Governor Tom Wolf said Thursday that Pennsylvania doesn’t need the federal government interfering with the state’s developing medical marijuana program.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote a letter last month to Congressional leaders asking them to roll back protections for state medical marijuana programs.
Since 2014, federal appropriations bills have prohibited the U.S. Department of Justice from spending money to prevent states “from implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
In the letter dated May 1, which became public Monday, Sessions linked state programs to transnational drug traffickers and negative health outcomes.
In a letter to Sessions, Wolf said Pennsylvania’s bipartisan legislation seeks to help children with seizures and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, among others.
If the justice department tries to disrupt the program, Wolf said the commonwealth will “take legal action to protect our residents and state sovereignty.”
Pennsylvania is expected to award licenses to medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation applicants at the end of June.
Photo: Rusty Blazenhoff/Flickr
