Photo by Gage Skidmore
Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt to discuss a range of issues, including how the Trump administration intends to address marijuana law enforcement in states that are regulating its adult use.
During the interview, Hewitt repeatedly encourages Sessions to engage in federal prosecutions against state-licensed marijuana providers.
Hugh Hewitt (HH): Let’s talk about the rule of law. I have a piece coming out in the Washington Post about this on Sunday, Attorney General Sessions. One RICO prosecution against one marijuana retailer in one state that has so-called legalization ends this façade and this flaunting of the Supremacy Clause. Will you be bringing such a case?
Jeff Sessions (JS): We will — Um — Marijuana is against federal law, and that applies in states where they may have repealed their own anti-marijuana laws. So yes, we will enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide. It’s not possible for the federal government, of course, to take over everything the local police used to do in a state that’s legalized it. And I’m not in favor of legalization of marijuana. I think it’s a more dangerous drug than a lot of people realize. I don’t think we’re going to be a better community if marijuana is sold in every corner grocery store.
HH: No, but it would literally take one racketeering influence corrupt organization prosecution to take all the money from one retailer, and the message would be sent. I mean, if you want to send that message, you can send it. Do you think you’re going to send it?
JS: Well, we’ll be evaluating how we want to handle that. I think it’s a little more complicated than one RICO case, I’ve got to tell you. This, places like Colorado, it’s just sprung up a lot of different independent entities that are moving marijuana. And it’s also being moved interstate, not just in the home state.
HH: Yes.
JS: And neighbors are complaining, and filed lawsuits against them. So it’s a serious matter, in my opinion. And I just came from a big rally in New Hampshire yesterday, Hugh. This is, this opioid problem is just huge. There were 9,000 high school and junior high school students there. A mother I met who had lost a son three months before, a child, and she said there were 50 more mothers there who’d lost children speaking to those kids. We’ve had this huge opioid surge in America, 120 people a day die from drug overdose. And I do believe, and the President has issued an order to the Department of Justice to crack down on drugs and these international cartels that are moving this Fentanyl that’s so deadly into our country. And we’re going to step up that in a very vigorous way as I talk to United States Attorneys yesterday by conference call.
Predictably, Sessions’ responses — in particular his reaffirmation: “Marijuana is against federal law, and that applies in states where they may have repealed their own anti-marijuana laws. So yes, we will enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide.” — follows the path laid out by The Heritage Foundation’s Cully Stimson, who on February 27th, released an 11-point plan on how to “provide a targeted approach to [federal] marijuana enforcement.” The Heritage Foundation proposal specifically calls for the Department of Justice to use RICO laws to target state-licensed marijuana businesses:
- Prosecute those dealing in marijuana—which is illegal under federal law—using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Those who engage in a pattern of racketeering activity through a corporation or other enterprise are liable for three times the economic harm they cause. RICO gives federal courts the power to order racketeering enterprises and their co-conspirators to cease their unlawful operations.
The Attorney General also repeats two overt myths regarding cannabis, claiming that the enactment of marijuana regulatory schemes are somehow linked with violent crime and opioid abuse. As NORML recently points out in op-eds here and here, both of these claims are categorically untrue.
At the end of the day, when the Attorney General of the United States publicly contemplates the federal prosecution of those in the adult use marijuana industry, we should take these threats seriously.
That is why we need to continue to be proactive in pushing Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition and be ready to fight back at every level should Sessions follow through on his recent statements.
Thanks for all you do and stay vigilant.
I just wanna know what can we do do put a leash on this asshole? Guy is so ignorant
Click on the links provided and contact your Congressman.
CALL. 202-224-2131 Thats the Congressional switchboard. Its long past time for Congress to do their job and reform marijuana law. WE are the leash, and Congress is the loose animal.
When thousands of veterans and civilians are dying from opioid abuse funded largely by legal predatory pharmaceutical companies like Insys Therapuetics (makers of fentanyl that Sessions presches against) …and study after peer reviewed study reveal that states that have legalized marijuana have reduced incidents of opioid addiction and overdose, we have to take AG Sessions lies as a serious attack on the lives of the American people. Call your Congressman every day.
I don’t thinks we will have to worry to much about
Jeffy boy!! He’s stumbling every where he goes..
U don’t know how so many of us don’t agree with u. The number one problem is alcohol which is legal. Every state makes a lot of money on alcohol. Please think about this, how many deaths r caused by drunk driving. But no one in Congress or the house of Representatives say anything about alcohol. Because u probably all have to drink to do what you do to us USA citizens. Now I agree we have problems with heroin, crack and abusing pain pills. But also about pain pills the people who need them can’t get them because they r selling them on the streets. Thank u for hearing me
Fox News has got to be the most freedom hating station on the air. And that little piss ant sessions, how is he still allowed to make decisions concerning the citizens of the US after lying under oath about his dealings with Russia? This is going to be a L O N G 4 years.
That’s what we get for them putting that bitch up as his opponent. I want Obama back.
Here is another bunch of assholes who think they can arrest their way out of legalization. This is their smoke screen for stealing from the cannabis community, their cover for making a cash grab. Today the grumpy Trumpies are talking up the jobs report because it associates them with something good, while during the campaign Trump was talking shit about the numbers even as they continued to improve over the long term since 2009. What about cannabis jobs?
The grumpy Trumpies are going to have to take the credit for putting people out of work, too. Then there’s cutting off the cannabis tax revenue stream, and skyrocketing criminal justice costs because these damn carpetbaggers would come in and cause damage to the communities and states where adult recreational is legal, and wherever else.
