The Justice Department is set to introduce “responsible policies” for the implementation of federal anti-marijuana laws. According to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, selling and using marijuana has increased levels of violence in the United States.
During a meeting with members of the media, Sessions pointed out that the department has been looking through the memo issued during Barack Obama’s presidency, noting that the states offered too much flexibility in passing laws for marijuana legalization.
“Experts are telling me there’s more violence around marijuana than one would think,” Sessions said. His remarks matched those of White House spokesman Sean Spicer, who announced that the Justice Department is set to tighten federal laws against the recreational use of marijuana. According to NY Daily News, while the attorney general did not specify the measures the administration will be taking, he said he believes the country will not achieve a better state with “more people smoking pot.”
“I am definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana,” he said. “But states, they can pass the laws they choose. I would just say, it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not.”
At present, marijuana has already been legalized for recreational use in the District of Columbia and eight states. Meanwhile, marijuana legalization has not been found to be correlated with violence and crime rates, as pointed out in past studies. However, law enforcement officials in several states claim that drug traffickers are taking advantage of flexible marijuana laws to stay in hiding, illegally grow and distribute the drug across various state lines.
“You can’t sue somebody for a drug debt. The only way to get your money is through strong-arm tactics, and violence tends to follow that,” Sessions added. He also said he had a meeting with the attorney general of Nebraska, who filed a lawsuit against Colorado for not limiting marijuana to its borders. Although the complaint was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court, nearby states are still claiming that Colorado and other states who have been open to marijuana legalization have ineffectively kept the drug within their borders.
