Jeff Sessions: Marijuana Is Only Slightly Less Awful Than Heroin

[Calculating]

Hey Sessions, maybe you should quit preaching reefer madness and get to work on that massive opiate epidemic ravaging the nation.

Did I die in my sleep and wake up in Hell or something? How are these nutjobs running our government? We have a head of the EPA who denies basic climate science, a POTUS who tweets insane stuff about wiretapping, and now the head of the DOJ saying that cannabis is only 'Slightly less awful than heroin'. It's like I cannot even respect or come up with a dignified response to such statements. They're just completely stupid as fuck, ignorant, corrupt and wrong. If our nation makes it through these next 4 years intact it will be some kind of miracle. God save us all!

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2017/03/15/jeff-sessions-marijuana-slightly-less-awful-heroin/
Jeff Sessions, the U.S. Attorney General, had some typically harsh words about marijuana today, at a time when legal pot supporters in Massachusetts and elsewhere are on high alert over how the new government will treat the drug.

In prepared remarks for a speech to law enforcement in Richmond today, he outlined his stance on marijuana use, which he has long opposed, saying that “dependency” on it 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. 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.

[LOL Lib]

1. Always been curious about H. Think I will give it a try now.

[NightWatcher]

15. I had some H sprinkled on some weed. The H is much worse

[hatrack]

2. AG Rufus T. Hounddog has shit where his brains should be . . .

How unfortunate that he's only 71 years old.

[mythology]

3. You're looking at it all wrong

Try looking at it like this, heroin and marijuana are very close in a societal harm comparison if you add a third marker to compare against. For example, heroin is only slightly worse than marijuana if you compare them to the societal harm done by say having Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

[GWC58]

4. Sessions is willfully ignorant &

deliberately dense on this issue.

[Panich52]

5. Ignorant twit is only slightly less toxic than Trump

[Leith]

6. Where Does He Put Alcohol on That List?

That's the drug that has done more harm than any other. You can get even nicotine now without destroying your health or local atmosphere.

[Initech]

43. I wonder where he puts prescription pain killers?

Those drugs are far more addicting and harmful than marijuana ever was or would be. And his home state has one of the highest percentage of painkiller addicts out there.

[TDale313]

7. Unfortunately, keeping pot illegal

Makes absolute sense from his point of view. Pharmaceutical companies don't want it legal, you keep the private prisons full- disproportionately with people of color. And when they do get out, you disenfranchise them- some for life. It's disgusting, and has very little to do with any real harm smoking marijuana actually does.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Well, he's full of shit, but it may be important to read between the lines, here.

I suspect he's tacitly admitting that the Feds don't have anything like the resources to go in and wage an enforcement war against the growing #s of states that have legalized, as well as state-legal cannabis businesses.

Beyond that, doing so would fly in the face of not just what Trump said on the matter during the campaign, it would also go against Sessions' own decades of "States Rights" Yosemite Sam Bargling.

But Sessions has all these right-wing Lawn Order doofii like Hugh Hewitt on his ass, demanding that he "do something" about legal weed. Simple fact is, he probably can't. If he's done any real investigating into the matter at the DOJ, he's found out that the Cole Memo was not a product of Obama having a "yay pot" attitude, but rather it was the Feds themselves taking a hard appraisal of the situation and realizing they didn't have very many appealing options. People make quite a bit out of the years of raids on California medical mj businesses, however often lost in the discussion is the fact that Colorado's medical marijuana program, even before they legalized recreational, was a much tighter and legally sound regulatory scheme than California's Prop 215. And in comparison to CA, the feds left CO largely alone, even then.

215 was groundbreaking, to be sure, however it did not so much change CA law on Marijuana as provide a defense for users and caregivers- as such, it did not create the same conflict btw federal and state law that CO's law did, and left the door open IMHO to raids at the federal level.

The point here, is, there's a reason why the Feds aren't coming in and shutting down the well-regulated state marijuana businesses, and it isn't just because the previous administration took a supposedly "permissive" approach. Could they? Yeah, they probably could. But it would not be easy or simple or even necessarily legally sound, much less politically tenable.

So what Sessions is doing, here, is trying to placate the Hugh Hewitt crowd by promising that he's gonna bully pulpit the shit out of legal weed and go all "reefer madness" every chance he gets. And I suspect Federal enforcement will focus on things like interstate transport of weed, etc. Sure, it's maddening to hear him spout stupid lies about pot every five minutes. But from the perspective of state-legal marijuana businesses, who the fuck cares?

[underpants]

36. Those damned Hippies!

Great post.

He is fighting a battle from the 60's - the "church crowd" didn't take to kindly to people actually living like Jesus.


Hannity's father explains

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Hey, man. Even Joe Friday says LSD is da bomb

[underpants]

39. That is one clean cut drug dealer

Joe talks fast.

[lunasun]

9. WTF?? Too much moonshine JB? Crazy talk

[WheelWalker]

10. What drives this idiocy, imo, is the recognition of the potential for societal systems change

implicated by the free use of Cannabis and the psychedelics.

[link:http://www.maps.org/news/bulletin/articles/407-bulletin-spring-2016/6098-psychedelics-and-systems-change-%E2%80%94-spring-2016|

[Warren DeMontague]

18. On a deeper level, you may be right.

Interesting read.

