WASHINGTON Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding the Obama-era policy that had paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, two people with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press. Sessions will instead let federal prosecutors where pot is legal decide how aggressively to enforce federal marijuana law, the people said.
The people familiar with the plan spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it before an announcement expected Thursday.
The move by President Donald Trumps attorney general likely will add to confusion about whether its OK to grow, buy or use marijuana in states where pot is legal, since long-standing federal law prohibits it. It comes days after pot shops opened in California, launching what is expected to become the worlds largest market for legal recreational marijuana and as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal.
While Sessions has been carrying out a Justice Department agenda that follows Trumps top priorities on such issues as immigration and opioids, the changes to pot policy reflect his own concerns. Trumps personal views on marijuana remain largely unknown.
Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and has blamed it for spikes in violence, had been expected to ramp up enforcement. Pot advocates argue that legalizing the drug eliminates the need for a black market and would likely reduce violence, since criminals would no longer control the marijuana trade.
The Obama administration in 2013 announced it would not stand in the way of states that legalize marijuana, so long as officials acted to keep it from migrating to places where it remained outlawed and out of the hands of criminal gangs and children. Sessions is rescinding that memo, written by then-Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, which had cleared up some of the uncertainty about how the federal government would respond as states began allowing sales for recreational and medical purposes.
The pot business has since become a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar industry that helps fund schools, educational programs and law enforcement. Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and Californias sales alone are projected to bring in $1 billion annually in tax revenue within several years.
Sessions policy will let U.S. attorneys across the country decide what kinds of federal resources to devote to marijuana enforcement based on what they see as priorities in their districts, the people familiar with the decision said.
Sessions and some law enforcement officials in states such as Colorado blame legalization for a number of problems, including drug traffickers that have taken advantage of lax marijuana laws to hide in plain sight, illegally growing and shipping the drug across state lines, where it can sell for much more. The decision was a win for pot opponents who had been urging Sessions to take action.
There is no more safe haven with regard to the federal government and marijuana, but its also the beginning of the story and not the end, said Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who was among several anti-marijuana advocates who met with Sessions last month. This is a victory. Its going to dry up a lot of the institutional investment that has gone toward marijuana in the last five years.
Threats of a federal crackdown have united liberals who object to the human costs of a war on pot with conservatives who see it as a states rights issue. Some in law enforcement support a tougher approach, but a bipartisan group of senators in March urged Sessions to uphold existing marijuana policy. Others in Congress have been seeking ways to protect and promote legal pot businesses.
A task force Sessions convened to study pot policy made no recommendations for upending the legal industry but instead encouraged Justice Department officials to keep reviewing the Obama administrations more hands-off approach to marijuana enforcement, something Sessions promised to do since he took office.
The change also reflects yet another way in which Sessions, who served as a federal prosecutor at the height of the drug war in Mobile, Alabama, has reversed Obama-era criminal justice policies that aimed to ease overcrowding in federal prisons and contributed to a rethinking of how drug criminals were prosecuted and sentenced. While his Democratic predecessor Eric Holder told federal prosecutors to avoid seeking long mandatory minimum sentences when charging certain lower level drug offenders, for example, Sessions issued an order demanding the opposite, telling them to pursue the most serious charges possible against most suspects.
I'm beginning to think Sessons might have made a terrific AG 10 years ago. But I think age has slowed him, all around. Trump needed a stronger AG, I think.
I'd join the crowd wanting him to resign as A.G. but I'm afraid we'd end up with Attorney General Crispy Creme. Yeow.
I'm beginning to think Sessons might have made a terrific AG 10 years ago. But I think age has slowed him, all around. Trump needed a stronger AG, I think.
I have considered this a few times with relatively the same outlook. But then I stop when I evaluate the situation and believe that Sessions is just being Sessions. That means I think he is no publicity seeker who is always looking for the limelight in TV news cameras. He just goes about doing the job in the way he always has....a slow but thorough and methodically painstaking manner. Sessions deliberately considered actions makes me think to compare him to the old bull in the young bull and old bull parable. If I may, I will share the story with you ...
An old bull and a young bull stand on a hillside, overlooking a pasture. The young bull says to the old bull, Hey, lets run down and fuck one of those heifers. The old bull replies, lets walk down and fuck em all.
For the people who condemn Sessions or want him removed because of age, I am reminded of another bovine story I compare them to. I will also, if permitted, share that one with you.
A farmer has two old bulls and, feeling theyve lost their exuberance, buys a young bull. As the young bull begins industriously mounting one cow after another in the pasture, one of the old bulls starts pawing the ground and snorting. Whats the matter, says the other. You getting young ideas? No, replies the first bull. I dont want that young fellow to think Im one of the cows!
If you think there is a moral in that story, dont....its just a simple joke.