Q: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
With marijuana sold openly at retail stores throughout California, some advocates, pot growers and even city officials believed authorized commercial cultivation could be next. But the Obama administration dashed that notion this week, making clear it will not allow such operations.In a letter sent Wednesday to federal prosecutors, Deputy Atty. Gen. James M. Cole noted that some cities and states have considered plans for "multiple large-scale, privately-operated industrial marijuana cultivation centers" and wrote that the administration's hands-off policy on medical marijuana patients was "never intended to shield such activities from federal enforcement action and prosecution, even where those activities purport to comply with state law."Across the country, proposals to bring marijuana cultivation into the open have drawn warnings from federal prosecutors. But it was Oakland's vision of four enormous enterprises with astounding revenue projections that started the federal pushback against the thriving and increasingly bold marijuana industry."Unfortunately, this is a step backward," said Joe Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access. "We kind of regard this as kind of the equivalent of 'don't ask, don't tell.' Obama made certain campaign promises, and he's not carrying through on them."Elford said the letter could embolden prosecutors in California to take on dispensaries — and lead prosecutors elsewhere to take steps to derail medical marijuana distribution systems set up by the states. "I would be hearing, 'If you get too big, we may well put a target on your back,' " he said.In California, some collectives have made an effort to raise their own marijuana or develop a network of patient-growers. But many buy from operations hidden in warehouses, industrial buildings, hollowed-out rental homes, secluded farms and forest lands.Until earlier this year, Oakland had pursued an ambitious cultivation plan, drawing worldwide attention. City officials imagined Oakland as the capital of the fast-emerging industry. One entrepreneur, Jeff Wilcox, hoped to convert 172,000 square feet of aging and largely empty brick buildings into a marijuana industrial park with growing and manufacturing businesses. He commissioned a report that concluded his proposal could cultivate marijuana worth $59 million a year and send as much as $3.4 million in annual taxes to the city.But in February, Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for the state's Northern District, warned Oakland officials that she would consider prosecuting anyone authorized by the city to set up an industrial pot farm, as well as anyone who assisted them, including property owners and financiers.Wilcox put his plans on hold but believes the city needs to push forward. "Oakland is so broke, and Oakland is going to be more broke next year and the year after," he said.After Haag's threat, the city hired a law firm to rework its proposal. Under the far more restrained plan, which was unveiled Friday, only nonprofit collectives could apply for growing permits and each cultivation site would be limited to 25,000 square feet.Arturo Sanchez, the assistant to the city administrator, said the proposal does not conflict with the Justice Department 's position. "I think they're saying, 'We didn't envision large-scale grows for profit,' " he said. "At no point have we said this is a profiteering endeavor."Berkeley was planning much smaller operations, in the range of 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. It has frozen those plans, but Mayor Tom Bates said the city intends to pursue them. "We see a lot of advantages," he said, but stressed that Berkeley would not proceed without approval from local, state and federal prosecutors. "We're going to go with our eyes wide open."Bates said that having the city's collectives grow in industrial areas would be much safer — allowing Berkeley officials to do more to prevent crimes and fires caused by faulty wiring, as well as inspect the crop to ensure that it was free of pesticides and other potentially harmful substances.But he was not sanguine about the prospects. "I'm under the view that the Department of Justice will never sanction this," he said. "I think that they're going to be the stumbling block."Isleton, a Sacramento River town with 840 residents, last month shelved plans to allow a 30,000-square-foot pot farm that was projected to pump as much as $600,000 a year into its treasury. The plan was attacked by the Sacramento County district attorney, the county grand jury and the U.S. attorney for the area. The grand jury foreman said the growing operation was "perched on the blurry edge of marijuana law."As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said the federal government should not raid medical marijuana users and caregivers. Three months after he was inaugurated, his attorney general announced that as the administration's official policy, which later was spelled out in an October 2009 letter to prosecutors.The policy, in part, set off the explosion of dispensaries and pot-growing operations in California. The Justice Department's letter this week halts what some saw as the next phase: commercial cultivation.In his letter, Cole indicated that he was reiterating the department's stance. But it contained a subtle shift. In the 2009 letter, the department advised prosecutors not to focus on "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws" — pointing to people with cancer or other serious illnesses and their caregivers as examples. The new letter cites patients and caregivers not as an example, but as the only exception, and it defines caregiver as an individual and "not commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana."Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said the document was intended to restate department policy after more than half a dozen letters were sent by U.S. attorneys in response to medical marijuana developments in their states. "It's not really a new policy," he said.Miller declined to say whether any large-scale cultivation operation, such as one run by a nonprofit patient collective, could pass muster with the federal government.Under guidelines issued by Jerry Brown when he was attorney general, most dispensaries in California are organized as nonprofit collectives. The state's new attorney general, Kamala Harris , declined to comment on the Justice Department letter. Her office is currently working to revise the nearly 3-year-old guidelines.Jane Usher, a special assistant city attorney in Los Angeles, said court cases have repeatedly shown that the city's dispensaries operate outside those guidelines. "Strangers, unidentified strangers, are bringing in large satchels and suitcases and bags of dried marijuana," she said.The state requires collectives to grow their own marijuana, but Usher said she was awaiting clarification on whether state law requires them to grow on site. She declined to speculate on whether a collective could set up a major growing operation that would be legal under state law. "I don't want to go there," she said. "It's so at odds with the facts on the ground that I don't want to endorse a hypothetical." ||||| The U.S. Justice Department says that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. 
  
