August 07, 2017 10:12 AM UTC

Sad Trombone For Jeff Sessions' Marijuana Crackdown

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the AP reports via the Cannabist, a much-feared report on the effects of legalizing marijuana hat many believed would supply a pretext for Attorney General Jeff “Reefer Madness” Sessions to crack down on marijuana sales–which would be destructive to the economies of legal states including Colorado:

The betting was that law-and-order Attorney General Jeff Sessions would come out against the legalized marijuana industry with guns blazing. But the task force Sessions assembled to find the best legal strategy is giving him no ammunition, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, a group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials, has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general’s aggressively anti-marijuana views. The group’s report largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.

It encourages officials to keep studying whether to change or rescind the Obama administration’s hands-off approach to enforcement — a stance that has allowed the nation’s experiment with legal pot to flourish. The report was not slated to be released publicly, but portions were obtained by the AP.

Sessions has been promising to reconsider that policy since he took office six months ago. He has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and blamed it for spikes in violence. His statements have sparked support and worry across the political spectrum as a growing number of states have worked to legalize the drug.

That this memo failed to sustain Sessions’ fire against legal marijuana probably won’t change his mind personally, but it will make it harder for Sessions to gain support if he tries anything to stop the legal sale of recreational marijuana. Republicans in legal marijuana states, as we’ve discussed previously, have little appetite for helping Sessions carry out what would be a politically self-immolating as well as economically harmful act.

This is all taking place against the backdrop of on-again-off-again speculation about Sessions’ future as Attorney General. Just a couple of weeks ago, Sessions appeared to be on the way out as President Donald Trump’s newest fixer Anthony Scaramucci openly said as much in the media. Today, Scaramucci is gone and Trump hasn’t bashed Sessions publicly in several news cycles.

As of today–though subject to change–Sessions remains on the job, and legal marijuana remains for sale.