#Cannabis Journalism day 4: Final Paper Outline
My final project will be centered around what Jeff Sessions could mean for the Cannabis industry, and Colorado specifically. Sessions is known as being a prominent anti-cannabis advocate, but what exactly are his positions? In addition just how much power would he have to change federal policy?
To answer these questions I’m going to begin by examining Jeff Sessions history of anti-cannabis statements, and his personal stance on the drug. On April 5th of this year Sessions famously said “Good people do not smoke marijuana” adding that “Marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought to be minimized, that it is in fact a very real danger. You can see the accidents, traffic deaths related to marijuana. And you’ll see cocaine and heroin increase more than it would have, I think.”
In addition Sessions has said that he believes cannabis cannot be safer than alcohol since Lady Gaga has claimed she has become addicted to the drug. This was said as a rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s testimony that marijuana is safer than alcohol.
Sessions positions well established, I will dissect some of his arguments and refute various points he has made over the years. Many experts agree that the war on drugs is a failure of policy in epic proportions. It has led to the mass incarceration of people convicted for crimes as small as possession of 1 gram of cannabis.
In addition there is little evidence to support Sessions claims that cannabis use leads to experimentation and addiction to harder drugs. Sessions claims that stoned driving is a leading cause of traffic fatalities has also been debunked. A 2015 study by the U.S. Transportation Department claims that once factors like age, and alcohol consumption were factored in, cannabis did not represent a statistically significant risk of fatality.
I will then shift focus onto current federal policy on cannabis, examining the Cole and Ogden memos which have laid the basis for the federal governments lack of interest in pursuing cannabis convictions over the last 8 years. In addition I will examine recent comments made by President Obama, where he argues that cannabis should be regulated similarly to alcohol, and treated as a public health issue.
Finally I will look at what federal cannabis policy could look like under Sessions, and what this could mean for Colorado. Sessions is seriously against cannabis, however his power is not unlimited and President-Elect Trump has stated he believes regulation should be left up to the states. The federal government could do things like pull funding for public institutions in Colorado if they refuse to comply, or simply send federal agents knocking down doors across the state. However the government does not have unlimited ability to regulate what states can and cannot do.
In addition, a Sessions Department of Justice would have to convince Trump that enforcing Cannabis regulation is in their best interest. Trump has both repeatedly stated that he believes it is not the federal governments responsibility to regulate cannabis, and he ran on a platform that advocated strongly for states rights.
My project will explore the prospect of a Sessions Department of Justice in detail, and hypothesize about what exactly this could mean for the legal cannabis industry in the U.S.
