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Law Enforcement Backs Sessions’s Ending of Hands-Off Approach to Marijuana
freebeacon ^ | January 7, 2018 | Charles Fain Lehman

Posted on 01/07/2018 5:15:44 AM PST by MarvinStinson

Cite car accidents, opioid epidemic, rule of law as reasons for support

Law enforcement and prosecutor organizations gave their support to Attorney General Jeff Sessions's Thursday decision to rescind Obama-era guidance which discouraged prosecutors from enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in states which had legalized the drug.

Sessions's guidance most prominently overturned a 2013 memo from then-Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. Issued in the wake of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington state, the memo instructed U.S. Attorneys to not enforce marijuana's schedule I status in states where its recreational consumption had been legalized and regulated.

In its place, Sessions's new guidance simply instructs prosecutors to "follow the well-established principles that govern all federal prosecutions."

Law enforcement officials applauded Sessions' move.

"We applaud the Attorney General for this action today that brings clarity on enforcement of the law by rescinding a confusing policy brought on by the previous administration that hindered law enforcement. This will allow sheriffs to carry out their mission of upholding the rule of law and keeping their communities safe," said National Sheriffs' Association President Harold Eavenson and Executive Director Jonathan Thompson in a statement.

Chuck Canterbury, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said, "The Attorney General's announcement is good news for public safety and public health," Canterbury said. "There will be no Federal agents chasing individual users—but it will give law enforcement the discretion it lost when the Cole Memo was issued."

Canterbury was one among a number of law enforcement officials who claimed that state-level marijuana legalization had an adverse impact on public safety, pointing to increases in marijuana-related traffic fatalities.

"This experiment of giving cover to drug dealers has had fatal consequences. When marijuana was ‘legalized' in Colorado, traffic-related deaths due to marijuana rose from 13% to 20%. This is costing people their lives," he said.

"Drug-related deaths currently exceed motor vehicle deaths, and while some states have taken steps to change the legal status of marijuana, the substance's illegality remains federal law," noted Nathan Catura, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

Bob Bushman, president of the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition, said enforcement was especially important given the nation's increasingly deadly opioid epidemic.

"Given the current drug epidemic facing our country that is resulting in so much addiction and so many drug poisoning deaths," said Bushman, "we should be doing everything we can to discourage and curb illegal drug use. That includes marijuana."

The President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis concluded in its report that "there is a lack of sophisticated outcome data on dose, potency, and abuse potential for marijuana."

Law enforcement also voiced support for Session's general commitment to enforcing laws as written, rather than encouraging rulemaking through overbroad prosecutorial discretion. The National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys made that case in its press release, calling for prosecutorial deference to the "rule of law."

"NAAUSA's position is that the debate over whether or not to legalize marijuana should occur in the halls of Congress and not in the halls of the Department of Justice," the release read. "Accordingly, NAAUSA believes that the Attorney General's recent action with regard to marijuana enforcement is consistent with this strongly held principle that prosecutors should follow the Rule of Law as enacted by the Congress."

The A.G.'s order was condemned by pro-marijuana legalization organizations like the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

Sheriff Grady Judd, vice president of the Major County Sheriff's of America, specifically targeted such objections in his praise for the order.

"The push across the nation by organizations like NORML to legalize marijuana under the guise of helping the sick has caused black market sales of so-called legal pot to proliferate in this nation, and it has given a greater and easier access of the drug to our country's most precious resource—our children," Grady said. "I commend President Trump and Attorney General Sessions for their leadership and action in repealing the Cole Memo."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: agsessions; leo; liberaltarian; pot; potheads; trumpdoj
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1 posted on 01/07/2018 5:15:44 AM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

Make it hurt.


2 posted on 01/07/2018 5:16:22 AM PST by RC one (The 2nd Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances)
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To: MarvinStinson

Start dealing with the MJ problem and the local bank.
<>Make the local branch manager responsible for handling this cash.

<>This MJ problem cannot manage the flood of cash, if it is bottled-up before the laundry at the local bank.


3 posted on 01/07/2018 5:19:30 AM PST by ptsal ( Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - M. Twain)
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To: MarvinStinson

not all of them...

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-california-s-former-top-cop-bill-1513899118-htmlstory.html

DEC. 21, 2017, 3:30 P.M.
California’s former top cop forms marijuana distribution firm in new age of legalization

Former California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer is going from enforcing laws against marijuana to legally distributing the drug under the state’s new rules that allow the sale and possession of pot for recreational use.

With state-licensed sales of marijuana starting Jan. 1, Lockyer has co-founded a firm, C4 Distro, that will distribute packaged marijuana concentrates and edibles to stores in Los Angeles.

He says California’s new regulated system has a chance to be a model for the rest of the country.

“For me as somebody who was on the law enforcement side for so many years, I saw the inadequacies of the effort to regulate something just by calling it illegal,” Lockyer said. “I think legalizing will help stabilize and help legitimize this industry and result in better consumer protection and other public benefits.”


