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Trump's attorney general pick is bad news for legal marijuana

Dittohead not!

Dittohead not!

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Trump's attorney general pick is bad news for legal marijuana

President-elect Donald Trump tapped Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to be his attorney general on Friday morning.
Despite a landslide of states voting to legalize recreational and medical marijuana on Election Day, Sessions, if confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is bad news for marijuana legislation.
Sessions said in an April Senate hearing on marijuana reform that "good people don't smoke marijuana." Sessions also pointed to the tenuous theory that marijuana is a gateway drug, and said that, "you'll see cocaine and heroin increase more than it would have."
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His view is quite at odds with Trump's expressed opinion on the matter. So, what will happen next? We have several states now that have gone against federal law and legalized pot.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Trump's attorney general pick is bad news for legal marijuana



His view is quite at odds with Trump's expressed opinion on the matter. So, what will happen next? We have several states now that have gone against federal law and legalized pot.
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Trump doesn't actually care, so nothing will change. His AG will just steamroll civil liberties. I predict the amount of damage done to civil liberties over the next 4 years will put Bush and Obama to shame. Phone tapping, an internet database, and threatening to ban abortion will look small.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Trump's attorney general pick is bad news for legal marijuana



His view is quite at odds with Trump's expressed opinion on the matter. So, what will happen next? We have several states now that have gone against federal law and legalized pot.
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Practically speaking, it would be a waste of political capitol. Public opinion is, for the most part, pro legalization / anti prohibition, even a majority of republican voters favor legalization now. If they pursue anything along these lines, after Trump saying on record that it should be left to the states, it will cost more than they should be willing to pay on what is essentially a minor issue overall. That doesn't mean they won't of course. We'll see. I do know that rolling back legalization, at this point, would be incredibly difficult, create a huge backlash (especially among the "Lets wait and see how he does before we go protesting" crowd), and states could challenge the constitutionality of federal marijuana prohibition. It would be ugly, and they'd spend a lot of time and effort not doing other things with their temporary total control of the US government.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Trump's attorney general pick is bad news for legal marijuana



His view is quite at odds with Trump's expressed opinion on the matter. So, what will happen next? We have several states now that have gone against federal law and legalized pot.
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The DOJ under Obama enforced law as they wished it was written. This group was slowed. That company was shut down. This law is enforced and that one is ignored.

Law enforcement is not charged with being lawmakers. They are charged with enforcing the law that exists consistently and fairly.

A good way to fight off the efforts of an Attorney General enforcing a law that is not just is to pass a new law the de-criminalizes the act in question.

Our lawmakers are called on to do their job.
 
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FieldTheorist said:
Trump doesn't actually care, so nothing will change. His AG will just steamroll civil liberties. I predict the amount of damage done to civil liberties over the next 4 years will put Bush and Obama to shame. Phone tapping, an internet database, and threatening to ban abortion will look small.
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Obviously, these things were done by the DOJ and the IRS under Obama.

What do you base your prediction on as the Trump administration takes over?
 
The fact is, legal pot isn't that big of a deal..

I think pot should be legal, but don't care if it isn't because I'm used to it.. Whatevs..
 
code1211 said:
The DOJ under Obama enforced law as they wished it was written. This group was slowed. That company was shut down. This law is enforced and that one is ignored.

Law enforcement is not charged with being lawmakers. They are charged with enforcing the law that exists consistently and fairly.

A good way to fight off the efforts of an Attorney General enforcing a law that is not just is to pass a new law the de-criminalizes the act in question.

Our lawmakers are called on to do their job.
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and no doubt they will, just as soon as they're finished with the partisan bickering.
 
Studies have long been done and have been proven true in Colorado regarding legalized pot: 1) an increase in pot users, 2) more underage people have access to brain-damaging pot, 3) more traffic fatalities caused by drivers DUI of pot, 4) less pot users in jail (just the illegal dealers caught selling in the considerably cheaper black market), and 5) an increase in tax revenues.

Where you come down on this depends on what you value more.

What Sessions does will depend on a combination of his values and his marching orders.
 
The Justice Department has only so many resources. I doubt Mr. Trump will want many of them used to prosecute marijuana violations, at the expense of other more pressing needs.
 
