Inside The Trump Administration’s Secret War On Weed

Since Jeff Sessions became Attorney General, the question has not been 'if' but 'when' he would take action to enforce Federal laws contradicted by legalized recreational marijuana use laws in eight states and Washington DC.  Smart Dissent reported on this back in February 2017.

Then, over a year ago in July 2017, we wrote about Trump and Sessions beginning to crackdown on marijuana.  See that post HERE.

Predictably, in January 2018, Sessions told federal authorities to aggressively enforce marijuana laws.  See that post HERE.

Now this:

The White House has secretly amassed a committee of federal agencies from across the government to combat public support for marijuana and cast state legalization measures in a negative light, while attempting to portray the drug as a national threat....

The Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, as it’s named in White House memos and emails, instructed 14 federal agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration this month to submit “data demonstrating the most significant negative trends” about marijuana and the “threats” it poses to the country.

While states' rights are routinely utilized by conservatives as justification for the federal inaction on important issues, it should be no surprise that matters such as marijuana usage rise to their level of needing "big government" to set the rules.

....the committee’s hardline agenda and deep bench suggests an extraordinarily far-reaching effort to reverse public attitudes and scrutinize those states. Their reports are to be used in a briefing for Trump “on marijuana threats.”

As several states have approved laws allowing adults to use and purchase cannabis, critics have contended lax attitudes will promote drug abuse, particularly among youth, and they have pressed for a federal crackdown.

This committee is using taxpayer dollars and resources to coordinate an effort that involves all our major branches of government being required to submit any negative information about marijuana they can come up with.

....the committee met on July 27 with many of the largest agencies in the federal government, including the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and State. The White House followed up the next week by sending agencies and other departments — including the Departments of Defense, Education, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency — instructions to submit two-page, bulleted fact sheets that identify marijuana threats and issues with the initiatives by Aug. 10.

Departments were instead told to “identify marijuana threats; issues created by state marijuana initiatives; and consequences of use, production, and trafficking on national health, safety, and security.”.... provide an example of a “story, relating an incident or picture, that illustrates one or more the key areas of concern related to use, production, and trafficking of marijuana"....

The White House and a number of agencies declined to comment — including the Departments of Labor, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Transportation.  None of the 14 agencies BuzzFeed News contacted for this story, the DEA, or the White House denied the marijuana committee’s existence.

National polls disagree enormously with these actions; another reason for more people to get engaged and vote these people out.  It would be helpful if this became a mainstream story but our news channels can't keep up.

Americans have diverged from the federal government’s hardline stance on pot prohibition — with eight states having now legalized its adult recreational use and authorizing systems to sell it like alcohol. A Quinnipiac University poll in April found that 63% of Americans support legalization.

Source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/trump-secret-committee-anti-marijuana