Some states do have laws that explicitly allow and/or regular marijuana for medicinal or recreational use. For example, I live in Colorado where a constitutional amendment was passed that required law makers to pass laws to setup regulations for the production, wholesale, and retail sale of the drug.

The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law.

> The part about the federal law is still true but as far as I know, law enforcement in Colorado is not required nor can be forced to enforce federal law.

But the FBI can very well decide to prosecute federal crimes in states, even if the "crime" is legal under state law.

And you can settle the charges civilly (allowable under United States Code), plead guilty, and get a discharge (no criminal record or time served).

We have a Pay-To-Play legal system. Vince Neil of Motley Crue killed a guy with his car, paid a fine, pled guilty, and served two days of jail total. He's just one example.

Is killing someone with your car even a crime?

(https://www.vice.com/read/you-can-kill-anyone-you-want-with-... and http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to...)

Vehicular Manslaughter is a crime in many jurisdictions.

However, it's easily dischargeable. This is conjecture, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of those cases were settled privately.

And a jury can decide that no crime was committed.

But this would have to be jury nullification because legally a crime was committed.

For this there needs to be a jury trial, which is unlikely to happen if police / DA pushes for a plea bargain...

Can't you always refuse the plea bargain?

The vast majority of cases do not go to trial.

This is not true. Just because modern scholars pretend it is, doesn't make it so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_theory