It seems that President Trump has finally let his U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, out of his cage. The \u201cgood people don\u2019t smoke marijuana,\u201d guiding force of the Justice Department has been mostly silent with his opinions on marijuana ever since Trump stood on the White House lawn months ago and said he would \u201cprobably\u201d support a measure intended to give states the freedom to legalize marijuana however they see fit. But just last week, Sessions finally crawled out of wherever he\u2019s been hiding and conniving to reiterate Justice Department\u2019s anti-pot position, saying, \u201cstates have a right to set their own laws and will do so, and we will follow the federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was at a recent press conference in Boston regarding the immigration issue when reporters\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0Sessions whether states would continue to have the freedom to legalize marijuana. Remember, Sessions took it upon himself earlier this year to\u00a0rescind the non-binding Obama-era Cole Memo<\/a>, which has given states the breathing room to experiment with marijuana legalization without much federal interference.<\/p>\n But rather than come clean with the media and tell them something like, \u201clook, the Justice Department hasn\u2019t taken any action against legal marijuana in over a year and a half, and even if we wanted to we simply don\u2019t have the resources to shut it down,\u201d he continued to rile the scene with his usual prohibition psychobabble, \u201cwe will follow the federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n The attorney general went on to elaborate on his response: \u201cThe American republic will not be better if there are marijuana sales on every street corner.\u201d However, no mention was made of Trump and his recent\u00a0comments<\/a>\u00a0about support siding with Senator Cory Gardner\u2019s Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States Act (STATES Act).<\/p>\n Despite the fact that the U.S. government still considers marijuana a Schedule I dangerous drug, the cannabis industry is one of the\u00a0fastest-growing<\/a>\u00a0business sectors in the United States. Some of the\u00a0latest data<\/a>\u00a0shows that national cannabis sales are on track to hit $75 billion by 2030 \u2014 surpassing the soda industry. More importantly, legal weed is creating mass amounts of new jobs \u2014 something that President Trump swore during his campaign that the country would see more of once he took office. A recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from Zip Recruiter shows that job growth in the cannabis sector was up 445 percent in 2017. The advent of legal marijuana sales in the handful of states that have chosen to embrace it has had such an enormous impact that some experts say a \u201ccrackdown\u201d on legal weed\u00a0could spawn a recession<\/a>. This is because the cannabis industry doesn\u2019t just create work for cannabis enthusiasts \u2014 it also indirectly provides jobs for contractors (electricians, plumbers, construction workers), realtors, and contributes vastly to the tourism trade.<\/p>\n It is for this reason that former Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole, the man responsible for drafting the infamous Cole Memo in the first place, doesn\u2019t believe the cannabis industry has much to worry about with respect to a crackdown. Although Cole says the Department of Justice could unleash this wrath, it is \u201cunlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n During a recent speech at the National Cannabis Industry Association\u2019s Cannabis Business Summit, Cole\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0he has not \u201cseen a spate of prosecution (since) the Cole Memo\u201d was put in the trash. He went on to explain that because the country has \u201c93 U.S. attorneys who are all given their own individual discretion,\u201d and are \u201cby and large political animals,\u201d they probably wouldn\u2019t take an \u201caggressive approach\u201d to legal weed and risk \u201cdefying the will of the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n The scenario Cole believes is most likely is a U.S. Attorney in a prohibition state creating a dust-up against pot businesses operating in a legal jurisdiction. \u201cYou\u2019ve had U.S. attorneys offices that have spread their jurisdictional arm very, very far to bring cases in their district against entities that weren\u2019t in their district. They touch the district in one way or another. So, it\u2019s possible to do,\u201d he said, adding that he isn\u2019t aware of any such plan.<\/p>\n Yet, cannabis businesses that are operating in compliance with state law are still at risk of legal trouble as long as the federal government considers marijuana an illegal drug.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could make the point that we don\u2019t care about state law. We only care about the Controlled Substances Act, under federal law. You violated, you\u2019re in trouble,\u201d Cole\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n But it is more likely that Sessions and his cronies would target cannabis businesses that have \u201cbroken the law by selling to minors, failing to pay taxes, or shipping their product across state lines,\u201d he added. Going after investors could also be a tactical move. The U.S. Border Patrol is\u00a0already doing this<\/a>\u00a0at some level.<\/p>\n Unless a cannabis company is operating outside of the law, they probably do not have to worry about a crackdown. But they need to be \u201cdiligent\u201d and \u201cwilling to go above and beyond what state law requires, says former federal prosecutor Andrew Kline.<\/p>\n Temporary amendments, like the\u00a0Rohrabacher-Blumenauer<\/a>\u00a0rider, which prevents the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana operations, can only shield the industry so much. The marijuana issue is now at the point where Congressional\u00a0action is required to keep it from becoming unhinged. Especially now that\u00a0Canada<\/a>\u00a0has gone fully legal. Cole says something cannabis-related cooking on the Hill, but he\u2019s not certain what it is. He told those in attendance of the recent cannabis summit that, \u201cthere\u2019s a bipartisan majority in both houses for something\u201d but \u201cwhat that something is, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think a cannabis crackdown is coming?<\/p>\n The post AG Sessions Could Crackdown On Legal Weed, But \u2018Unlikely\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
It seems that President Trump has finally let his U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, out of his cage. The \u201cgood people don\u2019t smoke marijuana,\u201d guiding force of the Justice Department has been mostly silent with his opinions on marijuana ever since Trump stood on the White House lawn months agoContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,897,96,81,217,700,5190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28278,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28277\/revisions\/28278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: AG Sessions Could Crackdown On Legal Weed, But \u2018Unlikely\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"