Recently, U.S Attorney General Eric Holder said his Justice Department would leave it to states to decide their own medical marijuana policy. He also said that raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical marijuana dispensaries have ended.

 

President Barack Obama also expressed his support on this decision and said that he agreed that states should decide their own medical marijuana rules. The ban on DEA raids of legal medical marijuana dispensaries is now the government's policy as promised by President Barack Obama during his election campaign in November 2007, according to the attorney general.

 

Despite the fact that in 1996, medical marijuana was recognized by the State of California as a legal form of medicine for a variety of illnesses ranging from anxiety to cancer, chronic pain and HIV, those who were in the position to purchase or prescribe medical marijuana were the target of dozens of DEA raids, especially during the Bush administration.

It is estimated that about 300,000 Americans use medical marijuana.

 

Supporters of programs to provide legal marijuana to patients with painful medical conditions are celebrating the decision to end federal raids to medical marijuana distributors; they hope it would also offer workplace protection to medical marijuana users.

 

“What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing here in law enforcement … What he said during the campaign is now American policy,” U.S. Attorney General was quoted as saying during a press conference. Obama said during his presidential campaign he saw no difference between marijuana used as a pain-reliever and other drugs prescribed for the same purpose. “There’s no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain.”