Trumpies would rather build an effing wall with Mexico than legalize and keep the jobs and profits in the U.S. How the hell is that going to stop the demand in the U.S.? Stop people from making a healthier choice in cannabis over alcohol? There are some risks with cannabis, but not as bad as with alcohol. Must be their idea of foreign aid to Mexico to outsource supplying America’s demand for cannabis to south of the border, and then make it hard as hell for them to deliver the supply for the demand so that they buy weapons made in the U.S. Tragic, all the lost Mexican lives because of the drug war. Sad. It’s something to be avoided.
Old guard drug warrior shit doomed to continue the costly failure of cannabis prohibition. Looks like the grumpy Trumpies want to start peeling away those in the cannabis community who were for Trump, however small or larger that may have been, you know, for cannabis votes who actually voted for him. Bye bye support.
Give up on cannabis prohibition! It’s over! You lost! Stop ruining people’s lives! Respect people’s freedom and their votes to legalize! Repeal cannabis prohibition!
If one takes a Hard , Honest look at the ??? Law regarding Hemp and Cannabis and what that ??? law was constructed with ! A Blind person could read and see the Misrepresentation by Government that Manufactured Law from Lies ! How came any one ? Justify the HARM Government has perpetrated upon the People with Governments Laws from Lies.
republicans say they are all about giving back peoples freedoms and less government and all but still, they want to control every little thing we do like we are children. You need to wear a seat belt, a helmet on a motorcycle, and the list just goes on and on, like we can’t make an intelligent choice in matters concerning ourselves. I would clearly rather have someone smoke some marijuana and chill out,than to have some fool drinking, in a bar all day or at the beach or or his own back yard and then get into his boat/car/motorcycle and kill someone while he walks away and gets a slap on the wrist because alcohol is the drug of choice. It is the gateway drug. Almost all homes have it and that is one of the first things teens experiment with. want to end the war on drugs? bring back prohibition on alcohol. Marijuana was legal before and during alcohol prohibition, you see what the results have been, millions of deaths. perhaps we are smart enough to choose, not be dictated too like children by people who are out of touch and have their own personal agendas and are being paid by big pharma to keep it illegal.
NORML, if you’re so entwined with Democrats…how about you convince them to make this a priority, FOR ONCE? Dems have acted like cowards on marijuana.
They prioritize whether someone can go pee in the ladies’ room or not…while Federal marijuana prohibition continues to create violence and erode our civil liberties.
Dems are just as much to blame on this as GOP. It’s time for them to fight for us with as much passion as they fight for NON-CITIZENS.
Sessions needs to be brought down. That sure as hell can’t be done strictly in the courts, or by schmoozing with politicians. It will take public support, and I’m not talking about financial donations. Civil disobedience is a must. This is your time to shine, NORML. Take advantage of it.
@ Rocky Coast,
Now just hold on for one second — it’s the Republicans who have the “pee-pee” obsession, from legislating where people piss in North Carolina, to Trump’s “golden showers” in Moscow. Don’t try to put that sick, childish shit on the Democrats!!
Democrats can be comfortable with good American citizens, without peeking into their bedrooms and bathrooms. The political left simply accepts the biological reality that human sexuality is diverse. This is natural, and healthy.
Repressed sexual obsession? That’s a Republican thing. Republicans don’t get good grades in biology and science. They ain’t so keen on “book learnin'”!!
They’re only good at breaking things, and killing things, and ruining things. They like to hurt people. Republicans are cruel. They are sadists.
Secondly, to your remark that the Democrats are just as much to blame for marijuana prohibition as Republicans: that’s just dumb. You “WON” (stole) the election, remember?
Republican are in charge of White House, Congress, and Senate. They dominate on the state level. Everything that happens now with respect to ramping up the War On Drugs is ENTIRELY on the Republicans. And as the blog article above indicates, this is what Republicans love to do: fuck over cannabis consumers. And anyone else they can exploit.
On a previous blog, I anticipated your line of attack on the Democrats, and as I said then: Republicans don’t get to blame Obama, or the Democrats in general, for FAILING TO PROTECT US FROM TRUMP. That’s some illogical bullshit.
So get your facts straight before you go trashing the political left.
Actually the Dems pissed over any chances they had under Obama. Pretty much any time under Obama they could of Removed it from the schedule one listing but never did bring it up or try.
So no don’t go saying the dems are a bunch of angels for they aren’t.
Yes Repubs usually side against legal weed, but after 08 they could of if they weren’t fucking busy infringing upon the second so much which is why lots of Us Libertarians who don’t side with either voted Trump and only then because mostly for two reasons the second amendment and the Supreme court, plus Trump did say he would leave it up to the states.
So yes blame belongs as much with the dems as it does with the Repubs too.
@ csaaphill,
I get the feeling you are the kind of individual whose loyalties go to deeper principles than “Red Team” or “Blue Team.” This isn’t a high-school basketball game, with nothing on the line except bragging rights. American lives are at stake here. So I am hoping you will understand when I say: I’m not pro-Democrat; I’m just anti-Republican.
I never said Democrats are “angels!” My point was, and is, this: The marijuana legalization movement made unprecedented, historical gains under the Obama administration. Anyone who can’t see that isn’t trying. And we were on track for even more gains, having DOUBLED the number of legal states during the 2016 election. Regardless of what you think of Obama personally, we were making really good progress under President Obama — far better progress than we would have made if we had elected a Romney (R) or a McCain (R). If Obama was a drug warrior, he was a shitty one, and that was extremely good for us. We were lucky to have him.
Democrats are no angels, but next to Republicans, they look like motherfucking saints.
Now, you admit Republicans “usually side against legal weed.” Thank you for being honest about that. And, yes, Libertarians voted for Trump; and in so doing, fucked themselves real good. I think you get that, too.
