We have some dire news to share. This morning, President-Elect Trump announced his pick for Attorney General and it couldn’t be much worse for the marijuana law reform movement and our recent legalization victories.
Trump’s pick, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, is a militant prohibitionist. We could go into great detail how Senator Sessions has been an outspoken opponent against reform, but in this case his rhetoric is so off the wall…we’ll let his past statements speak for themselves:
“You have to have leadership from Washington. You can’t have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana … you are sending a message to young people that there is no danger in this process. It is false that marijuana use doesn’t lead people to more drug use. It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.”
“It was the prevention movement that really was so positive, and it led to this decline. The creating of knowledge that this drug is dangerous, it cannot be played with, it is not funny, it’s not something to laugh about, and trying to send that message with clarity, that good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
“Lady Gaga says she’s addicted to [marijuana] and it is not harmless.”
His former colleagues testified Sessions used the n-word and joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought they were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.”
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Senator Sessions is clearly out in the deep end when it comes to issues of marijuana policy and he stands diametrically opposed to the majority of Americans who favor the legalization and regulation of marijuana. This could foreshadow some very bad things for the eight states that have legalized marijuana for adult use and in the 29 states with with medical marijuana programs. With the authority the position of Attorney General provides, Sessions could immediately get to work attempting to block the implementation of the recent ballot initiatives, dismantling a legal industry in Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska, and begin conducting massive raids on existing medical and recreational retail stores.
We must be ready to fight back. We must be ready to mobilize in defense of all of our hard fought victories. We already have our opponents calling for a recount in Maine and prohibitionists in Massachusetts working to gut core provisions like home cultivation from their state’s initiative. With an assist from a newly minted prohibitionist Attorney General, things might get worse before they get better.
Help us send a message to President-Elect Trump and his Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions that the American people won’t stand for intervention into state marijuana programs and we want to move towards descheduling at the federal level and legalization in all 50 states.
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Sessions watched too many episodes of dragnet where Joe Friday would issue his speech on his view of morality. For weed to be on the schedule 1 alongside heroin is absurd and based on science from the 1960s
The state attorneys general or other bodies (normal) need to file lawsuits against the US government and DEA on the basis of cannabis being on the schedule 1 for the sole purpose of getting money directed to the DEA and in the process ruining countless good tax paying educated people’s lives.
The lie of cannabis on the schedule 1 is beyond simply egregious. DEA is never going to alter that on its own accord. Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III will be the pip squeak fox in the hen house with countless Joe Friday rants about how he is protecting American lives by shutting down pot.
America is a democratic republic meaning states allocate their power to Washington DC not DC deciding what states can and can not do.
Again the 10th amendment part of the bill of rights states the very same….states in this republic by design are not servants to the federal government but instead the federal government are subservient to the States
You’ll only harm yourselves in an illogical approach to this problem.
The solution is to focus on the importance of state’s rights… make it an issue about that we should govern ourselves and let states legalize it freely without federal involvement.
Acting like angry children calling everyone sexist and racist for not wanting legal cannabis will only set back the marijuana legalization movement. The conservatives will not react well to baseless insults.
We can either do this the right, respectful way and possibly continue to see progress or do it the very wrong way and see an angry backlash.
I agree entirely that the “solution” is on ” state’s rights,” but as far as calling “angry children” the terms “sexist and racist”? Check yourself so you can correct yourself.
Democracy is the art of participation. Please click on the “Legalization” tab in the upper right hand corner and decide what you can do for your society.
I’d like to know, first, is there an address for President-Elect Trump where I/we can write to him and BEG him NOT to appoint this moron?
Secondly, are other organizations, specifically an organization by the name of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) joining efforts with NORML to stop his appointment?
Thanks!!
these bible-thumping reppies will try to reverse;
mj / mmj legalization,
abortion rights,
and LGBT rights.
ALL THREE groups should work together,
under the idea;
“IT IS MY LIFE, IT IS MY BODY, AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE WITH IT”.
and “NO VICTIM, MEANS NO CRIME”.
Hey alert to those in Washington state and elsewhere. Tri cities are looking to start enforcing their bans on people in those towns. Hope people are organized to protest this stuff. This violates state law and can’t or shouldn’t be enforced since legalization was state wide.
“WTF!!!” Its as if there is no voice for other people that live in states that will not even consider legalization. I live in Iowa. There is no voice for recreational marijuana. Recreational use creates a healthier life too. But the stigma still exist so back in the closet we go. I wish norml was a vocal advocate for the legalization or at least the decriminalization of marijuana.
Start a NORML chapter. Campaign to vote Grassley out of the Senate or at least the Judiciary Committee. Lead and support will follow.
This is yet another way for someone to take our freedom and to impose their own views on the people