Mathieu: Earlier this year President Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that policy and announced that local federal prosecutors could basically decide for themselves whether they wanted to pursue federal marijuana offenses even in states where marijuana is legal. That created a lot of questions, a lot of confusion at the time as Jeff Sessions famously said good people do not smoke marijuana, but I wonder what your thought is about the local federal prosecutor? There have been many questions about his intentions as well. Do you have a sense of where his head is?

Medwed: Well, absolutely. The local federal prosecutor for the District of Massachusetts is a guy named Andrew Lelling who was appointed by President Trump. Initially Lelling responded to the Session’s announcement by not ruling out the possibility of going after marijuana businesses in Massachusetts and that caused a great deal of consternation.

Since then it appears as though Lelling indirectly has walked back a little bit, retreated a bit by suggesting that he wants to divert his resources to more serious crimes including the opioid epidemic. But nevertheless there will always be a cloud, a federal cloud looming over state marijuana activity unless and until Congress abolishes all these laws criminalizing federal marijuana.

Mathieu: And until then he would have the right to break up these businesses?

Medwed: Absolutely, he could choose to pursue it.