[marylandblue]

11. Can we send him some brownies so he can test his theory himself?

[Calculating]

13. I sometimes wonder if these people would be different if they had ever tried mj

Because clearly Sessions hasn't.

[sarcasmo]

12. The state of Colorado has a Billion to fight this Douche Nozzle.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I think the takeaway here is that he's gonna do a Nancy Reagan impression

he's gonna sit up there in his perch in the Keebler tree and tell the chill'uns how terrible the wacky weed is, but he realizes that if states legalize there's not a ton he can do about it.

That's fine. He can spout stupid shit all day long about how awful pot is, if my state is still taking in tax revenue and not battling the feds on this deal.

[Worktodo]

14. It's too bad

Lots of public health data from around the world on how to treat opiod addition. The problem here in the US is that we treat drug addiction as a law enforcement problem and not a public health problem. That's not Jeff Session's fault. He's just trying to be the best darn prosecutor he can be. He went to law school not med school. The War on Drugs is a structural defect. Sessions comments are just a symptom.

[ecstatic]

16. I wonder if Jeff Sessions' real motives are related to

the forced birth movement? He's a white supremacist who is against birth control, abortion, etc. Why? Because white women are having fewer babies, and babies of color are now the majority. Also, there are studies circulating that marijuana dramatically reduces male fertility. If Sessions believes that to be true, then he would view marijuana as a threat.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Those studies are bullshit.

Trust me on this. If they weren't, none of the people I used to go on Dead tour with would have needed to use birth control.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. You've Attributed Too Much To Jeffy

He's not that deep nor informed

[spanone]

17. oh beauregard, hush your mouth

ignorant fool

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

19. Taking American back

to the 1930s.

[AgadorSparticus]

20. Well, when you pull shit out of your ass, you sound like sessions.

What an illiterate asshat. Fuck clinical studies and science. We are just going to make up shit about mj because it is messing with our friends in big pharma.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. More consequential, from a policy perspective, was probably his Q&A with reporters immediately after

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-legal-marijuana_us_58c967c0e4b03b1fc5cf5ca8

"Essentially we’re not able to go into a state and pick up the work that the police and sheriffs have been doing for decades," he said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/jeff-sessions-takes-questions-about-russia/

[Cha]

24. yeah, and he never met with the Russians

[Warren DeMontague]

25. What's enjoyable about this, however, is he is essentially acknowledging

that all he can actually do about the 8 states that have legalized marijuana, is complain.

[Cha]

27. Well, that's good! Complain and Lie, Lie and Complain..

States Rights and all that, sessions.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. I could be wrong, but buried in this and the Q&A that followed

is pretty much an acknowledgement to that effect.

http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/jeff-sessions-takes-questions-about-russia/

(animated elf begins talking about weed at 4:20 ... honest)

I don't doubt that he wants to do more, he's certainly getting pressure from right-wing authoritarians to do more, but, realistically, I'm not sure he can, states rights or no.

That's one thing that I think gets lost in this debate- it may not matter too much who is running the show in DC or the DOJ-- the Cole Memo grew out of a recognition of the simple fact that on-the-ground drug law enforcement is not feasible from the federal level. If the States won't help them out, there's a very limited amount they can actually do.

[Cha]

29. Thank you for your analysis, WD..

This makes me happy.. I know it makes you happy!

[Warren DeMontague]

32. ...

[kimbutgar]

26. Maybe if Sessions smoked some reefer he'd be more chill and enlightened

Instead of being the brain dead racist zombie he is!

[burnbaby]

30. apparently he has never had a child addicted to heroin

or a loved one in pain or with cancer were marijuana could have brought some comfort to them. This pisses me off, but it is a fight he will lose

[Warren DeMontague]

33. It's ridiculous. People die from alcohol withdrawls, ffs

No one needs hospitalization for life-threatening physiological shit like th DTs when they quit cannabis. No one.

[burnbaby]

34. yep

I should have mentioned that too

[GWC58]

40. To be lost not soon enough!!

[underpants]

35. It tends make everyone unfocused and slow down the cross burnings

[Calculating]

41. Nah

Remember, Sessions had no problem with those good folks of the Klan until he learned that they smoked weed.

[LTG]

37. Money laundering might be one angle of attack.

The Justice Department can threaten banks with the violation of money laundering laws. This was a big concern initially, until the Feds signaled they would not be seeking to punish banks and credit card companies for providing services to pot shops.

Most banks initially refused accounts to any business in the pot industry. This forced growers, transporters and sellers into being cash businesses. Having huge amounts of cash on hand creates a huge security and safety issue.

The Feds simply need to notify financial service providers that they've reevaluated the situation and will begin enforcing the applicable federal laws. I think most of them would fall into line very quickly.

Banks would be subject to seizures, fines and other sanctions, as would suppliers and stores. The RICO Act would also apply. Raids could end up actually profitable.

The Justice Department has some teeth to enforce with, even without local law enforcement assistance.

[NastyRiffraff]

42. Sessions is only slightly less awful than Dump

But then, understanding what marijuana and heroin do involves icky science stuff that only liberals like.

[Johonny]

44. It's stupid talk like this that leads people into heroin and other more dangerous drugs

because hey, that pot wasn't so bad and I heard heroins just as bad so what's the big deal...

Lying hurts public health.

[A HERETIC I AM]

45. These are the types of people who never got high when they were younger....

because they were such douchebags even back then, no one WANTED to get high with them.