AG Jeff Sessions declared open season on states where pot is legal, but here’s why his policy change WON’T MATTER
by: JD Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Sunday, January 07, 2018
Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions set off a firestorm when he announced he was reversing an Obama-era policy that instructed federal prosecutors not to target states and individuals where recreational marijuana had been approved by voters.
The decision led Natural News founder Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, to rightfully call on Sessions to resign, given that the Justice Department he runs is currently targeting President Donald J. Trump for a bogus “Russia collusion” allegation.
“By declaring war on legalized cannabis, Jeff Sessions demonstrates once and for all that he is hopelessly out of touch with America and incapable of focusing on the far greater priorities of investigating Uranium One and FBI corruption,” Adams said.
As it turns out, though the policy reversal stands, it very well might not mean much in practical terms, according to experts and former federal prosecutors.
Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the 1980s when Sessions was serving in the same capacity in Alabama, told Lifezette that Sessions’ memo to prosecutors makes it clear they will have discretion over which cases to bring.
“Not much is going to change except the policy,” he said. (Related: As California legalizes pot, few smokers realize cannabis is often contaminated with pesticides, mold, heavy metals and chemical toxins.)
James Cole, the deputy attorney general under AG Eric Holder, penned a memo in 2011 that directed the Justice Department to all but ignore businesses that were licensed to sell pot under state laws that legalized the drug.
That directive remained the priority so long as states worked to stop the spread of marijuana from their jurisdiction to other states where voters had yet to legalize it while preventing pot sales to children.
When he rescinded the policy, Sessions instructed U.S. attorneys to enforce drug laws as enacted by Congress and, well, marijuana for recreational use remains against federal law. Sessions said that the Obama-era policy undermined “the rule of law and the ability of our local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners to carry out this mission” of combating illegal drugs.
“Therefore, today’s memo on federal marijuana enforcement simply directs all U.S. attorneys to use previously established prosecutorial principles that provide them all the necessary tools to disrupt criminal organizations, tackle the growing drug crisis, and thwart violent crime across our country,” he wrote.
Needless to say, the policy change has sparked outrage from lawmakers in states that have legalized its recreational use.
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