SAN FRANCISCO - Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) joined elected officials, patients, advocates and business owners in a press conference this morning prior to President Obama's fundraiser in San Francisco to discuss the ramifications of his administration's new attack on the medical marijuana community and to call for federal policy reform.

"With national polls showing support for marijuana at an all-time high, it defies common sense that the Department of Justice would return to the failed policies of the past. Instead of supporting state efforts to effectively regulate medical marijuana in accordance with California state law, the Obama administration seems committed to re-criminalizing it. Has no one at the Department of Justice watched Ken Burns' recent documentary on Prohibition? It was a failed policy then and it's a failed policy now. This destructive attack on medical marijuana patients is a waste of limited law enforcement resources and will cost the state millions in tax revenue and harm countless lives. President Obama needs to reverse this bad policy decision and respect California's right to provide medicine to its residents," said Ammiano.

"President Obama needs to immediately reign in the Justice Department for defying his administration's stated policy to respect state medical marijuana laws. Using federal resources to undermine California law and target lawful businesses is not only horrible public policy, it's also bad politics," said Aaron Smith, executive director for the National Cannabis Industry Association -- a group representing the legitimate medical marijuana industry in Washington, DC. "It's simply baffling that the administration would seek to eliminate an industry that not only enjoys the support of the American public but has created thousands of jobs and significant tax revenues for state and local governments -- and in an election season, no less."

"With the federal budget on empty, the economy in disarray, our prisons overflowing, and prohibition-related violence raging across the border, it's an outrageous misuse of federal resources to wage war on medical marijuana," said Dale Gieringer of California NORML. "Federal anti-drug bureaucrats are afraid because the dispensaries are proving that it's possible for marijuana to become a safe, legal, tax-paying industry and so expose their own last-century policies as bankrupt and obsolete."

Contact: Quintin Mecke, Office: 415-557-3013; Cell: 415.505.2417