Sessions will end policy that allowed legalized marijuana to prosper

The Hill ^ | 01/04/18 | REID WILSON

[Ennis85]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will roll back an Obama-era policy that gave states leeway to allow marijuana for recreational purposes.

The Justice Department on Thursday afternoon released a memo announcing that the so-called Cole memo — which ordered U.S. attorneys in states where marijuana has been legalized to deprioritize prosecution of marijuana-related cases — would be rescinded effective immediately.

"Previous nationwide guidance specific to marijuana enforcement is unnecessary and is rescinded, effective immediately," the memo reads.

Two sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Hill early Thursday that Sessions planned on ending the policy authored in 2013 by then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

The Associated Press first reported the decision.

Sessions, a vocal critic of marijuana legalization, has hinted for months that he would move to crack down on the growing cannabis market. Sessions, since taking over as head of the Justice Department, has appeared to show a harder line on marijuana. In May, the attorney general sent a letter to congressional leaders requesting they get rid of an amendment in the department’s budget that blocks the Justice Department from using federal money to prevent states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

Opponents of legal marijuana on Thursday celebrated the long-awaited action.

“It’s pretty clear that the federal policy is going to be that U.S. attorneys will have discretion and the industry can no longer hide behind the Cole memo and say that they’re protected,” said Kevin Sabet, who worked in Obama’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and now runs the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “There is an unknown here because we don’t know how this is going to be implemented.”

The move is likely to put the federal government in conflict

[Boogieman]

He’s recusing himself from anything that actually helps Trump so he can go after those hophead reefer-smoking jazz fiends!

[Pining_4_TX]

I know, right? When is Trump going to dump this guy?

[Boogieman]

“Isn’t it possible he can work on more than one thing?”

I don’t know, you may be giving bureaucratic government drones a bit too much credit.

[Sir_Humphrey]

People are going to use recreational pot anyway. the law will be laughed at just as it is right now. I know a lot of conservative pot smokers who are laughing their a$$ at people getting indignant over a matter that should be left up to the individual

[colorado tanker]

There are over 3,000 marijuana licensees in Colorado alone. There are 4,600 DEA agents NATIONWIDE. California will dwarf Colorado in licensees. So, good luck with this, Jeff.

How about doing what you were appointed to do?

[Anti-Bubba182]

Sessions is making a mistake to go after MJ. It would be better if the Senate stopped him, better still if he had stayed in the Senate.

[Magic Fingers]

“People are going to use recreational pot anyway. the law will be laughed at just as it is right now.”

Exactly.

[Bonemaker]

“Sessions really needs to go. I don’t care much about reefer, but I do care that Huma and Hillary are traitors walking around free.

Priorities, man. Dude needs to go.”

Division of labor, Sessions will take care of marijuana,disposal of CFL bulbs,removal of matress tags, possesion of eagle feathers, and Volkswagen computers. Rosenfeinstein will take care of everything else.

[TXnMA]

No doubt, it's like this one:already full of the whining of FR's "Mary Janes"...

[ransomnote]

LOL! Yes! HOW did you KNOW!? :)

[Bonemaker]

“So allowing a vice to “prosper” is now a virtue.”

Who gets to define a vice? What is a vice? Answer: something somebody doesn’t like.

[skimbell]

25% of DJT's term is GONE and Sessions is jerking around with weed.

How about you give us a hint what other "Big Stuff" ol' Jeff's got going.

[ransomnote]

Here's one example. In November and December of 2017, 2294 sealed federal indictments were filed. Someone did alot of work. As you know, POTUS signed an Executive Order declaring a national state of emergency freezing funds related to corruption and trafficking (specified entities and those whom contribute funds to those specified entities). That national state of emergency enables military tribunals. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-persons-involved-serious-human-rights-abuse-corruption/ Note that on the annex to the national state of emergency, Gertner is named. Go to Gertner's foundation webpage and Clinton Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation are named as contributors (donors).

[ransomnote]

Sorry that’s 9,294 sealed indictments, not the 2k I posted above.

[aquila48]

“Who gets to define a vice? What is a vice? Answer: something somebody doesn’t like.”

Society, religious beliefs, mores get to define it, in other words a nation’s culture. A society’s culture is both defined by the “freedoms” it allows, as well as define the limits the freedoms.

That’s why there are no libertarian “nations”. Taken to the limit, a libertarian nation would be a country of one.

And that’s why there is no such thing as absolute freedom (unless you’re living alone in nature, in which case then it is nature that puts a clamp on your freedoms).

[Thibodeaux]

The action is designed to produce a lawsuit that will be decided by the supreme court

At issue....... who has the ability to regulate marijuana.....the feds or the states

[bjcoop]

Why? I couldn’t care less about the pothead that smokes in the privacy of their own homes. It’s not my business.

[2001convSVT]

“Sessions really needs to go. I don’t care much about reefer, but I do care that Huma and Hillary are traitors walking around free.
Priorities, man. Dude needs to go.”

Very well said! What a waste this guy has turned out to be. The sooner he leaves the better.

[fireman15]

I do not know how this all plays out politically... what I do know is that living in Washington, the first state to legalized marijuana that the situation in certain locations has become almost comically intolerable.

It seems like every other day I end up behind a car that makes it smell like someone just ran over a skunk. People smoke pot when they are driving around here all the time. If you drive up beside them they make no attempt to conceal what they are doing. Yet if anyone has ever been convicted of driving while intoxicated by smoking pot here... I have never heard about it. The police have no way of easily measuring the level of a driver’s intoxication from marijuana so they just do not bother.

Between pot and people fooling with their cell phones you have to honk your horn frequently to get the car in front of you to move when the light turns green. We live near a walking path and the scent of pot is almost constantly in the air when we go outside. Sometimes it is strong enough that it gets into the house, especially if we open the windows. It is a nasty skunk like odor. It was never like this from tobacco products.

If there were any statistics available I would assume that there has been a huge increase in consumption. So I for one will be happy as punch if Sessions does something to curtail this nonsense.

[RetiredTexasVet]

My guess is that it is a leverage issue ... might have to take some of those resources that you (Moonbeam, et al) are using to sue the Federal gov’t and switch them to defending your cartel buddies.