Ontologuy said:
Studies have long been done and have been proven true in Colorado regarding legalized pot: 1) an increase in pot users, 2) more underage people have access to brain-damaging pot, 3) more traffic fatalities caused by drivers DUI of pot, 4) less pot users in jail (just the illegal dealers caught selling in the considerably cheaper black market), and 5) an increase in tax revenues.

Where you come down on this depends on what you value more.

What Sessions does will depend on a combination of his values and his marching orders.
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Pot Use Among Colorado Teens Appears to Drop After Legalization


Marijuana use among Colorado high school students appears to be declining, despite the state’s pioneering voter-approved experiment with legalization.
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(or perhaps because of it)
 
Dittohead not! said:
Pot Use Among Colorado Teens Appears to Drop After Legalization




(or perhaps because of it)
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But you're missing the reason we simply cannot trust such a direct and open poll of underage kids anymore about their pot use .. thanks to legalization itself that's changed who the distributors are.

Because law enforcement is now famously focused on neighborhoods of regular families as being the source of pot, adults, parents, growing/buying it themselves ..

.. And law enforcement is not out hunting the black market seller like they use to ..

.. Kids know that if they told the truth about their increased pot use that law enforcement might begin a big investigation .. which would get their parents in big trouble!

Such a conflict of interest will forever skew such a poll in pot-legal states.

But the Rand study's intelligent analysis back in the 2008 California vote remains true.

This information can be realized through usage statistics and teen trend analysis with regard to the cultures teens frequent and the likelihood of pot's presence.

These are the informally gathered information elements that can be trusted.
 
Ontologuy said:
But you're missing the reason we simply cannot trust such a direct and open poll of underage kids anymore about their pot use .. thanks to legalization itself that's changed who the distributors are.

Because law enforcement is now famously focused on neighborhoods of regular families as being the source of pot, adults, parents, growing/buying it themselves ..

.. And law enforcement is not out hunting the black market seller like they use to ..

.. Kids know that if they told the truth about their increased pot use that law enforcement might begin a big investigation .. which would get their parents in big trouble!

Such a conflict of interest will forever skew such a poll in pot-legal states.

But the Rand study's intelligent analysis back in the 2008 California vote remains true.

This information can be realized through usage statistics and teen trend analysis with regard to the cultures teens frequent and the likelihood of pot's presence.

These are the informally gathered information elements that can be trusted.
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Informally gathered information like this?

But the CDC report didn’t just measure youth usage, it also measured drug availability on Colorado school grounds. The report shows:



Availability of drugs on school grounds in Colorado went down 5 percent from 2009 (22.7 percent) to 2011 (17.2 percent).
Nationally, illegal drugs offered, sold or given on school property was up 3.1 percent from 2009 (22.7 percent) to 2011 (25.6 percent).
Availability of illegal drugs on school grounds in Colorado is below the national average by 8.4 percent — 17.2 percent in Colorado, 25.6 percent in the U.S.
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code1211 said:
Obviously, these things were done by the DOJ and the IRS under Obama.
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Obama hasn't been a champion on these issues, that's for sure (Although I don't think there's any evidence that Obama was involved in the IRS scandal).

What do you base your prediction on as the Trump administration takes over?
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His transition team and stated cabinet picks. Two white supremacists and anti-Civil Rights picks is not good.
 
The administration can be expected to take up the heroin problem, but I dont expect them to take an interest in weed.
 
FieldTheorist said:
Obama hasn't been a champion on these issues, that's for sure (Although I don't think there's any evidence that Obama was involved in the IRS scandal).



His transition team and stated cabinet picks. Two white supremacists and anti-Civil Rights picks is not good.
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Who are the white supremacists and who is the anti-civil rights person and what is the evidence of your assertion?
 
Hawkeye10 said:
The administration can be expected to take up the heroin problem, but I dont expect them to take an interest in weed.
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Legalizing weed very well may be a lead to decreasing some of the heroine(opiate) problem.

Using marijuana could help some alcoholics and people addicted to opioids kick their habits, a UBC study has found.

