Feds: We won't stop states legalizing pot

Photo: United States Fish and Wildlife Service

Despite 75 years of federal marijuana prohibition, the Justice Department said yesterday that states can let people use the drug, license people to grow it and even allow adults to stroll into stores and buy it - as long as the weed is kept away from kids, the black market and federal property.

In a sweeping new policy statement prompted by pot legalization votes in Washington and Colorado last fall, the department gave the green light to states to adopt tight regulatory schemes to oversee the medical and recreational marijuana industries burgeoning across the country.

The action, welcomed by supporters of legalization, could set the stage for more states to legalize marijuana. Alaska could vote on the question next year, and a few other states plan similar votes in 2016.

The policy change embraces what Justice Department officials called a "trust-but-verify" approach between the federal government and states that enact recreational drug use. Keep reading

Commercial hemp was at one time a major cash crop in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is refined into products like hemp seed foods, hemp oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper, and fuel. However, the federal marijuana laws led to a ban on its cultivation in the state. This change in federal policy may lead to a lifting of this ban, which would be good news for Kentucky farmers.