From the NY Times, a lengthy arti­cle about the dif­fi­cul­ties that have to do with how fed­eral laws remain inher­ently in con­flict with any state law that per­mits mar­i­juana medicalization.

The federal/state legal limbo will con­tinue while mar­i­juana remains a Sched­ule I drug.  Sched­ule I drugs by def­i­n­i­tion do not have a legit­i­mate med­ical use.  A state that med­ical­izes mar­i­juana may cre­ate a legally shielded envi­ron­ment within the state bor­der, but at no time does this change marijuana’s Sched­ule I sta­tus.  Thus, at most the fed­eral gov­ern­ment can decided to place a low pri­or­ity on pros­e­cu­tion, but as we see in Cal­i­for­nia this leads to a lot of ambiguity.

In my opin­ion, the coop­er­a­tion between local and state author­i­ties in Col­orado is bet­ter than in Cal­i­for­nia.  Still (given the above para­graph) Col­orado is not immune from a fed­eral enforce­ment action at any time.

The arti­cle also dis­cusses the hap­haz­ard nature of the med­ical rec­om­men­da­tion itself.  In Col­orado, reg­u­la­tions have tried to tighten and define the nature of the physi­cian — patient rela­tion­ship in the mar­i­juana assessment.