page_title: Cole Memorandum
section_title: Issuance of the Cole Memorandum
hierarchical_section_title: Cole Memorandum / Issuance of the Cole Memorandum
caption_attribution_description: English: Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole delivers the opening remarks at the launch of the Drug Endangered Children Public Awareness Campaign on May 31, 2011.
context_page_description: The Cole Memorandum was a United States Department of Justice memorandum issued August 29, 2013, by United States Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole during the presidency of Barack Obama. The memorandum, sent to all United States Attorneys, governed federal prosecution of offenses related to marijuana. The memo stated that given its limited resources, the Justice Department would not enforce federal marijuana prohibition in states that "legalized marijuana in some form and ... implemented strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale, and possession of marijuana," except where a lack of federal enforcement would undermine federal priorities.
  The Cole Memorandum was rescinded by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018, during the presidency of Donald Trump. In response to this, the Sensible Enforcement of Cannabis Act was introduced as a way of enshrining into law the protections offered by the memo.
context_section_description: On August 29, 2013, the Department of Justice published a memorandum authored by Cole which described a new set of priorities for federal prosecutors operating in states which had legalized the medical or other use of marijuana. The "Cole memo" followed a 2009 memorandum from Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden directing U.S. Attorneys in the Western United States to "not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana". The 2013 memorandum represented a significant shift of government priorities away from strict enforcement of federal cannabis prohibition and toward a more hands-off approach in the case of "jurisdictions that have enacted laws legalizing marijuana in some form and that have also implemented strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale and possession of marijuana." Indeed, Cole's memo went so far as to state that "a robust system may affirmatively address [federal] priorities by, for example, implementing effective measures to prevent diversion of marijuana outside the regulated system and to other states, prohibiting access to marijuana by minors, and replacing an illicit marijuana trade that funds criminal enterprises with a tightly regulated market in which revenues are tracked and accounted for." Since that date, although federal prosecutions have continued in some legalizing states (notably in the Kettle Falls Five case), the overall number of federal marijuana prosecutions in such states has declined.
caption: James M. Cole
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