{"id":17045,"date":"2017-06-12T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/12\/legalization-in-trumps-america-skating-on-thin-ice\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T22:27:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T06:27:09","slug":"legalization-in-trumps-america-skating-on-thin-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2017\/06\/12\/legalization-in-trumps-america-skating-on-thin-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Legalization in Trump\u2019s America: Skating on Thin Ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With an aggressive executive branch openly defying constitutional checks on its authority and installing noted prohibitionists in key positions, will the Trump administration make America raid again? The cannabis industry\u2019s general policy seems to be avoidance of \u201cbad vibes\u201d at all costs \u2014\u00a0 even when that means ignoring the pounding vibrations of an oncoming freight train. The first few weeks of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency have revealed an unprecedented disregard for the constitutional checks and balances on the executive branch. That doesn\u2019t bode well for an industry already precariously balanced on a tenuous high-wire of precedents, amendments and memos. The problem isn\u2019t just that Trump and key members of his cabinet have spoken out against legalization and in favor of enforcing federal drug law in decriminalized states, although they have \u2014\u00a0there are multiple layers to the fear and loathing the cannabis is (or should be) feeling about the future. By now, anybody with even a cursory interest in cannabis policy news has heard the oft-quoted quip from new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, \u201cGood people do not smoke marijuana.\u201d This missive, though obviously inflammatory and false, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the new AG\u2019s extreme prohibitionist stance on cannabis: as Alabama\u2019s AG he pushed for legislation mandating death sentences for second-timed drug trafficking offenses \u2014\u00a0including cannabis. It\u2019s not even just that Trump rejected the rulings of four different federal judges who placed holds on deportations connected to his controversial \u201cMuslim ban,\u201d as disturbing as that is in its own right. It\u2019s his administration\u2019s justification, vis-a-vis spokesperson Kellyanne Conway, who attempted to undermine the authority of those judges by pointing out that they were \u201cObama appointees,\u201d that should be giving the cannabis world pause. For those of us counting on (or hoping for) the federal government to maintain the status quo \u2014 an uneasy peace between stagnant federal policy and the rapidly evolving sphere of state-level cannabis law \u2014\u00a0the implications of that partisan distinction are chilling. Because the Department of Justice\u2019s recent \u201chands off\u201d approach to enforcement in legalized states is largely attributable to an \u201cObama appointee\u201d \u2014\u00a0former Deputy AG James Cole. There are other contributing legislative and legal factors, but on balance it\u2019s the figurative federal ceasefire declared in the \u201cCole Memo\u201d that\u2019s offered decriminalized states \u2014\u00a0particularly adult use-legal states \u2014\u00a0breathing room to self-regulate with minimal fear of federal interference. Now the future of that memo rests in the hands of America\u2019s top cop; Jeff Sessions, a man NORML\u2019s executive director, Erik Altieri, called \u201ca true believer in outdated reefer madness rhetoric.\u201d And with Congress making forward motion on an estimated more than $10 billion construction project for a wall along the southern border with Mexico, it would appear that the Trump white house is sparing no expense in the realization of its national vision. Meaning those pointing to the massive cost of a national crackdown on cannabis as prohibitively expensive are \u2014\u00a0to parrot a previous Republican president \u2014\u00a0\u201cmisunderestimating\u201d Trump and company. Add to that the\u2026
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