An advocacy group for pot is urging Senators to reject the nomination of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to serve the next U.S. Attorney General.
The group, DCMJ.org, led the successful campaign in 2016 to legalize marijuana in the District of Columbia and is now targeting Sessions who they say is not friendly to legal marijuana.
“We have come to assume Senator Sessions will overturn the will of more than 70% of the voters in the District of Columbia that voted for full legalization if made Attorney General,” according to a letter sent to legislators in Congress by DCMJ co-founders Adam Eidinger and Nikolas Schiller. “He will be empowered to ignore the 60% of Americans who support legal cannabis or the more than 80% of U.S. citizens, who support legalizing cannabis for medical purposes.”
DCMJ insists that legalizing pot has proven to be a jobs creator and reversing the recent gains for legalization will impact the economies of several states. Further, they say, overturning any of the pro-pot statutes across the country “disproportionately impacts minorities” and also hurts critically ill patients who use cannabis for pain relief.
Claiming that “the vast majority of Americans” agree with legalizing pot, the group charges that Sessions has ideas that are “harmful, racially biased, costly, outdated, ineffective, and counterintuitive to economic growth and the nation’s homeland security efforts.”
“We will use all practical means to fight the threat Sessions poses to overturn the will of the voters, ignore science and medical professionals and put black market marijuana back in the hands of international organized crime rings,” Eidinger said in a press release.
During a recent Senate panel on the public impact of changing marijuana laws across the country, Sessions noted that “marijuana is very dangerous,” and said the country will regret legalizing the drug. Sessions added:
“We need grown-ups in charge in Washington saying 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.”
DCMJ plans a protest for Trump’s oath of office ceremony on January 20. The group plans to parade toward the National Mall handing out 4,200 joints of legally grown cannabis along the way. They intend to all light up among the inauguration crowd at 4 minutes and 20 seconds into President Trump’s speech.
They say they will cancel their protest only if Donald Trump comes out in support of their cause.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.