“Trump did say he would leave it up to the states.” But Trump’s a fucking liar, so that means nothing. Now he’s coming after us.
So, NO. Blame does NOT belong “as much with the dems as it does with the Repubs too.”
Listen: Republicans do not get to blame Democrats for not doing more to protect us from Trump! That’s illogical bullshit.
News Flash: The Obama administration is over. The Republicans own Trump’s evil, and they will all go down in history together as criminals and traitors for being the white supremacist, fascist authoritarian Russian tools that they are.
You are incorrect. You are spewing out the ol false equivalency poison when the plain facts are listed right here on this website:
http://www.norml.org/congressional-scorecard
Place blame where blame is due. Representative Debbie Washmoney Shultz D-FL is a prohibitionist because she takes pharmaceutical stocks and an offshore tax haven from Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company that produces a pill for diabetes that causes cancer.
My Republican state Representative Jason Isaac is leading the way cosponsoring decriminalization and medical marijuana in the state of Texas.
But to make the baseless claim that Dems are “just as bad” as Republicans when it comes to prohibition deserves the liar, liar pants on fire award. Read the scorecard. Read the intro. Thems are facts.
Trump, Sessions and a Republican controlled Congress are waging Drug War III to profit off of overdosing Americans… specifically targeting their own voting constituents… with opiates:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/bernie-sanders-west-virginia-visit?akid=15296.2366751.Z4HX9h&rd=1&src=newsletter1073850&t=10
The least you could do is acknowledge the truth. As the article above suggests, the truth can give you purpose which can free you from addiction to lies and misinformation.
Once again, we’re subjected to the “false equivalency” argument.
csaaphill, apparently you haven’t been following the recent conversations about the congress during Obama’s presidency. The Dems controlled the House for 2 years of it, and the GOP controlled the House for Obama’s last 6 years.
The Dems are hardly angels when it comes to many issues, but you are being disingenuous when you imply that the two main parties are the same regarding legalization.
Trump, like many other GOPers, believes in states’ rights, except when they don’t. The ONLY thing I’ve ever heard Trump say about Recreational Legalization is that “it’s a problem.”
If you’ve heard him say something else, by all means share it. As matters stand, all I’ve heard is threats from Spicer.
Trump’s “feelings” on the matter, or those of anyone else don’t mean shit.
Totally false, The Republicans are always worse on weed,, if sometimes only slightly like under Clinton or like now under the Orange Fuhrer.. Republicans or Weed make a choice…
Oh by the way on another topic,,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/03/11/employees-who-decline-genetic-testing-could-face-penalities-under-proposed-bill/?utm_term=.eaca3ac30887
Thank you for posting that. I wanted to post it but I got carried away investigating links between Sessions and Big Pharma (It’s a deep cesspool of links).
If this genetic testing legislation by a Republican controlled government isn’t enough to wake America up I don’t know what will. NORML, I think our WorkPlace DrugTesting Coalition just took on a whole new expanded task. While we’re calling our Congressman we need to condemn this legislation!!!
This reminds me why the food and plants that sustain us should never be patented. Here we are in Drug War III and cannabinoids have been patented by US Patent 6630507 since 2001!
But submit to genetic testing?! If my employer ever demanded genetic testing from me I’d piss all over the floor and walk the f*ck out. It’s one thing to drug test, but genetic preconditions are PRIVATE Congress! Or our Congress should be the FIRST ones to submit a test! (And the President… I still cant get over the evidence from last month that he’s clinically plum crazy with a little dick and needs to be deposed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/trump-prostate-drug-hair-harold-bornstein.html?_r=0
… shoulda just tried some weed and left those prescription drugs alone Drumph!)
This genetic testing and drug testing is like the grumpy Trumpies version of when Gattica meets Lebensborn.
Gattica:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
Lebensborn:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
Maybe the grumpy Trumpies have more planned because they think anchor babies of illegal immigrants can’t take the place of legal immigrants’ and citizens’ babies.
http://www.abc-7.com/story/34741466/king-doubles-down-on-controversial-babies-tweet
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-anchor-babies-arent-american-citizens/
24 million people won’t be getting health insurance under Trump’s Care (TrumpScare) and the grumpy Trumpies’ leadership, Paul Ryan, would have us believe their base is okay with it. Maybe the grumpy Trump base is okay with it so long as it affects people of color and only a small % of loser libtard whites? Who the hell knows what’s going on in their scheming minds?!
Ill tell you whats “going on in their minds;”
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/bernie-sanders-west-virginia-visit?akid=15296.2366751.Z4HX9h&rd=1&src=newsletter1073850&t=10
Predatory, government sanctioned opiate addiction.
That’s funny. Hightimes.com had a very different story about Sessions yesterday. They claimed he was backing off due to several senators (including republican ones) putting pressure on him.
Jeff Sessions: “Marijuana is against federal law, and that applies in states where they may have repealed their own anti-marijuana laws. So yes, we will enforce law in an appropriate way nationwide.”
Does that sound like “backing off” to you?
That must by why he’s replacing ALL the current US Attorneys,,, because he’s going to legalize weed… pass the bong will ya..
“…these international cartels that are moving this Fentanyl that’s so deadly into our country.” International cartels aka Pharmaceutical companies.
Which is sad because Insys Therapuetics, which shut down marijuana legalization for Arizona, legally produces fentanyl to legally treat cancer symptoms (NOT necessary) when the peer reviewed evidence shows that marijuana treats both cancer and opiate addiction.
