Critics - Trump’s Attorney General Nod ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ For Marijuana Regulation

Katelyn Baker;3099570 said:

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, represents a “worst-case scenario” for the future of legalized cannabis in Humboldt County, local officials said Friday.

Sessions, a Republican and loyal supporter of Trump, has previously called marijuana “dangerous” and said that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

John Hudack, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said Session’s appointment should “scare the hell out of the marijuana industry.”

“I think there is a chance that, a year from now, the marijuana industry looks exactly like it does today,” Hudack told The Denver Post on Friday. “I think there’s a pretty big chance that the marijuana industry looks very different and finds itself in the throes of battling an activist attorney general.”

With over half the nation’s states having legalized medical and/or recreational marijuana as of the Nov. 8 election, a Department of Justice headed by Sessions could result in an about-face in enforcement of federal marijuana prohibition. Some in Humboldt County could only guess what Sessions would do if confirmed.

“We’re truthfully and honestly unafraid for what will come because in California we are not backsliding on our values,” California Growers Association Executive Director Hezekiah Allen said. “For the first time in my life, the state is our ally on that. I think it will get messy though. I think we’ll know more in mid-February about the scope of the challenge we’re dealing with.”

Attempts to contact Sessions were not immediately returned Friday.

Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid, rallying behind the Republican’s hardline immigration policies. On Friday, Trump called Sessions “a world-class legal mind.”

But Sessions could face obstacles in his confirmation hearing, even with Republicans in control of the Senate. He withdrew from consideration for a federal judgeship in 1986 after being accused of making racist comments while serving as a U.S. attorney in Alabama, including calling a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy” in conversation. Sessions denied the accusation.

That same assistant U.S. attorney also stated that Sessions had said the Ku Klux Klan was fine “until I found out they smoked pot,” which Sessions dismissed as a joke remark, according to The New York Times.

North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman called Sessions “one of the greatest minds of the 1800s” and called him a “terrible choice” that was likely obligatory for Trump due to Sessions’ early support.

Huffman (D-San Rafael) said he hopes some Republican senators will oppose Sessions’ appointment due to red flag issues such as Sessions’ “atrocious civil rights record” and opposition to marijuana legalization regulations.

“My hope is that the resistance emerges in the Senate, that (Sessions) is either withdrawn or appointed to a different position where he might not be so odious and we can move forward with someone in the attorney general’s office that is actually from this century,” Huffman said.

Trump has stated on the campaign trail that marijuana regulation should be an issue left up to states. The question is whether Sessions would follow the same rhetoric as his boss.

“How you reconcile those two opinions will be interesting to watch in the coming months,” North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said. “Sen. Sessions will take this country back to the 1950s when it comes to our drug policy. There are so many aspects of this administration that will take California backwards.”

Sessions has tangled with the past two Democratic attorney generals on whether terrorism suspects deserve American constitutional rights in civilian court and on the planned closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He’s also been protective of the attorney general’s right to refuse a legally unsound directive from the president.

The federal government may lack the capacity to shut down every marijuana business or jail every operator, but Hudack said that it “can make life absolutely miserable” for states with reform measures in place. That could come from both enforcement and litigation, he said.

Sessions would also have the authority to modify or repeal the existing Cole memo the Justice Department issued in 2013, which provided non-binding guidelines to federal agencies that called on them to not intervene in states that have existing marijuana regulations.

The Cole memo allowed for California and Humboldt County to pass new laws to further regulate and expand the medical marijuana industry.

Previously under the Obama administration, Humboldt County’s attempts to regulate medical marijuana cultivation and dispensaries were put on hold for several years in 2011 after U.S. Attorney’s Office sent letters stating it would prosecute any agencies that attempted to allow for expansion of the industry.

Humboldt County Board of Supervisors Chairman and 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace said that prohibition has allowed for the rise and growth of many of the environmental and criminal impacts in the industry.

“They’re still stuck in a moralistic position that is totally counterproductive and at the root of all the harm we’ve seen for so many years,” Lovelace said of Sessions’ opposition to marijuana legalization.

Lovelace, who was openly against Trump in the election, called Sessions’ comment that only bad people smoke marijuana a “stupid and ignorant position.”

“If you wanted to say that bad people are only racist, fascist, sexist, misogynistic demagogues, I would agree with that,” Lovelace said.

Humboldt County was able to implement its medical cannabis commercial rules in February after the state Legislature passed its own rules on the industry over a year ago.

On Nov. 8, California joined seven other states that have legalized recreational cannabis use.

Allen said the diversity of states with medical cannabis laws on the books will likely make it difficult for Sessions and the Trump administration to back track, but stated it would not be prudent to expect they’ll treat recreational use the same.

“We may actually find ourselves in a federally imposed distinction between medical and recreational use,” Allen said.

North Coast California Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) was one of the authors of the state’s newer medical marijuana rules and agreed that Sessions could have an impact on California’s regulations.

“Under President Obama’s Administration, the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, which was co-authored by California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, prohibits federal funds from being spent to prevent the implementation of state medical marijuana laws — of course we would be concerned about any changes to that by a new attorney general in the Trump Administration,” Wood wrote in a statement to the Times-Standard. “Given that more states have recently added the approval of recreational marijuana, many more Americans have a much different perspective than Sen. Sessions.”

Alex Moore of Honeydew Farms in Honeydew was one of the first and largest medical marijuana cultivation businesses to receive a business permit from Humboldt County this year. But he’s not worried that the federal government will begin raiding legally permitted businesses, especially when over half the nation has legalized medicinal marijuana. Moore said Trump may even decriminalize marijuana should public opinion continue to shift in favor of it, though he stated that Trump’s own shifting policy stances may make that possibility an unknown.

“Trump is a businessman and when it comes to tax dollars, my personal opinion is that going after cannabis is not going to be high on his agenda,” Moore said. “Right now from what I’ve been reading, it seems that among Americans, cannabis is polling around 60 percent in favor that it should be legalized.”

News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Critics - Trump’s Attorney General Nod ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ For Marijuana Regulation
Author: Will Houston
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Website: Times Standard

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