In the latest act in the ongoing drama pitting federal drug laws against state legislation permitting the sale of marijuana, a U.S. Attorney is threatening the landlords housing medical marijuana dispensaries with 40 years in federal prison. After ballot measures legalizing the sale and possession of recreational use pot passed in Colorado and Washington state, we wondered whether Obama’s second term would see the beginning of the end of the federal war on drugs.

But as the San Jose crackdown among others suggests, the Justice Department will not be backing down. In January, South California medical marijuana dispensary operator, Aaron Sandusky, was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for running a business deemed legal in his state since California legalized marijuana for qualified patients, caregivers, and collectives in 1996 and 2003. Now, as the East Bay Express reported, “a new round of actions against lawful medical cannabis dispensaries in the South Bay” has begun following crackdowns in 2011: