We're talking about different things. I did give the wrong year, it was a 2013 memo from the DOJ: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-update-marijuana-enforcement-policy
Based on assurances that those states will impose an appropriately strict regulatory system, the Department has informed the governors of both states that it is deferring its right to challenge their legalization laws at this time. But if any of the stated harms do materialize—either despite a strict regulatory scheme or because of the lack of one—federal prosecutors will act aggressively to bring individual prosecutions focused on federal enforcement priorities and the Department may challenge the regulatory scheme themselves in these states.
Ergo, it is the DOJ's ongoing policy to leave legalized states alone, as long as they are regulating the industry. I suppose the Trump administration could override it as they have done on other things, but we'd likely hear something about it first. And, for what it's worth, Trump was pro MJ early in the elections and then backed off some and switch to supporting research. Nobody knows what that guy is going to push for from one day to the next, but he's a businessman, and I'd bet he's going where the money is- legalization.
As far as the patent goes- semantics. I simplified. It doesn't change what I meant. The government has the ball in its court.
"At will" Semantics again. Of course it's regulated. I was referencing it in terms of creating hybrids/ new strains and compounds, which growers and processors are permitted to do in most circumstances, as it related to what the government has control over patent-wise. The government is not presently going after people under patent law. If/ when the government says it has medicinal benefit, do you really think they're not going to regulate who can produce CBD compounds?
As far as what the patent encompasses:
Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH.sub.3, and COCH.sub.3. ##STR1##
Taken from the patent: https://patent6630507.info/
For further reading, see:
https://www.thecannabist.co/2016/08/22/marijuana-patents-6630507-research-dea-nih-fda-kannalife/61255/
Yeah... it may not be "all" medical MJ, but they've quantified virtually every use of it at a much deeper level than MJ. That means it's not just marijuana, but pretty much every low-THC CBD compound, for almost every known medical use, from epilepsy to cancer.
Tax: Nope, no federal sales tax, but there are federal excise taxes. Smokers pay just over $1 per pack to the feds. With booze, it's $16 or so per proof gallon, amounting to billions the gov't earns on alcohol alone every year. It's not unrealistic to expect the feds to tax recreational marijuana or compounds the same way. Moreover, companies will all be paying corporate taxes (a huge deal with the latest Trump tax overhaul), and there is a ton of other fees manufacturers and importers pay to the federal government, both as an ongoing expense of doing business and to get a drug approved to sell. Sure, the states will make bank, but the feds will too- agencies from the IRS to the FDA will be collecting from regulated businesses, just as they do right now with pharmaceuticals.