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Comment by lutorm | Hacker News Reader

it can also revoke/revise that directive as it wants

Which Sessions just did.

Does that the DEA will start busting shops that are legal under state law?

It might. That happened in legalizing states prior to the policy; Rohrabacher-Farr, as long as it keeps getting renewed, legally limits this for state-authorized medical marijuana, but the effect in states with broader legalization is unclear.

The state could just arrest the federal agents for breaking state law, and throw them in with the drug dealers and stall the fed's efforts to spring them with maximal paperwork.

Let the 'system' sort them out and see how keen they are.

Federal law preempts state law.

Only in regards to things where the federal government has authority to begin with. There are very good reasons (the Enumerated Powers clause, the 9th and 10 amendments, etc.) to question if the federal government actually has all the authority it claims for itself.

That’s true, but it’s been squarely presented and decided in Reich v Gonzales, relying on Wickard v Filburn that Congress does have this power. And through application of stare decisis / precedent it will be difficult to undo that.

No, what Sessions specifically said is it will be up to the state attorneys. In most cases their goals are aligned with the citizens who voted these laws into place.

> No, what Sessions specifically said is it will be up to the state attorneys. In most cases their goals are aligned with the citizens who voted these laws into place.

No, he said that US Attorneys should follow preexisting prosecutorial principles rather than the restraint policy which, in his words, “undermined the rule of law”. [0]

US Attorneys are federal executive-branch political appointees, not state officials whose goals are aligned with the interests of the voters of the state.

[0] http://www.thecannabist.co/2018/01/04/sessions-marijuana-enf...

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