Americans for Safe Access, a pro-marijuana legalization group, today announced it has filed suit against the Obama administration for its new crackdown earlier this month on California dispensaries.

It's a strange effort in that marijuana is a Schedule I outlaw drug in the United States and feds have free reign to crack down regardless of California's medical legalization.

However, ASA argues it has a leg to stand on. ASA chief counsel Joe Elford:

Although the Obama Administration is entitled to enforce federal marijuana laws, the Tenth Amendment forbids it from using coercive tactics to commandeer the law-making functions of the State. This case is aimed at restoring California's sovereign and constitutional right to establish its own public health laws based on this country's federalist principles.

The ASA claims that the crackdown by four U.S. Attorneys in California, announced earlier this month and aimed at letting all Golden State pot shops know that they're illegal under American law, seeks to get local cities and counties to outlaw the retailers or face federal action in their jurisdictions.

The ASA:

… The same U.S. Attorneys have been sending threatening letters to several municipalities across the state in an attempt to undermine the passage of local medical marijuana regulations.

One the eve of a presidential election year, the U.S. Department of Justice has gone out of its way to say that President Obama himself had nothing to do with the crackdowns, which so far have spared pot shops in the city of L.A., the nation's dispensary capital.

Read more about ASA's suit here.

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