Jeff Sessions Goes Full 'Reefer Madness' on Pot

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/42504-focus-jeff-sessions-goes-full-reefer-madness-on-pot



By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
16 March 17


Attorney general says marijuana is "only slightly less awful" than heroin

Attorney General Jeff Sessions continued a personal campaign to demonize marijuana, calling cannabis a "life-wrecking dependency" that is "only slightly less awful" than heroin in a speech on violent crime in Richmond, Virginia, Wednesday.

Insisting that the federal government should return to a Nancy Reagan-style, 1980s anti-drug campaign – "educating people and telling them the terrible truth" about controlled substances – Sessions conflated the nation's opioid addiction and overdose crisis, which now claims 140 lives a day, with marijuana, a drug he said will "destroy your life."

Sessions has no facts on his side. The use of medical pot as a painkiller can provide an alternative to opioids, and many in recovery cite cannabis as lessening the agony of opiate withdrawal. Research published on the federal government's own DrugAbuse.gov website finds that states with medical marijuana programs have reported "reductions of 16 to 31 percent in mortality due to prescription opioid overdoses, and 28 to 35 percent in admissions for treatment of opioid addiction."

No matter, Sessions cast his ignorance as bold, "unfashionable" truth-telling. The attorney general's remarks on marijuana follow:

"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."

Answering reporters' follow-up questions, Sessions added that, "I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much" and declared himself "dubious" about benefits of smoked marijuana.

Despite the Drug War saber-rattling, Sessions proceeded to offer a vague note of reassurance on the future of state-legal recreational marijuana. The attorney general said that "much" of the Cole memo – the Obama DOJ guidance deprioritizing federal pot enforcement in states that have legalized – is "valid," and he recognized that federal law enforcement is "not able to go into a state and pick up the work that police and sheriffs have been doing for decades."

*****************

The last time I talked to Denny Haesert in person he was ranting about zero tolerance of all drugs. He would get angry at even a suggestion of legalization of Pot. All the while he had a immorality in his closet while moralizing about individual freedoms in America which include smoking some pot. He is going to jail. Sessions can lie to congress and then turn his head and talk about drugs from a moral stand point while ignoring the significant drops in heroin abuse in states where pot has been legalized. I do not understand what drives these freaks, but history tells us prohibition does not work.

2seaoat wrote:The last time I talked to Denny Haesert in person he was ranting about zero tolerance of all drugs.   He would get angry at even a suggestion of legalization of Pot.  All the while he had a immorality  in his closet while moralizing about individual freedoms in America which include smoking some pot.  He is going to jail.  Sessions can lie to congress and then turn his head and talk about drugs from a moral stand point while ignoring the significant drops in heroin abuse in states where pot has been legalized.    I do not understand what drives these freaks, but history tells us prohibition does not work.

I hear the GEO Group has a fantastic lobby and gives "bigly" to politicians. The Orange Oompa Loompa has reversed Obama's ban of private federal prisons/detention centers. The math is simple. Ask Marco Rubio.

I can't stand these progressive prohibitions and social engineerings. You can't pick and choose the ones you agree with because one is built upon another and enables the other. The correct understanding is that there are pitfalls to freedom and that these failures are natural... that's nature.

These article's about Session's and mj started right after Spicer said they would enforce the law. Every time Session's mentions the words marijuana the mj stocks go down, then the next day go back up a little.

I don't think this guy has any right bringing morals into mj considering his past, the little bastard, put little red dots on his face and he'd look like howdy doody. He's nothing but a puppet anyway.

othershoe1030 wrote:The drug "problem" we have in this country is a symptom of some of our other problems. In Portugal no drugs are illegal, no one is arrested for drug usage. They have a universal health care system (surprise) that offers treatment for those wishing to kick the habit. Drug use has gone down in Portugal and their policy is working for them.

I would encourage anyone who has not seen Michael Moore's movie "Where to Invade Next" to do so. As it shows, once again Americans have been totally brainwashed by our culture/government/traditions into believing we have the best way of doing EVERYTHING and that the rest of the world is void of any workable ideas. This view must change.

I digress. For much of our history pot was not illegal and then in the 1930's we decided, not based on science or medicine, that it was a dangerous item. As usual there were covert political reasons for our desire to make it illegal. Here is a good link to the background on pot legislation and history.  Sometimes I can't believe the chitz we will go along with.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

Hell it was used as an analgesic before aspirin came out.

I have 4 clients my age or a little older that are member's of a vets motorcycle club all retired military from Colonels down to E-5's that Session's view on mj is not setting for well with them. All Trump voter's too.

It is pretty simple. One of the first things that Sessions did was stop the phasing out of use of private prisons. Those folks make campaign contributions. Big Pharm makes campaign contributions. Take a look at the folks in Colorado, California, and Oregon who spent millions to fight legalization of pot. It is not hard to connect the dots. You put more black and brown people in jail, and folks profit. You sell more big pharm medications and alcohol sales go down and you think Sessions is talking about morality........I think not.

Well when the U.S. loses the billion's of tax dollar's the undocumented immigrants pays into the system each year and cuts taxes and all the coal mining and manufacturing jobs don't magically appear, maybe and just maybe a light bulb will go off above one of our leader's (and I say that lightly) and they'll look at mj and online gambling as a tax resource and jobs.

Coal mining is dead. Manufacturing jobs if they come back, will hire robot's for the most part.

Sessions and his morals. His dream was always to be in charge of the nation's legal system and what soul he had left, sold it. In my wildest dreams I could never see him and Trump in any shape or form working together. But he does fit right in with Bannon and Miller. Bannon is good friend's with the Mercer's who are pulling the strings. Read a good article on them yesterday.