From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: State Marijuana Laws Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Jennifer Grover, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Related GAO Work: GAO-16-1: State Marijuana Legalization: DOJ Should Document Its Approach to Monitoring the Effects of Legalization Released: February 2016 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's February 2016. An increasing number of states have adopted laws that legalize marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. Yet federal penalties remain. To help balance state and federal law, the Department of Justice has issued guidance on federal marijuana enforcement priorities, and has stated that it will challenge state laws that threaten them. A team led by Jenny Grover, a director in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team, recently reviewed DOJ's approach to marijuana enforcement. Jacques Arsenault sat down with Jenny to talk about what they found. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] First, since I'm sure I'm not the only one with this question, and it's been a while since I took high school civics, how can marijuana be both legal in some states and illegal at the federal level? [ Jenny Grover: ] It is confusing. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 is what made it a federal crime to distribute or possess marijuana, and for some time all of the states had laws that mirrored that federal law, but that started to change, and now 24 states and D.C. have passed laws that legalize marijuana for medical purposes, and 4 states, plus D.C., have legalized marijuana for recreational use. The federal law hasn't changed, but the state laws have. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So I can see how that creates a confusing environment, not just for people looking at it, but also for those that are enforcing the laws. Can you tell me about the approach that the Department of Justice has taken? [ Jenny Grover: ] Right, so as you've noted, DOJ is the federal entity that's responsible for enforcing that federal Controlled Substances Act. And the enforcement memo that describes how they are going to go about that, it really emphasizes two main points. First is that there's 8 enforcement priorities that are of primary concern to DOJ, and some examples of those are preventing marijuana distribution to minors, preventing marijuana revenues from going to criminal enterprises, and preventing marijuana diversion from states where it's legal to other states. The second piece that DOJ emphasizes in its enforcement guidance is that they expect these states to implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement mechanisms so that the states themselves have systems in place to address and protect those 8 federal priority areas. And DOJ advises that the federal government reserves the right to step in and to challenge those state regulatory systems if they determine that the federal priorities are being threatened. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now among other things, your team looked at what the Department of Justice does to track whether or how a state marijuana activity is impacting those priorities. What did you find? [ Jenny Grover: ] Basically, two things. First, the department enforces the Controlled Substances Act through law enforcement activity that targets specific marijuana cases that threaten any of the 8 federal priority areas. And the U.S. attorneys are the ones who take the lead on this, as the senior federal law enforcement officials in the states. The second thing that DOJ does to track whether the state laws have affected those federal priorities is they told us they monitor the effects with a whole range of information and data, including federal surveys on drug use, input from federal, state, and local law enforcement, data from DOJ's Drug Enforcement Administration, and information they get from other federal agencies, such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of NIH. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So how is DOJ doing at tracking that information? [ Jenny Grover: ] It's hard to tell, because DOJ has not documented its plan for monitoring the effects of the state marijuana legalization. First of all, just the basics of exactly how they would use the specific information and there were questions that came up during the course of our review about whether all of the data that they're planning to use is actually reliable for the purposes that they're planning to use it. But more generally, DOJ hasn't documented the monitoring process or how they would use the broad array of data to determine whether the effects, in any given state, warrant federal action. And this type of documentation is very important because it would provide DOJ with greater assurances that the intended monitoring is actually occurring, that they're using the most appropriate data, and ultimately would help the department to make sure that they're well-positioned to identify states that are not protecting the federal enforcement priorities. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So is it fair to say that they have these priorities, and they have a plan, but the plan doesn't go all the way through to making sure they're collecting the right kinds of data or what they're going to do with that data? [ Jenny Grover: ] Well they have a verbal plan, but the plan is not written down, and that's really important to make sure that everybody across the department understands the plan, is implementing it appropriately, and carrying it out as it's intended. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] You talked to some of the U.S. attorneys and DEA officials in some of the states where marijuana is legal and got their perspectives on enforcing federal marijuana laws. What did they tell you? [ Jenny Grover: ] Their point is that they're continuing enforcement activities consistent with their long-standing approach, which is they have limited resources and so they target the most significant threats in their jurisdictions, generally those related to public health and safety threats, such as targeting big, commercial marijuana operations. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom line of this report? [ Jenny Grover: ] Well this is a really important issue, because the DOJ's federal enforcement priorities, they reflect issues of national interest, such as health and safety, and giving the -- given the growing number of states that are moving toward legalizing marijuana, it's important for DOJ to have a clear plan for how it will be monitoring the effects of these state changes on the federal priorities. We've recommended that DOJ document its monitoring plan, and we'll track the department's progress. 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