Indopedia All Things Marijuana
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is infamous for his low-rent disdain for science, facts, and all things cannabis. Despite his unrelenting denials that medical marijuana helps mitigate America’s opioid epidemic, – two studies published Monday suggest that Sessions is factually dead wrong.
Amid America’s growing pharmaceutical drug crisis, an estimated 115 U.S. citizens die each day from opioid abuse. And while Sessions argues that “good people don’t smoke marijuana,” those forced to live with chronic pain strongly disagree.
America’s war on drugs is a colossal failure – and everybody knows it. But as Sessions and the Department of Justice attempt to transform young men in minority communities into the next generation of inmates over cannabis, opioids have been responsible for killing more than 630,000 American citizens since 1999.
An awkward truth for Sessions: The pharmaceutical plague of addiction and overdose is fueled by opioids, heroin, and fentanyl – not marijuana.
As Sessions threatens to throw those states with progressive marijuana policies under the federal bus of the Controlled Substance Act, more than a few congressional leaders are standing up and asking that he and the DOJ stop escalating the failed war on drugs.
The opioid epidemic is killing more than 90 Americans every day. We need new solutions. Ending federal marijuana prohibition is the right thing to do for criminal justice reform, to end our overreliance on opioids, & put people before Big Pharma’s profits. https://t.co/B4tJ80Niz7
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 3, 2018
You cannot discuss criminal justice reform without talking about decriminalizing marijuana. It is a moral and a social justice issue.
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) March 30, 2018
Thank you governor. Marijuana prohibition in NJ is bias against low income communities and communities of color.
Prohibition has devastated lives and families. Economically harmed communities and wasted so many tax dollars.
I applaud your leadership and support your efforts. https://t.co/agYfsgQUHl
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) March 14, 2018
This is the wrong direction if true. Federal Gov should decriminalize. Leave for states to decide. https://t.co/3xVNacWMGk
— Scott Taylor (@Scotttaylorva) October 31, 2017
It is absurd that @USAGSessions has broken @POTUS’s campaign promise & is now waging war on legal #marijuana & states’ rights. I am calling on the President to overrule & protect consumers, our economy, the will of voters, & states’ rights. #ColeMemo pic.twitter.com/sQCL0yFkzv
— Rep. Jared Polis (@RepJaredPolis) January 4, 2018
Congratulations to Vermont as it’s poised to be the next state to legalize marijuana–a stunning rebuke of Jeff Sessions’ efforts to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana.https://t.co/K9FQe6XrrM
— Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) January 5, 2018
Dear Attorney General Jeff Sessions and @TheJusticeDept: Let me give you a list of things more important for federal prosecutors and federal law enforcement to pursue other than marijuana:
1. Basically anything. https://t.co/ctyJui7g4c
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 4, 2018
Under our Constitution, marijuana shouldn’t be federally criminalized. @RepTomGarrett has a bill that will stop AG Sessions in his tracks: the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017 (#HR1227), which I’ve cosponsored.
Here’s a list of cosponsors: https://t.co/buRPtGh9Bm
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 5, 2018
Once Sessions rescinded the 2013 Cole Memo, which protected legal cannabis participants from unwarranted prosecution by an overzealous Department of Justice – the billion-dollar industry, America’s lawmakers, and the general population spoke up in support of reforming our federal marijuana laws. Per the most recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 64 percent of Americans support marijuana legalization, including 43 percent of surveyed Republicans. And with this type of elevated support, more than a few Americans are left to ponder how one appointed bureaucrat thwarted the will of roughly 63 million citizens who currently reside in states and municipalities with reformed marijuana laws.
