Jeff Sessions’s endless war on marijuana

The new policy is blind to the massive cultural shift toward legalization that has been happening at the state level in recent years
The New York Times (US)
Sunday, January 7, 2018

nyt logoThe key to understanding the Trump administration’s approach to policy, it seems, is to look at what most Americans want and then imagine the opposite. Consider the new guidance on marijuana that Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued last week, which reverses Obama-era policy and gives prosecutors more leeway to enforce federal laws against the drug in states where it is legal. Mr. Sessions has been on a lifelong crusade against the plant, which he considers the root of many of society’s ills. And yet more than six in 10 Americans, and seven in 10 of those under 30, believe marijuana should be legal, twice as many as in 2000. (See also: Attorney General’s Memorandum on Federal Marijuana Enforcement: Possible Impacts)