Posted on 01/04/2018 12:26:52 PM PST by Magnatron
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded an Obama-era policy that paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, creating new confusion about enforcement and use just three days after a new legalization law went into effect in California.
President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement official announced the change Thursday. Instead of the previous lenient-federal-enforcement policy, Sessions’ new stance will instead let federal prosecutors where marijuana is legal decide how aggressively to enforce longstanding federal law prohibiting it.
Sessions’ plan drew immediate strong objection from Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, one of eight states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
Gardner said in a tweet that the Justice Department “has trampled on the will of the voters” in Colorado and other states. He said the action would contradict what Sessions had told him before the attorney general was confirmed and that he was prepared “to take all steps necessary” to fight the step including holding up the confirmation of Justice Department nominees.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Well, Cory, there is a solution. Get together with up to 99 of your buddies in the Senate, and a couple of hundred of your colleagues in the House, and get on President Trump's good side, and you can do something called 'passing a law' to rescind criminality of marijuana on the Federal level.
It's what you were hired to do, Senator.
So what the heck is the federal law on marijuana, and other controlled substances, all about?
If marijuana is banned or illegal or controlled under federal law, is such law constitutional and enforceable in the first place? If states are free to legalize marijuana on their own?
Can the federal law on marijuana even be enforced in states which have legalized it?
To me, this opens up a big issue of federal vs. state laws and regulations and enforcement, apart from the specific issue of marijuana itself.
Could this whole issue go into court? Recall how the courts decided we must have homosexual marriage nationwide, and that the states have ultimate authority over defining marriage, and presumeably, over family law in general.
I can hear it now: “When they came for the stoners, I didn’t care because I wasn’t a stoner.....”
;^)
When is Sessions ever going to start doing his JOB and prosecute the real criminals trying to destroy America - Clinton, Comey, Lynch, Holder, Rice, Lerner, Obungo???
I think Sessions is way out of his league and needs to resign NOW. We need a PITBULL as US Attorney General and not some passive pussycat who recuses himself when he doesn’t have to, gives over the DOJ to liberal lunatics, and won’t prosecute those who really need to go to prison.
SESSIONS NEEDS TO RESIGN!!!
Nothing in the us Constitution gives federal authority over drugs.
I am fine with it. That is the way it goes. The end result will be the same as with ciggies.
People only get all wee wee’d up when what they like gets threatened.
I am sure Sessions is capable of walking and chewing gum. LOL
“....it did not have a sunset clause to return it to the voters in say seven years time. I think all such legislation should have such clauses.”
That is an excellent suggestion, to combine sunset clause with referendum. Now, if we just had more recall elections....
That CA sunset law may come faster than they think. Change federal law California if you can. This state more than most seems to defy laws that they don’t like. Is Kalifornia going to argue for state rights these days turning themselves into a hypocritical pretzel like they are already?
You know Bob? Small world.
We need a few more replaced Supreme Court Justices first and then this whole mess of Federal Overreach/States Rights can be addressed.
We need to tread water for a couple years in this very imperfect state of affairs.
Yep.
Marijuana use increases among pregnant women in California, study says
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/12/27/marijuana-use-increases-among-pregnant-women-in-california-study-says.html
Meanwhile, women who smoke pot have been feeding the stuff to their autistic kids and claiming in Internet discussions that it cures autism. Police aren’t doing anything about it.
What, you may ask, led the Justices to such an awful result? A New Deal decision holding that a farmer who grew wheat on his own land for his personal use was nevertheless in "interstate commerce" and subject to New Deal crop regulations.
That made sense to the liberals and Kennedy, no surprise, but sadly, Scalia departed from his textualism and concurred.
How do you justify taking a leak on the 10th Amendment?
I think this is a fallout from cities and states flaunting their sanctuary city/state policy to the point where they won’t cooperate with federal law officials.
Other than that, Sessions is doing a sub par job. Perhaps it’s wise not to prosecute a previous administration as much as the Obama administration deserves, but everything about it needs to be made public and not hidden from Congress and the people — That of which Sessions has actively engaged in,.
The 21st amendment repealed the federal prohibition of intoxicants, except in states that ban the intoxicants.
Go tell that to a PTSD war vet ya friggin POG Leg.
“This is not our parents’ pot. There is no medicinal value comparable to legitimate medicines currently available.”
Simply not true. As someone who has had chronic daily pain and migraine headaches for over 2 decades the only treatment that has had any positive effect has been opiates. They are toxic, dangerous, addictive and deadly with many side effects. No one has ever died from a cannabis overdose. I would rather not be on opiates. Other medications I have been treated with over the years have caused additional health problems that I now must deal with for the rest of my life.
There are several different strains of cannabis that could and have helped someone like me. Problem is access to a reliable supply of those strains in states where it’s illegal. Eating the cannabis is preferred as the dosage can be precise and lasts longer.
Legalizing it for medical purposes would save lives, both in terms of helping people to either stop or reduce the stronger more dangerous medications and keeping people out of the already over-burdened court system.
It’s outrageous for me to be able to get an amount of opiates that could kill dozens of people with a co-pay but I can’t get cannabis without risking jail time and or financial ruin from an arrest.
My parents never smoked MJ.....
Definitely should be a state issue.
Exactly maybe Mr sessions could focus on California ignoring a more important federal law like I don’t know immigration.
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