4 posted on 01/07/2018 5:19:40 AM PST by edzo4 (Democrats playbook = promise everything, deliver nothing, blame someone else.)
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To: MarvinStinson

The hypocrisy of the obama wink and a nod of just ignoring laws needs to end.


5 posted on 01/07/2018 5:21:26 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana

If legalization takes place, cops can’t seize cars, cash, homes on the pretext that it might be used for marijuana sales. Ends the cash cow that has taken hundreds of millions illegally from law abiding taxpayers.


6 posted on 01/07/2018 5:25:04 AM PST by rstrahan
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To: 2banana

The hypocrisy of federalism (which has enumerated powers) trying to bully states (which have constitutional rights) is the problem. Federalism will lose. The states have the right to legalize marijuana, or whatever else they want.


7 posted on 01/07/2018 5:28:22 AM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: 2banana

Treat marijuane like alcohol.

Prohibition was a failure a century ago and is still a failure.


8 posted on 01/07/2018 5:28:48 AM PST by hoosierham (Freedom isn't free)
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To: edzo4

>>California’s former top cop forms marijuana distribution firm in new age of legalization

Kind show’s the true spots of that L.I.F.E.R. “law enforcement” predator, don’t it.


9 posted on 01/07/2018 5:31:10 AM PST by HLPhat ("TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS" -- Government with any other purpose is not American.)
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To: edzo4
not all of them...

Of course not.

You write the headline first, and then cite only those sources that support it.

This is how modern journalism works.

10 posted on 01/07/2018 5:32:24 AM PST by Drew68
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To: yldstrk
Then get your USSC ruling, and move on.

Until then...

11 posted on 01/07/2018 5:33:36 AM PST by gogeo
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To: 2banana

agreed


12 posted on 01/07/2018 5:34:02 AM PST by manc ( If they want so called marriage equality then they should support polygamy too.)
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To: RC one
Make it hurt.

Not for long.

After we lose MAGA over Sessions' 80s-era crusade against marijuana, the Democrats who retake Congress and the White House will roll it all back.

13 posted on 01/07/2018 5:37:00 AM PST by Drew68
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To: MarvinStinson

>>Cite car accidents, opioid epidemic, rule of law as reasons for support

LOL. The real reason is more funding, better military hardware, and more opportunities to kill citizens to save them from drug abuse.


14 posted on 01/07/2018 5:38:35 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Asking a pro athlete for political advice is like asking a cavalry horse for tactical advice.)
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To: hoosierham

Somebody must think they can win elections with “law and order” posturing on marijuana like the Republican criminal justice-law enforcement bureaucrats in Washington.

Pot is no good, I wouldn’t just it just like I used to mess with alcohol.

But its best that I make the choice not to indulge rather than government crackdown.

It just gives the law enforcement-criminal justice bureaucracy justification for their existence.


15 posted on 01/07/2018 5:39:02 AM PST by Nextrush (Freedom is everybody's business: Remember Pastor Niemoller)
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To: MarvinStinson

Sessions has done absolutely nothing about Hillary and Russia BS. Yet he has time to bust pot smokers.

I personally don’t smoke pot. I have prescriptions for about 8 years for relatively mild opiates. I hate them. If I miss one pill I start to go into withdrawal. I would use my states medical marijuana laws and try it, but for one thing. I can take all the legally prescribed opiates the doctor writes for me, but I get one canabis prescription and I lose my constitutional right to keep and bear arms.


16 posted on 01/07/2018 5:40:56 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: edzo4

Having one elected official issue an edict saying that the law will no longer be enforced is not the same thing as legalizing the thing in question. That’s got elements of, ironically enough, totalitarianism. To keep the scheme going they are setting up the situation that a person with xyz opinion MUST be elected regardless of what their qualifications or lack of qualifications are for the job. There are certainly going to be plenty of elected officials who will go along with that because it is an easy hurdle for them to cross. In this case, the former elected official is in the pot distribution business himself, so what do you expect his view to be of the issue?!


17 posted on 01/07/2018 5:43:45 AM PST by BlackAdderess (MAGA!)
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To: hoosierham

It’s still amazing to me that as a people, we at one time thought it necessary to pass a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit alcohol, and shortly thereafter, did not have to do so to prohibit MJ and other drugs.


18 posted on 01/07/2018 5:43:47 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: MarvinStinson

Amusing. The Liberals had an huge celebration tearing down Confederate monuments. They as always show themselves to be hypocrites. If they don’t like a federal law, the South Carolina states rights advocates, they simply declare it effectively null and void in their jurisdiction be it sanctuary areas to contradict Federal immigration law or marijuana marketing to defy Federal drug laws. Pro lifers should try that tact with judicial abortion decrees. It would appear that this country no longer has a reasonable social consensus based on commonly held values. Look out. A modern Fort Sumter is on the horizon.


19 posted on 01/07/2018 5:54:03 AM PST by allendale (.)
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To: MarvinStinson

Guaranteed this is about property seizures.


20 posted on 01/07/2018 5:56:24 AM PST by raybbr (That progressive bumper sticker on your car might just as well say, "Yes, I'm THAT stupid!")
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