Sessions reverses Obama’s lax pot rules as N.J. debates legalization

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a move that’s guaranteed to give the emerging recreational marijuana industry some concern, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions moved on Thursday to rescind the Obama Administration’s official guidance on the enforcement of marijuana laws throughout the United States known as the “Cole memo.”

Sessions

“It is the mission of the Department of Justice to enforce the laws of the United States, and the previous issuance of guidance undermines the rule of law and the ability of our local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners to carry out this mission,” said Sessions in a released statement.

While marijuana remains illegal according to federal law owing to the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, lax enforcement during the Obama years permitted eight states and the District of Columbia to legalize recreational usage without fear of federal intervention.

California joined that roll call in recent days, and our own state of New Jersey is expected to move towards legalization (or at least “decriminalization”) after Democrat Phil Murphy takes office and replaces Governor Chris Christie on January 16th.

What will Thursday’s decision mean? The jury is still out.

The Attorney General’s office says Sessions’s memo, which you can find here, “directs all U.S. Attorneys to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to follow well-established principles when pursuing prosecutions related to marijuana activities. This return to the rule of law is also a return of trust and local control to federal prosecutors who know where and how to deploy Justice Department resources most effectively to reduce violent crime, stem the tide of the drug crisis, and dismantle criminal gangs.”

For New Jersey, this new approach would appear to leave the decision squarely in the lap of newly-appointed interim U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito, Chris Christie’s former Bridgegate defense attorney, who takes office this week.

Proponents of New Jersey legalization are hoping an established and mature Garden State recreational marijuana industry could fetch up to a billion dollars in annual revenue for our chronically fiscally mismanaged state. Resistance nevertheless remains not only as to the form legalization will take but in pockets of the state, including at the Jersey Shore, where towns are considering local bans on pot sales.

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