{"id":1684,"date":"2017-01-24T21:54:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T21:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2017-01-24T21:55:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T21:55:02","slug":"jeff-sessions-responds-to-marijuana-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/2017\/01\/24\/jeff-sessions-responds-to-marijuana-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Sessions Responds To Marijuana Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1685\" src=\"http:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1-1024x536.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1-1024x536.png 1024w, https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1-300x157.png 300w, https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1-768x402.png 768w, https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Jeff Sessions had his confirmation hearing recently, during which he was asked all types of questions from Senators. Some of those questions specifically touched on Cannabis. The nomination of Jeff Sessions for The United States Attorney General has caused a great amount of uncertainty in the Cannabis community, both in America and abroad. President Donald Trump has made comments in the past that he supports reform, but has also made comments contradicting what he previously said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Jeff Sessions provided answers to the Cannabis-related questions from his confirmation hearing. Those answers were neatly compiled and included in today\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/us14.campaign-archive2.com\/?u=2b103be7b5d7ad4abd40bfebc&amp;id=3811d28465\"><span class=\"s2\">Tom Angell Report<\/span><\/a>.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cWhile I am generally familiar with the <b>Cole memorandum<\/b>, I am not privy to any internal Department of Justice <b>data regarding the effectiveness and value of the policies<\/b> contained within that memorandum\u2026\u00a0<b>I will certainly review and evaluate those policies<\/b>, including the original justifications for the memorandum, as well as any relevant data and how circumstances may have changed or how they may change in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cI will not commit to never enforcing Federal law. Whether an arrest and investigation of an individual who may be violating the law is appropriate is a <b>determination made in individual cases<\/b> based on the sometimes unique circumstances surrounding those cases, as well as the <b>resources available at the time<\/b>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">A recent federal court ruling that a <b>Congressional rider<\/b> prevents the Justice Department from going after people complying with state medical marijuana laws \u201cis relatively recent, and I am not familiar with how other courts may have interpreted the relevant appropriations language or the Ninth Circuit\u2019s opinion. As an emerging issue, that is one that will need to be closely evaluated in light of all relevant law and facts\u2026\u00a0I will conduct such a review. Of course, <b>medical marijuana use is a small part of the growing commercial marijuana industry<\/b>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">On \u201c<b>good people don\u2019t smoke marijuana<\/b>\u201c: \u201cMy words have been <b>grossly mischaracterized and taken out of context<\/b>\u2026\u00a0I was discussing the value of treating people for using dangerous and illegal drugs like marijuana, and the context in which treatment is successful.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cI echo Attorney General Lynch\u2019s comments [on marijuana being illegal], and commit, as she did, to enforcing federal law with respect to marijuana, although <b>the exact balance of enforcement priorities is an ever-changing determination based on the circumstances and the resources available at the time<\/b>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cI will defer to the American Medical Association and the researchers at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere about the medical effects of marijuana. Without having studied the relevant regulations in depth, I <b>cannot say whether they may need to be eased in order to advance research<\/b>; but, I will review this.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>BOTTOM LINE<\/b>: Sessions is still being very guarded in discussing the Trump administration\u2019s intentions toward state marijuana laws. Probably the most important revelation above is that he is going to review and evaluate the Cole memo that gives states a roadmap for how to avoid federal interference with their cannabis laws.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"mantis__recommended__wordpress\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\">\n    MANTIS_RECOMMEND = {\n        property: '556c86bbbf60bd001d672ecb',\n        render: 'mantis__recommended__wordpress'\n    };\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\">\n\tvar z = document.createElement(\"script\");\n\tz.type = \"text\/javascript\";\n\tz.async = true;\n\tz.src = \"\/\/assets.mantisadnetwork.com\/recommend.min.js\";\n\tvar s = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];\n\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(z, s);\n<\/script><\/p>\n<link href=\"\/\/assets.mantisadnetwork.com\/recommend.3columns.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text\/css\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Sessions had his confirmation hearing recently, during which he was asked all types of questions from Senators. Some of those questions specifically touched on Cannabis. The nomination of Jeff Sessions for The United States Attorney General has caused a great amount of uncertainty in the Cannabis community, both in America and abroad. President Donald [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/1200x628-med-mj.001-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannachronicle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}