Today, the White House issued a statement "strongly opposing" the passage of H.R. 5016, a House spending bill that, among other things, would block funding for Washington, D.C.'s recently passed weed decriminalization bill. Cannily, the memo attacks decriminalization opponents from the right.

It reads in part:

Similarly, the Administration strongly opposes the language in the bill preventing the District from using its own local funds to carry out locally-passed marijuana policies, which again undermines the principles of States' rights and of District home rule. Furthermore, the language poses legal challenges to the Metropolitan Police Department's enforcement of all marijuana laws currently in force in the District.

It's a small but significant way of saying — as Obama has discussed and demonstrated before — that the federal government shouldn't be stretching to keep pot criminal in states that have voted to allow it or reduce penalties. Now if the DEA would only stop going after legal dispensaries and grow operations, we'd be getting somewhere.

[h/t Washington City Paper]