U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, and what he had to say has medical marijuana advocates across the country calling him out for his falsehoods.

As he has before, Holder stuck with the claim that the Department of Justice was only going after operations ”acting out of conformity…with state law.” But as advocates have pointed out, many of the dispensaries in California that have been threatened and closed down were complying with state and local laws, and many had unapproachable reputations.

Holder did admit that some of the dispensaries in Colorado being threatened were targeted because of a federal sentencing statute. In any case, advocates launched against Holder’s falsehoods.

Holder “lied to the House Judiciary Committee” in saying the Justice Department was only going after dispensaries and growers that were not in compliance with state laws,” California NORML (CANORML) retorted bluntly. “The Justice Department’s bad faith seriously impugns the credibility and competence of Attorney General Holder and his administration.”

Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), was only slightly more politic.

“What he said to our congressional representatives should be alarming not only to medical cannabis patients, but also to policy makers and the general public, because, based on all of the available information we have, it surely must be a lie,” she wrote on the Huffington Post.

The sad fact is that officials in the federal government tell many lies, and more often than not they do not have to account for their actions. Attorney General will not even be reprimanded for lying because in the end lying is his job. Misleading the public is the number one goal of the Obama Administration as it has been for administrations going back decades. In a way, Eric Holder does his job very well.

- Joe Klare