Jacob Sullum asks Eric Holder to face reality:
Attorney General Eric Holder is promising that the federal government will "vigorously enforce" marijuana prohibition in California if Proposition 19 passes. "...
Good luck with that. In 2008, according to the FBI's numbers, there were about 848,000 marijuana arrests in the United States. The feds accounted (PDF) for less than 1 percent of them. The DEA has about 5,500 special agents nationwide, compared to nearly 70,000 local police officers in California. It certainly can make trouble, but it simply does not have the resources to bust a significant percentage of the state's marijuana offenders now, let alone after every adult is allowed to grow his own pot. If the DEA could not block access to medical marijuana under Bush or Obama, what chance will it have after the drug is legal for recreational purposes as well?