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But then, last year, the administration issued the Cole memo (these things are named after the deputy attorneys-general who draft them). It seemed, in dense verbiage, to suggest that the Ogden memo had been misunderstood, and that federal prosecutors should indeed go after the cannabis trade, especially if they suspect that serious money is being made.
但是去年奧巴馬政府發布了科爾備忘錄（以起草備忘錄的助理大法官的名字命名）。它似乎暗示奧格登備忘錄被人們誤解了，聯邦檢察官們應該追查大麻買賣，尤其是檢察官們懷疑有非法牟利的時候。
The overall effect has been to confuse everybody and leave matters entirely at the discretion of individual prosecutors. Thus there are few signs of federal aggression in New Mexico, Rhode Island or Vermont, for instance. Rather, the crackdown appears to be occurring in just six federal districts—the four in California, and those in Montana and Colorado.
這樣產生的大體影響是：人們會感到困惑，大麻的執法也完全依賴于檢察官自己的判斷。因此在例如新墨西哥、佛蒙特和羅德島等州聯邦很少禁止大麻，但是六個聯邦特區（加利福尼亞州的四個特區和蒙太納州、科羅倫多州的其余兩特區）卻有嚴打大麻的行動。
To Ethan Nadelmann, the head of the Drug Policy Alliance, which lobbies for an end to the failed “war on drugs”, this suggests that six federal prosecutors may be acting on their own, perhaps even in conflict with the Obama administration. The president, in this scenario, is too afraid to touch anything that looks soft on drugs in an election year and stands weakly by.
伊桑-南德爾曼是藥物政策聯盟的執行董事，一直為停止失敗的毒品戰爭而進行游說。對他來說這意味著六位聯邦檢察官可能會獨自行動，甚至會與奧巴馬政府相沖突。對于這樣的情況，正處大選年的奧巴馬總統非常恐懼，不敢在毒品問題上表現得很軟弱，必須強勢出擊。
States do not like it. Democratic and Republican legislators from five medical-marijuana states have written an open letter to Barack Obama to end the “chaos” and leave this matter to the states. Christine Gregoire and Lincoln Chafee, governors of Washington state and Rhode Island, have asked the federal government to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug (like heroin, say) to a Schedule II drug (like morphine) so that doctors can at least prescribe it safely in certain circumstances. Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii, and have joined in the request. Ms Gregoire has already found herself having to veto a medical-marijuana bill she supports for fear that her state employees may be indicted by federal prosecutors. To all the good reasons for drug reform can now be added this classically conservative one: states’ rights.
各州均很反感。共和黨和民主黨的立法議員們給奧巴馬寫了封公開信，要求結束紛爭，讓州政府處理是否禁止大麻事宜，他們主要來自五個允許使用藥用大麻的州。華盛頓州州長克里斯汀-格雷瓜爾和羅德島州州長林肯-切菲已經要求聯邦政府把大麻重新歸類，從一等毒品（海洛因等）降為二等毒品（比如嗎啡），以便醫生在某些情況下可以安全地開出大麻的處方藥。佛蒙特州、科羅倫多州、夏威夷州和康涅狄格州也加入了請求隊伍中。格雷瓜爾女士已經感到她必須否決一項自己支持的藥用大麻的法案，以免華盛頓州的雇員遭聯邦檢察官起訴。各州的權利這一保守而又老生常談的說法能夠成為進行藥物改革的中肯理由。
