This November, California voters will vote on

But advocates of legal recreational marijuana use in the Golden State and everywhere in the United States got a sharp reminder last week that the federal government reserves the right to have the final say on whether legal pot is OK at the state level. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration brushed aside years of lobbying and ruled that marijuana would remain illegal — still considered a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act and formally classified as having no medical use.

Though the federal government continues to pursue charges against some individuals and some high-profile dispensaries — such as Oakland’s Harborside Medical Center — the Obama administration has said it will not attempt to overturn state marijuana laws. But any future administration could take punitive actions against states with laws allowing recreational or medicinal use, suing in federal court, withholding federal grants or more.

However, a new federal court ruling offers some reassurance that no federal authority can pull the plug on state-approved medicinal pot use, at least.

In a case involving 10 pending prosecutions in California and Washington state, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday that said the U.S. Justice Department cannot target marijuana growers, suppliers or users in cases where the drug is being used for medical purposes.

Reagan appointee knocks Justice Department argument

The decision — written by a conservative Reagan appointee, Diarmuid O’Scannlain — cited language included by Congress in budget resolutions that bans federal interference with state medicinal marijuana laws. The language was first inserted into budget measures in 2014. So long as Congress continues to renew the ban on federal action — which has bipartisan support — medical users are protected.

The Obama administration had argued that using federal laws to target medical marijuana users or suppliers wasn’t an intrusion on state law. O’Scannlain disagreed: “If the federal government prosecutes such individuals, it has prevented the state from giving practical effect to its law.”

A U.S. Justice Department official said no decision had been made yet on whether to appeal the ruling, which mirrored the finding in a previous case decided last year by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco.

California became the first state to legalize medicinal use of marijuana with Proposition 215 in 1996.

“In what you can interpret as either an act of corporate altruism, corporate lobbying, or a mix of both, two giant retailers — Walmart and Walgreens — have agreed to save the Obama Administration from who knows how many horror-story anecdotes by agreeing to fill 30 days of free prescriptions for ObamaCare enrollees. The question is, though, what happens to the data and patient information these retailers collect?”

No wonder Big Pharma backed Obamacare: more “patients” for its potions, and more data on Americans.

It gets worse:

“According to one Walgreens pharmacist Breitbart News spoke with Tuesday, in April the DEA started requiring pharmacies to ask an increased number of medical questions and show a photo ID for certain medications. There have also been reports that through ObamaCare the federal government is compiling data based on a series of new and intrusive question doctors are required to ask.”

So, suppose you have a skiing accident and break a leg. It gets set in the hospital. The doctor gives you a prescription for codeine to kill the pain. You’re in the databases of: the doctor, the hospital, the pharmacist, the DEA — and who knows who or what else, probably the NSA, which keeps data on everything.

So, then the DEA puts a flag on you in its databases. Which allows it to check all your other data. They notice your best friend was in rehab a couple of years ago. So maybe you’re giving him some of the codeine. Your Ralph’s card shows you purchased some vodka last week. They don’t know, or care, that it was for a party you went to and you didn’t drink any of it.

They find out you bought a rifle recently and registered it under California’s new law under which the state keeps permanent records.

They check the Netflix database and your favorite movie seems to be “Scarface,” starring Al Pacino. You also emailed a joke to a friend with the famous line from the movie, “Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!”

They’re building a “pattern” of your life, and it’s obvious that you could be a drug dealer. You need to be watched even more carefully.

You wake up in the middle of the night to a strong pounding on your door and shouted profanities outside, as police flashers illuminate your front yard….