the ultimate celebration of all things weed.
