As Sen. Jeff Sessions\u2019 (R-Ala.) confirmation hearings get underway this morning, there\u2019s no shortage of reasons to consider him one of Donald Trump\u2019s most controversial cabinet nominees. The far-right Attorney General nominee\u2019s record on race , criminal justice , and other social issues puts him far outside the American mainstream.
But Bloomberg Politics had an interesting report yesterday on an under-appreciated aspect of Sessions\u2019 policy worldview.
Lawmakers in both parties are pressing Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions not to wipe out the booming marijuana industry in states like Colorado should he win confirmation as U. S. attorney general.
Sessions could theoretically use federal enforcement power to try to cripple what is already a $6 billion business that may soon triple after California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine voted in November to legalize recreational use of the drug.
As regular readers probably know , there have been some historic breakthroughs in recent years on U. S. drug policy, with voters in several states approving ballot measures to legalize recreational or medicinal marijuana use. These state-based policies have been allowed to proceed because the Obama administration extended its approval.
But it didn\u2019t have to. As we\u2019ve discussed , under federal law, officials could have ignored voters\u2019 will and blocked those policies from advancing. State experimentation has been allowed to flourish because President Obama and his team have a progressive approach to the issue.
Sessions doesn\u2019t.
Politico recently published a piece on the Alabama senator\u2019s record on the issue: \u201cIn April, he said, \u2018Good people don\u2019t smoke marijuana,\u2019 and that it was a \u2018very real danger\u2019 that is \u2018not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.\u2019 Sessions \u2026 has called marijuana reform a \u2018tragic mistake\u2019 and criticized FBI Director James Comey and Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch for not vigorously enforcing a the federal prohibition that President Obama has called \u2018untenable over the long term.\u2019\u201d
Obama has permitted states to pursue their own course, but federal law has not changed as it relates to illegal drugs, including marijuana. In other words, the moment Sessions becomes the nation\u2019s chief law-enforcement official \u2013 assuming, that is, that he\u2019s confirmed by a Republican-led Senate \u2013 he\u2019ll have the authority to effectively undo the voter-endorsed state marijuana laws and reverse all of the recent progress on the issue.
Americans\u2019 attitudes are shifting to the left on the \u201cwar on drugs,\u201d but Americans\u2019 next Attorney General may move the nation\u2019s policy very quickly to the right.<\/p>\n

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