It's asinine and as you mentioned, slavish. The whole fucking thing, always has been.
Any State that benefits from fees, taxes etc. gained from "state legal cannabis" is legally speaking committing "a federal crime". Therefore all of their agents, cops, prosecutors, judges, clerks, etc. work for a "federal crime organization".
The duplicitous contradictions are low hanging fruit for any pro se defendant or lawyer with balls (are there any of those?) who wants to make a monkey out of a cop (who is representing his state) on the witness stand in front of a jury.
Wouldn't be hard using the right line of questioning to get a cop to have to admit he works for an organization (his employer, the state) that "commits federal crimes" .
"Your honor, I'd like the court to take record, that this witness, (the cop) an admitted member of an organization engaged in committing federal crimes, testimony be given the proper scrutiny it deserves, blah blah, blah " (You'd know in a hurry who on the jury was on your side, by their reactions)
"You are aware that your paycheck (from the state or a state subsidiary, a town or city) was at least partially funded by a federal crime, is that correct, Officer Dickwadd" ?
If he answers, no, you play the ignorance of the law is no excuse card and ask him if he is aware of any other federal crimes he's involved with and does he think he is "above the law" etc.
If he answers yes, you ask when he will be turning himself into the feds for his punishment and would he care to donate that part of his paycheck that was gained from a federal crime commission to any charities. You also ask if he's aware of any penalties he might face for his aiding and abetting the state in the commission of federal crime committing etc.
Juror nullification should be fun!
A good website to learn about juror nullification is fija.org
It stands for fully informed jury. The link is right below.
FIJA is the premier educational organization dedicated to fully informing everyone of jurors' right of jury nullification.
fija.org