ACKRELL CAPITAL Cannabis Investment Report | December 2017 Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, first passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2014, prohibits the DOJ from using federal funds to prevent a state from “implementing” state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana. Following the amendment’s initial 2014 enactment, the DOJ indicated that it did not plan to arrest state regulators for “implementing” a state’s medical marijuana laws but would continue to prosecute individuals involved in state-law compliant medical marijuana activity because, in the DOJ’s view, the amendment did not apply to prosecutions against individuals. The DOJ’s interpretation of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was rejected by a Ninth Circuit District Court in its 2015 ruling in United States v. Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and again by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its 2016 ruling in United States v. McIntosh. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment prohibits DOJ from spending funds subject to the amendment on the prosecution of individuals who fully comply with state medical marijuana laws. The court noted a state’s “implementation” of medical marijuana laws necessarily involves “giving practical effect” to those laws, and that DOJ prosecution of individuals complying with those laws prevents the state from giving the laws practical effect. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment generally applies only to DOJ funds made available pursu- ant to the federal budget legislation in which the amendment is included, and therefore must be renewed periodically with budget legislation to remain effective. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was recently renewed in December 2017 as part of an emergency aid package that remains effective until mid-January 2018. (With the retirement of Representative Samuel Farr from the U.S. Congress in 2016, the Rohrabacher