Word by Roman White
Former Republican Senator Ron Paul is calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be fired in light of his newest crackdown on federal laws regarding marijuana.
“The war on drugs is a totally illegal system,” said Paul on CNN. “He represents something that is so un-American as far as I’m concerned. The war on drugs to me is a war on liberty.” Marijuana legalization is often seen as a liberal-democratic position, but the republican congressman has not been shy about his position on the issue. As a presidential candidate in the 2011 primaries, Ron Paul famously said that not just marijuana but all drugs should be legalized if states want to permit it.
The former GOP presidential candidate took shots at Attorney General Sessions on CNN Saturday calling his war on drugs “questionably constitutional.” On Thursday, the Attorney General moved to repeal the Obama era “Cole Memo” which prevented federal prosecutors from pursuing lawsuits in states where marijuana is legalize. This came after learning the news that marijuana would be legalized for recreational use in California which follows a trend across several states like Washington, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and the District of Columbia.
Attorney General Sessions was never shy about his feelings toward marijuana. This position was strongly held with the former Alabama Governor during his bid for the Attorney General position. Although Sessions did not get to the issue as soon as he was confirmed, the marijuana industry did fear the possibility of a marijuana crackdown. The industry saw a ton of success in 2017. Politico reports that the industry was worth $7.9 billion in 2017. However, this was not enough to sway the conservative republican away from his belief that marijuana should remain a schedule one drug.
There are reports that many Congressional Republicans and Democrats are concerned with Sessions position on the issue. Congress does have the power to remove the drug from a schedule one classification where more deadly drugs like heroin are classified but there has been no action thus far from Congress on the issue.