 In a policy memo to federal prosecutors obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said a 2009 memo by then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden did not give states cover from prosecution. 
  
 Starting in February, 10 U.S. attorney's offices have asserted they have the authority to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws. Prosecutors, the states complained, are not even willing to declare that state employees who implement such laws are immune from prosecution. 
  
 State officials say that following a two-year period in which federal prosecutors gave breathing room to state medical marijuana laws, the Justice Department is now toughening up its position as more states move toward opening facilities to dispense marijuana. 
  
 Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana, with programs in various phases of development. The states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. 
  
 In 2009, the Justice Department told prosecutors they should not focus investigative resources on patients and caregivers complying with state medical marijuana laws. 
  
 The new memo says that view has not changed. 
  
 "There has, however, been an increase in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana for purported medical purposes," says the new memo by Cole. 
  
 The deputy attorney general said within the past 12 months, several jurisdictions have considered or enacted legislation to authorize multiple large-scale, privately operated industrial marijuana cultivation centers. 
  
 "Some of these planned facilities have revenue projections of millions of dollars based on the planned cultivation of tens of thousands of cannabis plants," Cole wrote. 
  
 Cole said that the Ogden memorandum "was never intended to shield such activities from federal enforcement action and prosecution, even where those activities purport to comply with state law." 
  
 Cole added: "Persons who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law." 
  
 On Thursday night, Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said that the medical marijuana statement by Cole does not represent a new policy, but rather clarifies the policy, as reflected in the recent letters by U.S. attorney's offices to officials in a number of states. 
  
 In view of the letters sent by the prosecutors in recent months, Arizona officials have taken the U.S. government to court, seeking a ruling on whether strict compliance with the state's medical marijuana law protects Arizona residents and state employees from federal prosecution. 
  
 Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee suspended plans to license three dispensaries after U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha warned that opening such facilities could lead to prosecution. 
  
 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has said he wanted assurances from federal officials that they won't pursue criminal charges against state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs before he agrees to implement a state law that allows the programs. New Jersey adopted a law to allow medical marijuana in January 2010, just before Christie took office. 
  
 Chris Goldstein, a spokesman for the Coalition for Medical Marijuana of New Jersey, said what the latest Justice Department memo means to New Jersey depends on how Christie interprets it and whether he uses it as a reason to halt the program. 
  
 "It doesn't change the situation much other than that the governor continues to leave patients hanging out on a limb," Goldstein said. 
  
 A spokesman for Christie declined to comment on the letter. A spokesman for the New Jersey attorney general also said they were reviewing the letter. 
  
 The letters from federal prosecutors started coming five months ago, in all but one instance in response to requests for guidance from state or local officials. 
  
 The first came from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who advised the Oakland, Calif., city attorney that "we will enforce" federal marijuana law "vigorously against individuals and organizations that participate in unlawful manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law." 
  
 Haag's letter addressed an unusual situation: the fact that a year ago, Oakland became the first city in the country to authorize the licensing of marijuana cultivation operations. 
  
 But the issue quickly spread beyond Oakland. 
  
 In a five-week span starting in mid-April, officials in Hawaii, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Rhode Island, Arizona, Vermont and Maine received letters with wording similar to that in the Oakland letter, all but Rhode Island in response to requests for clarification from the states. 
  
 In Rhode Island, Neronha, the U.S. attorney, wrote to the governor that the anticipated operations "of the three centers appear to permit large-scale marijuana cultivation and distribution." 
  
 "Such conduct," Neronha wrote, "is contrary to federal law and thus, undermines the federal government's efforts to regulate the possession, manufacturing and trafficking of controlled substances. Accordingly, the Department of Justice could consider civil and criminal legal remedies against those individuals and entities who set up marijuana growing facilities and dispensaries." 
  
 On June 20, Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Jared Polis, D-Colo., asked Holder to clarify the Obama administration's policy on medical marijuana. 
  
 A week ago, Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced a bill to remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances and cede to the states enforcement of laws governing pot. 
  
 ___ 
  
 DeFalco reported from Trenton, N.J. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvilhill in Trenton contributed to this report. |||||
A:
The Justice Department has a message for states, cities, and private operators looking to cash in on medical marijuana by setting up large-scale commercial farms: Let's not get carried away. A new memo sent this week to federal prosecutors makes clear that these kinds of operations will not be tolerated, reports the Los Angeles Times. And it raises anew the single biggest complication for medical marijuana: It remains illegal under federal law even if a state has sanctioned it. In 2009, the Justice Department said it would not go after patients and caregivers complying with state law. "There has, however, been an increase in the scope of commercial cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana for purported medical purposes," says the new memo written by Deputy Attorney Gen. James M. Cole, notes AP. A number of cities, Oakland especially, have been planning huge enterprises with equally large revenue projections. The new memo "is a step backward," says the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access. "We kind of regard this as kind of the equivalent of Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The message to states setting up distributions systems, he says, is "if you get too big, we may well put a target on your back."