The link from Big Pharma to Sessions?
https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00003062&type=I&newmem=N
As Senator of Alabama Sessions accepted decades of sustained donations from HealthSouth Corp which spun off into the Birmingham based Medpartners Inc., which purchased what is known today as CVS Caremark, a physician practice management (PPM) company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Caremark
Today the company is one of the nation’s leading pharmacy benefit management (PBM) companies, provides comprehensive prescription benefit management services to over 2,000 health plans, including corporations, managed care organizations, insurance companies, unions and government entities. With net revenue of approximately $37 billion (including approximately $5.8 billion of retail copayments) in 2006, they are also one of the largest PBMs.
But campaign donations don’t reveal the whole scope of how these companies purchase our Congressman. Big Pharma companies outsource so they don’t pay taxes then offer special tax-free stocks to our Congressman as offshore tax havens. If Sessions is a secret shareholder of HealthSouth how would we know he’s profiting from opiate addiction? We wouldn’t.
But what we do know is that as US Attorney, Senator of Alabama and now USAG, Sessions stands to keep a lot of bad guys like HealthSouth from losing big in court for fraud and predatory opiate prescriptions.
To be continued…
The first of HealthSouth’s accounting problems surfaced in late 2002 after CEO Richard M. Scrushy sold $75 million in stock several days before the company posted a large loss. In 1998, HealthSouth was accused of violation of the Securities Exchange Act by failing to disclose negative trends and misrepresenting company’s financial information. But the shareholder’s come out clean?
That’s when I dug up this gem:
http://www.gadsdentimes.com/news/20160519/etowah-jury-returns-20-million-verdict-in-medical-malpractice-case
HealthSouth is caught profitting from overdosing opiates to their patients.
“The jury found that a Calhoun County woman received an overdose of unprescribed opiates while she was a patient at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital. According to the complaint against HealthSouth, Doris Green’s neurological and cognitive abilities remained impaired from the time of the overdose July 5, 2011, and she ultimately died Oct. 22, 2011.”
And it gets worse:
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2017/at-least-one-third-of-attorney-general-nominees-top-donors-have-matters-involving-doj.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/
American Hospital Association (Donated $17,200 to Sessions): The DOJ recently intervened in a case against AHA member Prime Healthcare, which has been accused of defrauding Medicare by improperly admitting patients to hospitals from Emergency Rooms.
CVS/Caremark (Remember them?): In October 2016, CVS subsidiary Omnicare agreed to pay $28 million to settle a False Claims Act case regarding kickbacks from a drug manufacturer. Other aspects of the settlement may require ongoing verification and oversight by the DOJ in the coming months or years. And now Sessions is USAG? What a coincidence!
I really could go on, but I think we all get the picture. The same vulture companies that are killing Americans for profit with opiate addiction and fraud put Sessions in power as USAG.
Now we have all the evidence that Sessions must recuse himself from every case involving opiate addiction and marijuana, including any fraudulent claims he initiates from RICO: (And PLEASE use these links when clicking on the Act Tab and writing your Congressman):
http://blog.norml.org/2014/08/25/jama-medical-cannabis-states-possess-lower-rates-of-opiate-induced-fatalities/
http://norml.org/news/2016/04/28/study-opioid-abuse-rates-lower-in-medical-cannabis-states
USAG Sessions is now bound by DOJ Regulations, including one relating to recusals due to personal or political relationships:
28 CFR §45.2 Disqualification arising from personal or political relationship.
But this provision requires a whistleblower from within Trump’s leaky cabinet. (Hint: offer them a book deal and air time and they’ll all squeal like pigs to slaughter). Even then, it does not appear that relationships with campaign contributors would be considered a “political relationship” under this provision to Federal Judges and prosecutors that are quickly being replaced by Trump.
So POGO suggests the following:
“First, Senator Sessions could commit to a bright-line rule where he will recuse himself from any matter involving a donor. from the last two years or any donor who gave more than $5,000 in the last decade.
Second, Senator Sessions could commit to an independent written and public review of this matter by DOJ’s Ethics Office and the Office of the Inspector General. He would then take action publicly in accordance with that review and recuse himself (or not) based upon the report’s recommendation.”
But he didn’t do that.
And to that, I think we can all say, “Independent 3-judge panel and independent prosecutor.” After all, that was the Republican suggestion for Hillary wasn’t it?
Holy f*ck, I thought I was done with the research. (That’ll never happen).
I just researched the link where
“CVS subsidiary Omnicare agreed to pay $28 million to settle a False Claims Act case regarding kickbacks from a drug manufacturer.”
The drug manufacturer?
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nation-s-largest-nursing-home-pharmacy-pay-over-28-million-settle-kickback-allegations
Abbott Laboratories.
The drug they kickbacked (hence, donated to Sessions) for?
Depakote
Depakote is a potentially fatal drug legally prescribed to treat seizure disorders, certain psychiatric conditions (manic phase of bipolar disorder), and to prevent migraine headaches, all with side effects that safe and effective treatment from whole plant marijuana does NOT have. Unfortunately, one of depakote’s side effects is that it destroys the liver.
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1788/depakote-oral/details
Another side effect of depacote’s predatory and profitable prescription is that it can get parasites like Jeff Sessions confirmed as United States Attorney General.
So even though we have FDA approved cannabis extracts preparing to distribute to the American public, and even though the evidence is clear that whole plant cannabis mitigates the symptoms of seizures and epilepsy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27568641
AG Sessions escalates the drug war on children with severe epilepsy by fraudulently protecting his donors by going to war with marijuana, the most effective and safest treatment for seizures we have available.
Can we use THAT in court?
Julian,
It’s amazing (disturbing) how one can of worms almost always seems to lead to another.
