December 7, 2012 2:37PM # Obama Mulling Response to State Marijuana Initiatives By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE From today’s *[New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/us/marijuana-initiatives-in-2-states-set-federal-officials-scrambling.html?ref=charliesavage&_r=0)*: > Senior White House and Justice Department officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations. > > > Even as marijuana legalization supporters are celebrating their victories in the two states, the Obama administration has been holding high-level meetings since the election to debate the response of federal law enforcement agencies to the decriminalization efforts. Next week Cato will host a policy forum to explore the legal doctrine of federal supremacy, state prerogatives under the Tenth Amendment, and other issues related to drug policy reform. Asa Hutchinson, former head of the DEA and Vanderbilt University law professor Robert Mikos will be making presentations. Event details are [here](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9220). Richard Branson has some thoughts [here](http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs/index.html). And check out the new film, “[Breaking the Taboo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UtNF-Le2L0).” ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).