http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/10/now_obama_wants_to_kill_alt-we.phpIn their unrelenting quest to kill legal medical marijuana dead, President Barack Obama and the United States Department of Justice appear content to incur collateral damage.
Last week, property owners who rent to dispensaries were informed that the federal government could seize their properties within 45 days; this week, one of the four United States attorneys who declared open season on anything connected to state-legal cannabis
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/feds-target-newspapers-radio-marijuana-ads-13049">told California Watch that the fourth estate is next. Specifically, the administration says any publication -- from print to web to broadcasting -- that accepts advertisements from medical marijuana businesses could face prosecution.
In other words, Barack Obama will screw California alt-weeklies, some of which rely on medical marijuana ads for 25 to 30 percent of advertising revenue, sources say. But in this move, legal and media experts contacted by SF Weekly say that the government has a First Amendment issue on its hands.
... Yet this may be a prosecution too far, says Liz Enochs, president of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. "Regardless of how you feel about medical marijuana, this is about economics -- and, by extension, the First Amendment," she said. "An attack on the business model of news organizations could be seen as a de facto attack on the press."