When you start to google Trump and his connections, donors, etc, you get the same type of crap. One bowl of slime invariably leads to another. I was actually holding off on the criticisms involving Trump and Russia, but it’s getting harder and harder to ignore that. There’s something going on there, and I think a lot of Trump supporters would agree if they were being honest.
Regarding Trump and recreational legalization–he of course remains mum on the subject, which is kinda puzzling given his penchant for tweeting about everything (batshit crazy or not) at 5 a.m.
Maybe one of his supporters could send him an email, asking him to skip SNL for one night so he could address the recreational legalization issue.
The short answer to my research on Trump and Russia is that, clearly, Trump made a deal with Russia. Russian oligarchs need to launder money around US sanctions and Trump and his son-in-law are always looking for tax-evadings schemes to launder through their real estate empire. Why else would a money-laundering oligarch like Dimitry Ryoblovlev give Trump $100 million for a house in Florida assessed for less than half that value? It was illegal then and its an emolument now. Trump and Sessions will always place profit before people. Just look at Sessions blaming marijuana legalization for an opiate epidemic he’s been profiting from since before CVS bought SouthHealth. Its treason and Trump just looks the other way as he poisons his own supporters. At least Sanders is bringing the truth to pill-town:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/bernie-sanders-west-virginia-visit?akid=15296.2366751.Z4HX9h&rd=1&src=newsletter1073850&t=10
The real question is now that Sessions recused himself from the investigations will Trump supporters do what is right for our country and demand an independent prosecutor and a three-judge panel to investigate Trump and his whole treasonous cabinet?
LEGALIZE…”THE HERB OF PEACE, HEALING AND UNDERSTANDING”
Lord — er, I mean, Herb — please bring me peace, healing and understanding! Thank you!
this is when the house of cards that Trump is built on will start to fall, taking freedom and disregarding the peoples will won’t be tolerated!
I think it is very funny how all the politicians and the American legal system can let Politicians get away with so DAMNED much treason , every day. Like the crap The Clinton’s and Obamma has been doing.High TREASON against America , that has been killing American’s and breaking this whole beautiful country down. But istead of prosecuting those TREASONIST SONS OF BITCHES , they are going to go after something that has proven to be very beneficial for medical purposes , just because they don’t like it. Or maybe more so , because they don’t know what the hell they are talking about !! The Trump people have been doing so much good , for a change, but now they have to take this on and in a very ignorant way as well !!
Care to be specific about that Obama Treason thing… Republicans or Weed, Make a Choice,, you can’t have both.
Do you READ? Or do you just regurgitate whatever you hear or watch on cable news? For f*cks sake, read the article above. You do know that Sessions was nominated by Trump? Or that Trump passed executive decisions to restart Drug War III?
Jeff Sessions is a criminal (lied under oath during his confirmation hearings) and a traitor (the perjury was regarding his traitorous contacts with Russia, and the corresponding deal the Trump administration cut with Russia, to undermine American policy toward Russia.)
Sessions is the one who needs to go to prison; that’s along with Trump, McConnell, Ryan, Rand, and every other Dumb-fuck Republicans who enabled and supported these goddamn traitors.
And 40 percent of Republicans still support Trump? That’s called: “stuck on stupid.”
I agree completely. Very well said.
SO Jeff Sessions answer to opiod abuse is to remove access to the only pain drug with no physical addiction, Namely Cannabis. A drug you can’t even overdose on. If you think he doesn’t know this already. You are wrong. His aims are obtuse and land in rich good old boys pockets.
RICO-suaveyyyy! Ridiculous.
President Trump has appointed Dr. Scott Gottlieb to head the Food and Drug Administration. Last April, Dr. Gottlieb spoke in Philadelphia at a conference hosted by Greenhouse Ventures that was titled “Innovation in the Cannabis Industry”.
Dr. Gottlieb is a pain management doctor who is based in New York who has had success in treating patients with marijuana who have neuropathic pain which involves injuries to nerves.
[Paul Armentano responds: The person appointed by the administration shares the same name but is not the doctor in question.]
Unless Dr. Gottlieb can treat Trump’s and Sessions’ neurological dysfunctions, I don’t see how he’s going to be much help to us…
Haha!
Fuck you Sessions! Doing this is good writing your state legislatures, but when that doesn’t work then what? Signs and protests haven’t done nothing!
JS: And neighbors are complaining, and filed lawsuits against them.
That’s because their the minority and didn’t want legal weed so are being pussy’s.
Yep Buh Bye support is correct this fucker does this which looks like it’s coming Trump’s a one time or less term President.
This is a matter for medical professionals to decide, not law enforcement.
is he from another planet?
He’d change his mind in a hurry if he suffered from chronic pain. That rock are all of these idiots crawling out from?
It seems like Washington would be all over this plant with the true helth research shows the many benefits of the plant, And a proper tax planning for the state’s and federal tax and it’s not like this country is made out of money and jobs at moment it could be a Godsend to help social security that is in bad trouble, I would be happy to vote for a national Leaglizaction of both medical and recreation use it would help with the epidemic of pain killers that cause to many deaths each year and maraqna has never caused a death or addiction as per.medical research. So what’s the the hold up BIG PHARMA AND THERE CAMPAIGN CONTABUTIONS YES!!!
…”national Leaglizaction of both medical and recreation use”…
.
No, I won’t get into the spelling issues, what interests me is why so much talk everywhere of “medical” and “recreational” without mentioning “inspirational”, “ethical”, “educational”, “occupational” (jobs)?
Leafly has a good article on this subject:
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/yes-jeff-sessions-use-rico-no-wouldnt-end-legal-cannabis
Ben Adlin’s analysis is that RICO was already used in 2015 on several Colorado dispensaries and it did not shut down or even slow down the growing marijuana industry. The claim is that removing federal prosecutors from immigration cases to handle a ton of RICO cases is not likely.
