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Pot hearing could be early government shutdown casualty

One of the first victims of a government shutdown may be a congressional hearing on marijuana laws.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Government Operations is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday on the White House’s drug control policy “in the wake of the DOJ’s decision not to enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized it,” the panel said in a statement. “This hearing will also explore the effects of legalization, including the social costs of increased marijuana use.”

But if there’s no agreement on a federal budget, the hearing will be postponed, the committee said.

Scheduled witnesses include Michael Botticelli, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorney Association; and Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Children's Hospital Boston.

Last month, the Justice Department announced it won’t sue to block state laws that legalize small amounts of marijuana. Instead, DOJ plans to focus enforcement efforts on stopping the distribution of marijuana to minors, prohibiting revenue from falling into the hands of gangs, preventing marijuana being transported to states where it remains illegal and eliminating violence “in the cultivation and distribution” of the drug, among other priorities.

At the time, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said marijuana remains illegal under federal law. “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime,” Cole wrote in a memo.