Donald Trump shook up the political world (what else is new) when he fired Reefer Madness Attorney General Jeff Sessions the day following the 2018 midterms. Now, speculation has begun on who the permanent AG will be following the naming of Matthew Whitaker, Jeff Session’s former Chief of Staff, as “Acting” Attorney General (while there
Folks can move in and out of favor with Donald Trump rather quickly. Jeff Sessions was rewarded for being Trump’s first U.S. Senate endorser with an Attorney General appointment, but he was relegated to the doghouse for recusing himself from overseeing Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. Sessions was then ousted
At Donald Trump’s request, Jeff Sessions resigned today as U.S. Attorney General. In other words, he was fired. In Trump’s doghouse for recusing himself from overseeing Robert Mueller’s Russian election conspiracy investigation, Sessions removal has some serious national political implications. Sessions’ Chief of Staff Robert Whitaker has been named Acting Attorney General. Long before he
While the Democratic Party has been more likely to embrace cannabis law reform over the years, not every Democratic leader has been on board, opening up opportunities for Republicans to make inroads among the cannabis community. While Donald Trump’s record on cannabis is spotty as appointing Jeff Sessions as Attorney General has been a lowlight,
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley has been defending not only the will of Oregon voters who passed cannabis legalization with over 56% of the vote in 2014, but also the will of the strong majority of all Americans that now understand the failure of cannabis prohibition. Tired of wasting law enforcement resources and disproportionately arresting and
Anyone that has seen the marijuana grown by the United States government for the few remaining federally-recognized patients and the limited research projects approved over the years, knows that it is of extremely poor quality. The Medical Cannabis Research Act (MCRA), sponsored by Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, and passed out of the House Judiciary Committee,
Donald Trump has been on both (or several) sides of the cannabis legalization debate since he announced his run for president. He declared himself supportive of medical cannabis and a believer in states’ rights on adult-use marijuana laws as a candidate. However, Trump’s moderate public stances must be weighed against his selection of Reefer Madness
Cannabis legalization supporters and Drug War reformers certainly weren’t happy when Donald Trump appointed Reefer Madness prohibitionist Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Sessions then proceeded to validate our fears when he rescinded the Obama administration’s policies that allowed states to move forward with their own cannabis laws without federal interference, discouraged prosecutors from pushing for
In many ways, Oregon is a leader on cannabis policy in the United States. The state was the first to decriminalize personal possession in 1973, was an early medical state in 1998, the third to vote in legalization in 2014, and really led the nation on decreasing criminal penalties across the board and expunging old
From a macro level, the Oregon cannabis industry is doing great. Governor Kate Brown states that 19,000 new jobs have been created thanks to legal marijuana and the Oregon Revenue Department statistics show that retail taxes are generating more than $20 million every quarter, over twice what the state initially projected. However, a closer examination