Perhaps more interestingly, Adlin reveals that asset forfeitures in California were much more effective. And Trump’s recent replacement of US attorneys and FDA secretary make that more likely:
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/trump-fda-us-attorney-moves-shift-cannabis-landscape
To begin, the new FDA goon Gottlieb is a Big Pharma insider, end of story. Anyone who thinks he’ll bring anything less than pseudo-prohibition needs to look themselves in the mirror, slap themselves in the face and say “Trump has little penis disease” 100 times.
As for California, keep up the resistance. Delivery services, clean your books. Trainwreck could be an order of spicy Chinese food and Tequila. Purple Diesel could literally be a delivery of purple dyed diesel. Get creative! We’re counting on you!
Man, I am all for Pot Legalization so I am telling you commenting here ain’t doin shit. These people are evil like Jeff Sessions are actual Ku Klux Klan members. People like that have only one purpose and pleasure: destruction of good things. They’re on a quest. Literally. From the dark Other Side: Noir. They choose to go to that place of unholy terror after death for a limited (not permanent) to be shit out as Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson and Donald Trump. God does this because he wants to teach his good children the difference between good and evil and the dark ones generate negativity for God so he doesn’t have to and he pays them with looks money and fame.
Do you really think these dark ones are going to even come on NORML and be swayed by someone saying :” Just be cool, man?” No! You have to come out of your green closet and form a huge group that they can’t say no to. Do anything you can. Do you really think they’re going to stay in power forever?! Ha hardly anything lasts forever like the Sun moons planets and both Male and Female Gods. Oh and our souls? Don’t worry God even loves the dark ones. Always has always will. Kill them with love?
Dude, “the dark ones?” “Do anything?” Take a hit of some couch-locking Indica and relax while I explain the main purpose of this blog:
To educate and encourage eachother to contact our state and federal Congressman.
In order to accomplish this goal we need to educate ourselves about marijuana policy, (hence the Act tab) so that we are confident when we citizen lobby.
For example, if anyone is reading this today and you live near Austin, TX, go within the wifi range of the capitol steps to register support for HB81.
Thats planting the seed… word gets around and perhaps one more person will join me today in registering support. And perhaps that one person was enough to convince one member of the Criminal
Jurisprudence Committee to pass HB81 out of Committee.
We help eachother out. These actions bring us closer in balance with our human nature, intuition and the Holy Spirit. I dont know what zombie apocalypse dystopia you are subscribing to but God does not sew chaos to teach us anything, we do a pretty good job of creating chaos on our own. (Just some Trump others in that category…)
Think of “God” as the living planet we all share… we can either work together in good faith to sustain our balance with eachother and nature or we can allow fear and hatred to predate upon the resources that sustain us all. Whether you believe we are all God’s children or not, life is all about choices.
Wow. Thank you for your opinion! You have some good points and you are right about some things. But you do realize evil and evil people exist, right? I was trying to explain why why God would allow them to keep doing evil things like step on MJ Legalization? But if you think I’m wrong, so what? I’m a child of both Gods and you can prove me wrong that evil doesn’t exist or whatever your problem was. Jeez excuse me. Oh and btw I have no money or drug connections so I can’t chill on your vibe path. I’m on one where bad things do happen everyday and I can’t smoke a bowl of nugs like I used to to go into some fantasy utopia where I have no problems unless we can’t get dominos or we get a tolerance or run out which I did. So I’m sorry I offended your little baby ears I was just trying to help. If you don’t believe in God or evil you should be able to join the dark side with no bad effects cause they don’t exist either. But I see I’m interrupting party time for you so I’ll go back to my horrible life of paranoid schizophrenia with no herb to help me and no one else helping either. I’m not joking. But erase that from your memory put on dome bob Marley and blaze and it’ll be all good the rest of the night. I’ll just hold out hope that there IS a heaven and I’ll be going to it real soon. It gets a man with no drugs and a worthless life through a day. Man my bed is going to feel good tonite. That’s the only good part of the day. Sorry I blew yer high. Just a hit away from it being all good again.
You didnt blow my high. I work hard to earn my weed and work even harder to legalize. And I consume marijuana not to “escape” but to face my fears and become closer in balance to our earth and Time.
And Im sorry to hear you have no access to marijuana… knowing you have paranoid schizophrenia you might need a strand higher in CBD, but as symptoms may vary you would be better off trying different strains. Have you ever considered participating in a clinical trial?
http://www.maps.org/zendo2016#9?pk_campaign=EN-August2016-Web&pk_kwd=text-intro-zendo2016
Have you ever tried CBD oil?
https://www.endoca.com/blog/news/cbd-oil-schizophrenia-new-study/
Hemp oils are sold in many health food sections, (often refridgerated). Studies show that CBD can mitigate some of the symptoms of schizophrenia.
I tend to be sympathetic to the notion of God as planet Earth, including all of the mysterious complexities of life as we know it.
But that’s personal speculation.
Truth, unlike “God”, is something much more concrete, something much more tangible. I am of the opinion that Truth is “oxygen” for the soul (using the word “soul” in a strictly non-supernatural sense of the word — I mean rather, the integrated self.)
If one spends too much time in a world wherein all communication is deceptive, and nothing can be believed, the soul begins to withdraw and atrophy. But Truth can awaken the mind, and breathe new life into the soul.
That’s why I must always try to understand the truth to the best of my ability, and why I must always try to speak the truth to the best of my ability, and why I have a powerful personal need to blog, write, discuss, debate, and learn more about marijuana and marijuana policy. My spiritual survival depends on it (again, using the word “spiritual” in a strictly non-supernatural sense.)
