US Attorney Walsh: Pot letters are not a bluff

DENVER — U.S. Attorney John Walsh on Thursday rebuffed claims that the federal government sat idly by as state lawmakers enacted regulations that have allowed Colorado's marijuana industry to boom the past two years.

Walsh said letters sent last week to 23 marijuana dispensaries near schools and their landlords — giving them until Feb. 27 to shut down, move or face federal penalties — are not a bluff and that criminal prosecution is possible.

Dispensary and property owners are being threatened with losing their assets and property in civil action in federal court if they don't comply with the letters.

Marijuana advocates in Colorado say the feds, by not stepping up enforcement action earlier, tacitly approved of Colorado's booming marijuana industry that now includes tight regulations that tax pot from seed to sale.

"We haven't been sitting by," Walsh said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "We've been taking marijuana enforcement action."

Colorado's industry began its boom during a time when there was no permanent U.S. attorney in office. Then-Gov. Bill Ritter in January 2009 nominated his deputy chief of staff, Stephanie Villafuerte, for the post. But her nomination got wrapped up in a controversy over access to a restricted law enforcement database during Ritter's 2006 campaign.

Villafuerte withdrew her nomination about a year later.

In September 2009, then-Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden, a high-ranking official in Washington, issued a memo that said federal prosecutors should not focus investigative resources on patients and caregivers complying with state laws. At the time, acting Colorado U.S. Attorney David Gaouette had other matters to deal with: FBI and national security authorities uncovered an al-Qaida plot to bomb New York subways involving Aurora shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi.

Zazi later pleaded guilty in New York to federal terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing.

But months later, as the industry began to grow, federal agents raided the suburban Denver home of Christopher Bartkowicz in February 2010.

Bartkowicz tried to argue in federal court that he cultivated large amounts of medical marijuana in his basement under the belief that Ogden's memo meant he was free from prosecution. He lost that argument, which federal officials hoped would send a message about the government's stance on marijuana.