"One irony of the Syria debate is that President Obama is now appealing for support on foreign policy from a Congress that he treats with contempt on domestic issues. Witness, in merely the latest example, his decision to suspend the enforcement of a federal drug law because it doesn't fit his political agenda. In a sweeping memorandum last week, the Justice Department all but ordered U.S. attorneys nationwide not to enforce federal marijuana laws. The memo was a long-delayed response to voter referendum last November in Colorado and Washington states that legalized adult recreational use of marijuana, not merely in the usual fake "medical" context. Editorial board member Joe Rago on the Justice Departmentâs decision to ignore new state laws decriminalizing marijuana usage. There's just one problem: All states are explicitly barred from regulating the possession, use, distribution and sale of pot and narcotics under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Like it or not, Congress declared marijuana to be a dangerous drug that should be banned. California argued a decade ago that its medical marijuana law let individuals grow their own for personal use, but the Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v. Raich in 2005 that federal law had supremacy. Defenders of ObamaCare even used the Raich precedent to claim that the feds could force all Americans to buy health insurance. Now Attorney General Eric Holder says never mind all that, and Americans should mellow out about such legal nuances. Justice's four-page memo is dressed up in the language of enforcement priorities and "limited resources," but as a practical matter it means no prosecutor who cares about his careerâwhich is to say all of themâwill bring another marijuana case. Justice warns that it will intervene if it discovers that marijuana is flowing to children or being trafficked to states where it is still illegal, though under federal law it is still illegal in all states. The memo tells prosecutors to ignore even "large-scale, for-profit enterprises," which are usually targets for taxation. Prosecutorial resources aren't unlimited, and some crimes deserve more enforcement attention than others. But prosecutorial discretion is also not unlimited. A President can't simply make a blanket declaration that he won't enforce part or all of a law he doesn't like. He and the AG are effectively decriminalizing an entire class of narcotics crimes, rewriting a law passed by Congress. Imagine if a President decided to decriminalize securities fraud simply by decreeing that the government will devote no resources to prosecuting securities fraud. Even liberal Members of Congress seem to understand this, because after the November referendum Democrats introduced legislation to exempt Colorado and Washington states from federal marijuana law. Under the Constitution Congress can't pass laws that apply in some states and not others. But at least Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette and her co-sponsors were being honest about the reach of the federal drug statute. That's more than you can say about Messrs. Obama and Holder, who have been happy to cite federal supremacy against state laws they don't like. Justice sued to overturn Arizona's immigration enforcement law in 2010, and it is now suing Texas over voter IDs and even, for heaven's sake, Louisiana for letting minority children get a voucher to attend private schools. As in those cases, the Administration's motivation on marijuana is politics, not the law. The politics of pot is changing, but more rapidly in Democratic-leaning states than across the country. It may be that a majority of Americans would favor decriminalizing the individual possession of small amounts of marijuana, but then Congress ought to debate and vote on it..." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323324904579044771286022400.html