AG Sessions’ latest (measured?) comments on marijuana legalization

Tom Angell has this Forbes report on the latest comments by Attorney General Jeff Sessions concerning marijuana reform.  The piece’s headline, “Jeff Sessions Slams Marijuana Legalization (Again),” strikes me as more alarming than what Tom reports as the AG’s actual comments. Here are the details:

The nation’s top law enforcer is continuing to speak out against marijuana legalization. “I’ve never felt that we should legalize marijuana,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Wednesday. “It doesn’t strike me that the country would be better if it’s being sold on every street corner. We do know that legalization results in greater use.”

While not giving a clear answer about the enforcement of federal prohibition laws in states that have changed their cannabis policies, Sessions, a longtime legalization opponent, said, “Federal law remains in effect.”

Last week, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made fairly ominous comments about marijuana policy reform, adding that the Trump administration is still deciding whether or not to reverse Obama-era guidance that generally allows states to legalize cannabis without federal interference….

Sessions’ new comments came in response to a reporter’s question following a San Diego press conference about large-scale Coast Guard seizures of cocaine and heroin.

At the risk of seeming to defend AG Sessions, I find these latest comments relatively measured. First, the AG is giving his opinion that his is personally opposed to marijuana legalization, and that is a view still shared by most establishment politicians on both sides of the political aisle. Second, I think most people would agree that selling marijuana on literally “every street corner” would not make our country better. The same, of course, could be said about many legal consumer products — e.g., it doesn’t strike me that the country would be better if doughnuts or guns or beer or golf clubs were being sold on “every street corner.” Being against widespread and excessive commercialization of a product does not necessarily mean that one favors (or will be eager to pursue) punitive prohibition policies. Finally, it is true that federal marijuana prohibition remains, for now, the law of the land.

I say all this not to assert or even suggest that AG Sessions is disinclined to engineer a federal crackdown on state marijuana reforms. Rather, given that AG Sessions has not been reserved or modest in his pursuit of and advocacy for other controversial policy agendas while serving as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer, I still think it telling and quite important that he has not yet really put marijuana enforcement on the front burner for his Department of Justice.