The Obama administration needs to stop trying to sabotage California’s medical marijuana dispensaries.

Although federal law still considers pot an illegal, dangerous drug on par with LSD and heroin, California voters declared back in 1996 that they want it available for medicinal purposes.

Since then, 23 other states have allowed medicinal use, with Georgia on Friday becoming the latest. Four states — Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Colorado — allow recreational use, and Californians will likely vote on a broader legalization bill within the next few years. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is among those working on it.

The president, who admits to toking a few joints in his youth, said more than two years ago he had “bigger fish to fry” than targeting pot smokers in states that permit recreational use. His administration abandoned most medical marijuana prosecutions in states that permit it.

On top of that, in December, Congress added an amendment to a spending bill the president signed directing the Justice Department to not interfere with states’ medical marijuana laws.

You’d think with such clear direction, the feds would leave California alone. But here in the Bay Area, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag continues trying to shut down dispensaries, including Harborside, which has a huge facility in Oakland and a smaller one in San Jose’s Berryessa neighborhood. Rather than going after the operations directly, she’s going after their landlords by trying to seize the property.

The city of Oakland, using a novel legal theory, has tried to block the feds in court. The case is before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The outcome is uncertain

The bigger question for Haag, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, is, in the words of Judge Stephen Murphy III, “Why have you picked this fight? What’s the end game here?”

So far there’s been no answer. The Justice Department just made a cryptic statement this month to the Los Angeles Times that the congressional restrictions don’t apply in cases against individuals or organizations.

Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, and Sam Farr, D-Carmel, shot back in a letter that “as the authors of the provision in question, we write to inform you that this interpretation of our amendment is emphatically wrong.”

We understand the feds don’t want medical marijuana operations to become centers for crime. California’s Legislature has failed to regulate the industry voters approved, and cities including San Jose have struggled to regulate local dispensaries, some of which seem to operate more like bars than drugstores.

But there are legitimate medicinal uses for marijuana, as California voters (and, by the way, many doctors) have asserted. The Obama administration isn’t helping the debate or the cause of law and order by intervening.