In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Sessions dated June 15, 2017, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf strenuously objected to the possibility of the federal government attempting to curtail Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program, which is scheduled to launch with the issuance of grower, processor and dispensary permits in the coming weeks. As Governor Wolf stated in the letter:
Your action to undo the protections of the Rohrbacher-Farr amendment, which prevents the use of federal funds to disrupt states’ efforts to implement “their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana” is misguided… If you seek to further disrupt our ability to establish a legal way to deliver relief of medical marijuana to our citizens, I will ask the Attorney General of Pennsylvania to take legal action to protect our residents and state sovereignty.
Governor Wolf’s letter was in response to a letter that Sessions sent to Congress on May 1, 2017, regarding the Rohrbacher-Farr amendment, in which Sessions stated :
I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime.
On May 5, 2017, President Trump extended the Rohrbacher-Farr amendment through September 30, 2017.