How To End The Drug War

Now that Colorado and Washington have legalized recreational use of marijuana, the big question is, will the Federal government continue prosecutions against sellers of marijuana in those states -- or for that matter, in any state?

Federal prosecutions against California medical marijuana distributors have continued under a regime where the prosecutors have convinced the Federal judges not to allow the defendants to mention before the jury that their activities are legal under California law as passed by a referendum of the people.  State officials have not taken the next step.

How about this, Colorado and Washington:  assuming there are any prosecutions, assign state employees to stand outside the Federal courthouses where a prosecution takes place and hand out flyers containing information that (1) under state law passed by a referendum, marijuana is legal, and (2) jurors can vote to acquit in any case for any or no reason and there is nothing the prosecutor can do about it (sometimes known as "jury nullification").

In 2011 when activist Julien Heicklen tried handing out flyers like that in front of the Federal courthouse in New York, he was arrested by the Feds and prosecuted for "jury tampering."  Federal judge Kimba Wood threw out the indictment.  However, despite the obvious issue of suppression of free speech, she ducked the First Amendment issue, instead saying that the Federal jury tampering statute did not apply where no specific case was at issue.

Anyway, are the Feds really going to arrest the Governors of Colorado or Washington for exercising their First Amendment rights and informing the people accurately about the law?