President
Donald Trump intends to crack down on state legalized recreational marijuana, which is not legal under federal law,
even though he said while campaigning that he thought the legalization of
marijuana should be a state-by-state issue. “That's a reversal from the Obama
administration's stance, which laid out in an official memo that the federal
government wouldn't interfere in states where nonmedical use of marijuana is
allowed.”With his new Attorney General Jeff Sessions in place, the conditions are ripe for Trump to make his move for enforcement of federal marijuana laws.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been antagonistic toward marijuana legalization for a long time. Sessions has made such nonsensical remarks as he thought the Ku Klux Klan “were okay until I found out they smoked pot,” and “good people don’t smoke pot.” He has called marijuana reform “a tragic mistake.”
It’s interesting that Trump and the Republican Party preach small government and states’ rights except when it comes to rights of individuals to make personal choices.
“There goes the libertarian wing of the GOP – into the thicket of bans on personal behavior, not only marijuana but transgender kids using chosen bathrooms, others buying condoms, women getting contraceptive advice, a few getting legal (as opposed to illegal and dangerous) abortions.
“We’ve been here before. It’s the same old grizzly rural puritan Republicans, of whom Sessions is one. But there will be fights with states that do embrace libertarian principles, like California. Therein will lie some of the most fascinating legal dramas to come,” says Robert Reich.