I’ve spent too long in the world of lies, and I almost died there, spiritually, and quite possibly even physically. The odds were against my survival. But I made it out.
Ain’t going back.
And, yes, I also click the links, and send the letters to my representatives! Because that’s the plan. And you know the goal: “Legalize it!”
Bannon, this your idea of 21st Century Eugenics? If you are successful at kicking out and keeping out all the illegals, will Americans then do the jobs for less than a living wage and no or shitty benefits like undocumented workers were, you know, illegals do the work citizens won’t do for those wages and conditions?
The Trumpies in the cannabis community who helped vote in the Donald want Sessions out. Bannon, you are just peeling away segments of your support one at a time, aren’t you?
You’re gonna wind up actually fixing ObamaCare, which you should’ve done long already. It’s just that Trump’s tax cut has to make sense–make cents, hah, hah–to the business community, affordable deductibles, means testing, blah, blah. Health savings accounts suspicious, co-pays, no-pays, no reimbursement, block grants for health care, where the hell’s the expansion for Medicare?
Trump campaigned on cheaper, better health insurances for ALL AMERICANS. Looks like just another politician taking votes for granted. Trump is like, hey bitches, I’m in office now, thanks for voting for me, and now I’m gonna fill my pockets and those of my cronies, and fuck you, hope you like 4 years of Careful What You Wish For, and by the way you dumbasses who believed that shit the first time, I’m already running for re-election, so vote to re-elect me and I’ll give you another screwing and make it sound like something you want.
Yes, thanks for saying it about Trump, a lot of people still don’t get the fact that Trump isn’t just a liar, he’s a BULLSHITTER, meaning, he’s JUST FUCKING WITH YOU, NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS, HE’S FUCKING WITH YOU THE WHOLE TIME!
People are all still, like, “But Trump said this, and Trump said that,” like it means a goddamn thing! He’s a con-artist, people got to understand that!
Indeed. They bite the hand that feeds them dont they?
The big irony of this reverse-Robin-Hood Trump-scare is that the only way it looks like we solve the real problem of health care… the hiked up predatory cost… is to legalize marijuana.
Looks like Sessions and republicans are big pharmas
Puppets I doubt we will see any opiod or even hard drug enforcement. Just looking for competition elimination and easy headlines to justify there existance for Republicans who actually need pharmacueticals. Fight the good fight know your rights make them remember who elected these forgetful fools.
If anyone cares here’s another petition, but at the white house .gov site there are also others there as well sign them.
https://www.change.org/p/congress-marijuana
High Times has some inciteful analysis of Sessions and the White House bully pulpit: The extinction burst tantrum to end legalization is in response to the fact that neither the DOJ or the White House or even Big Pharma can stop state legalization’s momentum.
http://hightimes.com/news/jeff-sessions-realizes-he-cant-stop-pot-legalization-and-hes-mad-bro/
“Because, within minutes of the above declaration, [Sessions declared marijuana is as bad as heroin to a Sherriff’s Association gathering in Richmond, defying even DEA director Chuck Rosenberg’s previous assessment to the contrary] Sessions said that he won’t be able to use the Justice Department to shut down America’s burgeoning marijuana movement—and that the hands-off approach taken by Barack Obama’s Justice Department is ‘valid.'”
Weve noticed this pattern from… “Drugs are pouring in from our borders” from Trump at a press meeting, and Sessions tells law enforcement marijuana is as bad as opiates, followed by a quiet “Well, we dont reaaally have the resources to go federally police the states with marijuana prohibition.” And actual admission that President Obama’s Cole memos are the most reasonable policy the DOJ can take right now? Ouch! Thats gotta sting right in their Trumped up pride!
And what about filing a federal injunction and summoning the Supremacy Clause? Wouldnt Sessions have done that by now?
My theory is they need one more Republican in the Supreme Court… which might not happen soon (if the Dems have any balls). Furthermore, Trump’s presidency really is falling apart. His executive orders on the Muslim Ban are going to be sent back from a split Supreme Court to stand in a lower court in total failure. The House is watching in horror as Gerrymandering, voter ID laws or even the Crosscheck program cant supress enough votes to stop D-Jon Ossoff from taking R-Price’s seat in Georgia. (Although Dems do turn losing into an art form).
To be continued…
But there is one more force of good in this fight the article above hints at but I saw in action when I was citizen lobbying for HB81 to decriminalze marijuana in Austin last Monday…
Not a single Sherriff’s Association or law enforcement testified at the Committee on HB81 Monday. Thats never happened before. While I was lobbying my state Senator and Representative on SB380 to abolish Civil Asset forfeiture in the state of Texas I felt the positive response gaining traction.
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/SB00380I.pdf
And its no coincidence this traction is occurring while I found the Law Enforcement Action Partnership working the halls of the Texas legislature, speaking on camera to the press and influencing our politicians.
https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org
Sherriff’s Associations are testifying less in Committees against marijuana reform.
Powerful Law Enforcement officers are standing up to Sessions. Theyre telling him marijuana prohibition does not make our streets safer. And he hates it.
When I was looking for my state Rep’s office and the committee registration kiosk, I asked a uniformed state police officer for directions. He said, “I dont know sir, Im here visiting like you.” The hairs went up on the back of my neck; I wondered “Is he here to testify against HB 81? Is he banking on asset forfeitures?”
Imagine my relief that night after watching Chairman Moody D-El Paso of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee drop the gavel and close testimony and even prohibitionist Vice Chair Todd Hunter-R couldnt believe not a single Sherriff’s Association testified against HB81.. just a lone prosecutor from Odessa. Amazing. Hunter is also the Chair of the Calendar Committee which decides if bills get a floor vote in Texas. If you live in Chorpus Christi, give Todd Hunter a call and tell him to give HB81 a floor vote!
http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/?district=32
Many good points in your post.