"Research suggests that people may be using cannabis as an exit drug to reduce the use of substances that are potentially more harmful, such as opioid pain medication,"

Walsh and his team systematically reviewed all studies of medical cannabis and mental health, as well as reviews on non-medical cannabis use--making the review one of the most comprehensive reports to date on the effects of medical cannabis on mental health.
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Medical cannabis may help treat mental health problems and opioid addiction

Witman, who works in a Massachusetts Canna Care clinic, has treated about 80 patients who were addicted to opioids, anti-anxiety medication or muscle relaxers with cannabis through a one-month tapering program. More than three-quarters of patients stopped taking the harder drugs, he told the newspaper.

Witman said cannabis can be a safer alternative for managing the symptoms patients had been using opioids to treat, such as chronic pain or anxiety.

Some doctors say cannabis substitution therapy needs extensive followup. “It might be an exit drug for some, or an entry drug for others,” said Dr. Anil Kumar. “If you don’t have a way of monitoring this patient who is saying ‘give me marijuana and I will stop taking narcotics,’ they may do both.”
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Opioid Addiction Being Treated With Medical Marijuana in Massachusetts - Partnership for Drug-Free Kids
 
Marijuana legalization isn't really a big policy point for me, but we do have enough evidence to prove it is far safer than alcohol or cigarettes. It's also something that could churn real revenue for states around the nation. It also takes money out of the hands of drug dealers which is always a good thing.
 
code1211 said:
Who are the white supremacists and who is the anti-civil rights person and what is the evidence of your assertion?
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Sessions and Bannon are both white supremacists, and Sessions has made a career out of attacking the provisions of the Civil Rights movement.
 
FieldTheorist said:
Sessions and Bannon are both white supremacists, and Sessions has made a career out of attacking the provisions of the Civil Rights movement.
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You seem to be cherry picking allegations and not considering the actual records of the two men. Also, both of these charges seem to be routinely made about any Republican or anyone who is winning an election against any Democrat.

Given the stance you assign to Sessions, he must have voted against the confirmation of Eric Holder. Did he? That is an actual, definable thing that he did or didn't do.

Given the expansiveness of the internet, it's impossible for me to search every article to find out what the source of the comments you've been exposed to might be. It feels like the predominance of them are relying on comments made during contentious divorce proceedings and/or by political opponents.

Is this really the source(s) you are using or is there some source of record in which the two of these guys have been photographed wearing a white sheet or videoed saying the things that you are hanging your hat on? You know, like Robert Byrd demonstrated to have been a Klansman.

I thought Sessions was connected with the investigation, prosecution and eventual death sentence in a Klan law suit. Is this false? Doesn't seem consistent with a White Supremacist.

Lacking "Blue Dress" type evidence, the charges seem to be either well past their sell-by date or unfounded.

Bannon has made monkeys out of the Liberals in the press, the electronic media and the Government. Seems like they might feel this is "payback time".

I'm sure the Dems will establish new levels of outrage in the hearings. Should be entertaining.
 
Orly? said:
Because in the big picture pot policy isn't very important..
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Considering the amount of money spent on arresting and incarcerating pot dealers, it may be a bigger deal than people realize.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Considering the amount of money spent on arresting and incarcerating pot dealers, it may be a bigger deal than people realize.
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I personally find it wrong to incarcerate people for using a substance that is observably as safe as already legal substances. We are imprisoning relatively innocent people and ruining their lives for the sake of saving them and society from something benign. That to me is cause for great concern.
 
code1211 said:
You seem to be cherry picking allegations and not considering the actual records of the two men.
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No, I've looked over their careers. I'm familiar with their work prior to the election. They're pieces of **** as far as I'm concerned. You can disagree, but I'm not misinformed.

Bannon has made monkeys out of the Liberals in the press, the electronic media and the Government. Seems like they might feel this is "payback time".
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Brietbart isn't a serious news outlet, so there's not much other than to point out that only a deplorable human being would run it. They literally came to national fame after reporting a falsified story that ended ACORN. As for whether or not they made "monkeys" out of "Liberals," I can't speak to the history of their so-called news outlet, but I can say that they're political hacks.

I'm sure the Dems will establish new levels of outrage in the hearings. Should be entertaining.
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New levels of outrage? Sorry, Republicans already won that prize in 2008-2016. They literally didn't allow Obama to put a SCOTUS judge in and hundreds of judges for lower circuit courts, in addition to other cabinet positions.
 
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