Frightening bizarro-world Keebler elf Jeff Sessions would like nothing more than to put every person of color into a private prison and have them used as “cheap labor.” To accomplish this, like the entire Republican Party, his ideas are threadbare and racist. Go after immigrants and go after non-violent drug offenders using a system that disproportionally punishes people of color. Since squeezing through the confirmation process, Attorney General Sessions has been pretty clear that he wants to infringe upon states’ rights when it comes to recreational and medical marijuana laws. To hear Sessions talk about marijuana you might think that the monsters hiding under your child’s bed at night were smoking the dankest weed—like a cigarette. Sessions’ desires to bring the full force of federal law enforcement to raid states with pro-recreational marijuana laws might have just been interrupted.
The recent 1,665-page spending bill maintains a provision that prevents the Department of Justice from using any of its funds to hamper state laws related to medical marijuana. The department cannot “prevent any of them from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana,” Section 537 of the bill reads.
The $1.1 trillion spending bill—the Consolidated Appropriations Act, H.R. 244 (PDF)—passed the Senate today with a 79-to-18 vote. The White House has signaled that Trump will sign it, which will keep the government running until September.
According to Arstechnica, the section of the bill first appeared in 2015. Right now it reads:
Page 230 – “SEC. 537. None of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to any of the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, 25 Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, or with respect to the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico, to prevent any of them from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.
This is great news for now, delaying state’s rights violations by rendering Sessions impotent. However, as NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano writes:
Both amendments will remain in effect until September 30, 2017, at which time members of Congress will once again need to either reauthorize the language or let the provisions expire.
Voting in 2018 affects everybody. If you’re a single-issue voter, there’s a 90 percent chance the Republican Party will not make you happy. If your issue isn’t being anti-choice or pro-slavery there’s a 99 percent chance that Republicans will disappoint you.