WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE.....WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK OF THIS? Emailed to me at 5pm last night. I see everything US tanking today and the canadian pot stocks making a run! But we will see.
UPDATE 1-White House may boost recreational marijuana enforcement
-spokesman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Adds industry response, context)WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The
administration of President Donald Trump may ramp up enforcement of
federal laws against recreational marijuana use, a White House spokesman
said on Thursday, setting up potential conflicts in states where the drug
is legal.More than two dozen U.S. states have legalized marijuana for
either medical or recreational purposes, and the administration of former
President Barack Obama mostly looked the other way. But White House
spokesman Sean Spicer said the Trump Administration may distinguish
between medical and recreational use of the drug.Spicer's comments came
on the same day that a nationwide poll from Quinnipiac University in
Hamden, Connecticut, showed 71 percent of registered voters favored
allowing states to decide whether marijuana should be legal."I do believe
you'll see greater enforcement of it," Spicer said at a news conference.
"Because again there's a big difference between the medical use ...
that's very different than the recreational use, which is something the
Department of Justice will be further looking into."Spicer's comments
drew criticism from the country's nascent legalized marijuana industry as
it was recovering from a scare after Trump's nomination of former Alabama
Senator Jeff Sessions, a long time anti-drug campaigner, as attorney
general."It would be a mistake for the Department of Justice to overthrow
the will of the voters and state governments," Aaron Smith, executive
director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said in a
statement.Seventy-five percent of cannabis stocks in an index followed by
Arcview Market Research dropped on Thursday after Spicer's remarks,
analyst Michael Arrington said in an email.A spokesman for Sessions, who
was confirmed as attorney general earlier in February, declined to
comment on marijuana enforcement on Thursday.But during his confirmation
hearings, Sessions said his job was not to enforce only some
laws.Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but it has been
legalized for recreational use in eight states, including Washington,
Colorado and California, as well as the District of Columbia. Last year,
legal sales reached $7 billion and generated half a billion dollars in
sales taxes.Among registered voters in the Quinnipiac University survey,
just 23 percent said the U.S. government should enforce federal laws
against marijuana in states that have legalized it for recreational or
medical use, and 71 percent said it should not.The poll of 1323
registered voters, released on Thursday with a margin of error of plus or
minus 2.7 percent, also showed support for marijuana legalization among
59 percent of respondents, with 36 percent opposed. (Reporting by
Roberta Rampton in Washington, D.C. and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento,
Calif.; Writing by Sharon Bernstein and Eric Walsh; Editing by Chris
Reese and Richard
Chang)