Like you, alas, I never put it past the Dems to find a way to lose–to find yet another way to try to appease the GOP, to the misfortune of the rest of us.
They really do have a Weimar Republic mentality sometimes. No wonder Trump and Bannon and Spicer, and the rest of that slime, try so hard to ape the methods and tactics of Hitler, Goebbels, et al. (Tho, they are bumbling fools compared to the originals.)
Bernie Sanders exposed the “centrist, corporate, neo-liberal” wing of the Dems; he also triggered an energy in liberals and progressives that may yet (hopefully) lead to the replacement of those establishment Dems with real FDR Dems. FDR got rid of alcohol prohibition; Elizabeth Warren, Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, or any other truly progressive Dem would, according to their statements, get rid of MJ prohibition.
Reading your post in agreement with Dems making conscious efforts to “throw the fight” sent alarms going off that lead me back to my research on one of the worst prohibitionists out there paying off ALL our politicians, state and federal (even Bernie Sanders)… and thats Defense Contractors.
Conglamorates like Northrup Grummand have enjoyed operating in relative obscurity, in part because they represent so many different industries its hard to pick which subsidiary is responsible for creating wars from government contracts that pay one hand to “find threats to national security” while the other hand gets paid to clean the war up. Drug wars make this process too easy.
But even when the press catches Blackwater killing innocent people in Iraq indiscriminately they just changed their name to Academi, and went right back to hacking down marijuana in Syria and harvesting poppy in Afghanistan dressed as local police.
All along, defense contractors are donating to all sides and pulling the purse strings of Congress from the shadows ever since the CIA was created after WWII and President Eisenhower warned us of the “Military-Industrial Complex.”
But this Drumph Dis-administration is so greedy he predictably went after these lucrative Defense Contracts and sent the Republican party and the security of the entire planet rolling in disarray.
It should be explained for context that defense contractors dont like marijuana legalization for a variety of reasons. For one, psychoactive marijuana makes people think twice about going to war and non-psychoactive industrial hemp provides nutrition and both provide jobs in the local economy which usually resolves the need for war in the first place. These are perceived threats to lucrative defense contracts. As Ive said many times before, if we really wanted to end the war in Afghanistan we would have replaced the poppy fields with hemp and marijuana decades ago. I would pay good money for a hemp-hand-woven Afghan rug.
Julian,
I know you’re right about all the defense industry’s connections, however diversified, to all the politicos. That industry in my opinion is the greatest danger to America today.
Here in NM, we rely heavily on Fed bucks. And many of those bucks are generated by the “defense” industry. I used to get semi-regular emails from my Senators, Udall and Heinrich, touting their latest accomplishments involving military spending in NM. I usually responded by telling them that money could be far better spent on infrastructure and helping people.
The corporate press has done a good job of making Americans frightened of their own shadows, and the defense industry thrives on that fear.
I would love to hear some Progressive leadership stand up and confront defense contractors with serious legislation that stops all the hat switching or rewarding contractors for instigating wars with clean up contracts like Cheney did to us in Iraq just so Haliburton could build houses in Baghdad andvsend us into a recession. And we would crowd fund them, but to keep Defense Contractors from paying our prize fighters on any side of the aisle from throwing the fight we must first end Citizens United.
And for that, we do three things;
1). Block the Supreme Court nomination until we get Progressive candidates in the White House and CONGRESS to end Citizens United
2). We continue to legalize marijuana at the state level and
3). We get the UN involved to implement world wide decriminalization of marijuana
I like all three of your solutions.
Southern politicians are extremely dangerous. Their ideology is built around Confederate sympathizes that seek “rule of law.” Code words for suppression of freedom and an imposition of Mass Incarnation. Southern states have the highest prison rates in the world due to immoral drug laws. They are racist to the core and they are jealous of the West Coast.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in remarks prepared for delivery this week that he believes marijuana is “only slightly less awful,” than heroin.
“I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable,” reads his prepared statement Wednesday during an appearance with local and federal law enforcement officials in Richmond, Va. “I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana — so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”
http://time.com/4703888/jeff-sessions-marijuana-heroin-opioid/
Jeff Sessions uses the term unfashionable instead of just admitting he does not care about the will of the people. He refuses to even consider using anything other than Big-Pharma products to combat the heroin crisis. He wants to make the private prison industry more profitable by starting a nationwide campaign to lock up anyone using drugs our govt (for whatever stupid/illogical/racist reasons) decided to make illegal.
I consider him, and our so-called president to be about as Un-American as Hitler! For them, it is all about racism and greed. They could care less about the will of the people or what is truly best for our country. When Trump got elected I really hoped I was wrong about him but in his first few months serving in the presidential capacity he is even worse than I ever anticipated.
I wonder how long America will let this bully push us all around…
I`m packin up my arsenal an a headin to Colorado for freedoms last stand against the biggest pack of morons that have not been voted in by a majority of votes.
We all have the right to change the law that for 46 years has destroy life of innocent people including sick Veterans, over age with fibromyalgia, chronic pain and other illness. No more jail industry, stop the abuse from people like Jeff Session. Congress, don’t support money to his madness. Amen
Sessions needs to realize opioid issues are a totally different issue. From the viewpoint of a severe pain sufferer, medical marijuana helps to DECREASE OPIOID USE. The US Supreme Court has let the states vote. There are too many other issues he needs to concentrate on.
Mr. Sessions needs to understand the worlds knowledge of Cannabis use has moved on from 1960’s America.