Jeff Sessions to Wage War on Legal Marijuana. The KKK is fine with him though. (Republic: felony, attorneys)

[homesinseattle]

"On Election Day, eight states voted to legalize recreational or medical marijuana, bringing the nationwide total of medical states to 29. In Florida, medical marijuana won nearly 2 million more votes than Donald Trump. Added up, 65 million people now live in states that authorize adult recreational use; more than half of all Americans have access to medical marijuana; and almost everyone else lives in a state that permits CBD, a non-psychoactive component of cannabis that helps treatment of juvenile epilepsy. It’s easier now to identify the six states that have done nothing to end the prohibition on marijuana than the ones that are breaking away from the federal law that treats marijuana the same as heroin.

There was another winner on November 8, however, and he has thrown up a serious challenge to the seemingly inexorable march of legal marijuana. By nominating Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III for attorney general, President-elect Donald J. Trump is about to put into the nation’s top law enforcement job a man with a long and antagonistic attitude toward marijuana. As a U.S. Attorney in Alabama in the 1980s, Sessions said he thought the KKK "were OK until I found out they smoked pot.” In April, he said, “Good people don't smoke marijuana,” and that it was a "very real danger" that is “not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.” Sessions, who turns 70 on Christmas Eve, has called marijuana reform a "tragic mistake" and criticized FBI Director James Comey and Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch for not vigorously enforcing a the federal prohibition that President Obama has called “untenable over the long term.” In a floor speech earlier this year, Senator Sessions said: "You can’t have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana like it is no different than taking a drink… It is different….It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.”

full article: Jeff Sessions’ Coming War on Legal Marijuana - POLITICO Magazine

[perigee]

I don't use the stuff, but I fully support the legal use of it. My parents are getting up there in years and we've been seeing what helps them with their aches and pains. For those that are using it to get high, I don't see how that is any different from if I decided to have a couple of drinks, but that being said I was talking to someone that said that once you get old it should just be normal to use it for all the issues that come with old age. Like homesinseattle mentioned, CBD will not give you a high, it's legal in almost all the states, but CBD with a very little THC, the stuff that gives you the high, is much more therapeutic.

For my right leaning friends, I thought that state's rights were an important issue, I hope that the republican party continues to honour this stance.

Homesinseattle, thank you for raising awareness of this looming problem.

[Seacove]

I never even tried it, have no interest and I voted and supported for its legality. The laws and punishment for marijuana use make no sense to me. Prison and felony charges that ruin a person's life and ability to get jobs forever because of marijuana cost us more. Sessions' focus on marijuana of all things is exactly what I would expect over the next four years.

[robrath]

Originally Posted by perigee

For my right leaning friends, I thought that state's rights were an important issue, I hope that the republican party continues to honour this stance.

States' rights is a very important issue, unfortunately the last 8 years the democrats have eroded states' rights over and over setting a disturbing precedent which now everyone is going to pay for. You can bet that if something like this comes up and states' rights becomes an argument that the left tries to use to their benefit, the right will simply say there has been precedent set by the left that the federal government has oversight over such issues, be it abortion, weed, illegal immigration, etc etc.

[robrath]

Originally Posted by homesinseattle

.....As a U.S. Attorney in Alabama in the 1980s....

Oh comeon, give me a break. Let's go back 30+ years to barack's past and see what we find. Oh yea he smoked weed and snorted coke, and would've tried heroin if he liked the pusher. Basically he enabled the suffering of countless lives by supporting the illegal drug market. barack also was a supporter of jeremiah wright whose racist rants are well known, apparently that was "ok" as well until it was time to run for office. The same can be said about bill ayers and frank marshall davis, all of whom were great associates until it was time to run for office.

[homesinseattle]

Point taken, robrath. Although what you say makes some sense, in Session's case he has long track record though: https://www.thenation.com/article/je...-civil-rights/

[Ira500]

Originally Posted by robrath

Oh comeon, give me a break. Let's go back 30+ years to barack's past and see what we find. Oh yea he smoked weed and snorted coke, and would've tried heroin if he liked the pusher. Basically he enabled the suffering of countless lives by supporting the illegal drug market. barack also was a supporter of jeremiah wright whose racist rants are well known, apparently that was "ok" as well until it was time to run for office. The same can be said about bill ayers and frank marshall davis, all of whom were great associates until it was time to run for office.

If you were going to disqualify from the presidency any candidate that ever smoked pot, the pickings would be few. George W Bush smoked pot( and allegedly cocaine), Obama, Bill Clinton( even though he didn't inhale).
When we voted for it here in Washington in 2012, a number of staunchly Republican counties( who voted for Romney and against same sex marriage) voted to legalize pot.
So I think the genie is out of the bottle, and the movement to legalize pot is going to continue. There's too much money in it at this point to reverse the trend.

[robrath]

Originally Posted by Ira500

...There's too much money in it at this point to reverse the trend....

That right there is the reason it will remain legal. The federal government already prohibits MJ and so far they have done nothing. Maybe it is time to legalize coke and heroin as well, seeing how well MJ crashed the illegal trade and brought prices down, after all, it is now considered a "right to inhale". More $ to the states right? how about legalize prostitution as well and tax it? As long as it is more $ to the state coffers.

[treuphax]

Originally Posted by homesinseattle

Point taken, robrath. Although what you say makes some sense, in Session's case he has long track record though: https://www.thenation.com/article/je...-civil-rights/

Don't get your panties in a bunch just yet. There'll be plenty of time (and plenty of reasons) I'm sure.

Why not wait until they actually do something first?

[pnwguy2]

With California adding to Washington/Colorado/Oregon/Alaska and others, any crackdown will create at the least a very large backlash, and at worst, riots. My hope is the new administration understands this and will back off, but with Trump nothing would surprise me.