Cannabis activists around the country got worried when President-elect Trump appointed Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as his nominee for U.S. Attorney General. The southern Senator has extremely anti-marijuana, anti-drug, pro-drug war views on legalization – going as far as to say that “good people don’t smoke marijuana”.
Since his nomination, people have spent weeks speculating what his term as Attorney General could mean for the growing industry, and for the states who have moved past prohibition and proven that cannabis can be regulated and used just as safely as alcohol.
Now, as Trump’s inauguration gets closer, it’s the last chance to take action. And former Washington State Senator and NORML board member George Rohrbacher has raised a call to action – to contact our U.S. Senators and make one simple request: don’t confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General if he cannot simply respect states’ decisions to end prohibition.
“Senator Sessions’ views are out of step with mainstream America and they are in conflict with the laws of over half of the states,” stated NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri, “We must demand that Senators ask this nominee whether he intends to respect the will of the voters in these states, and whether he truly believes no that ‘good people’ have ever smoked pot and, if he truly believes such an outrageous claim, he should not be the next Attorney General.”
Their “Just Say NO to Jeff Sessions” campaign provides the number to the U.S. Senate Switchboard, as well as a script that you can use while speaking with them. If successful, we will see the U.S. senate choosing to reject the nominee and someone else – hopefully someone who is much more progressive when it comes to marijuana law (unlikely, but we can hope) – will be appointed.
This is only one of many protests against the Senator’s nomination. Recently a group of D.C. activists snuck marijuana into Sessions office and proceeded to roll a joint as they spoke to him about the negatives of prohibition and all the benefits of medicinal cannabis as well as legalization. That same group intends to light up at Trump’s inauguration at exactly four minutes and twenty seconds into Trump’s speech.
Overall, there is clearly a lot of worry about how negatively the growing marijuana industry could be impacted with the incoming administration. These are all ways for citizens to show the Trump Administration that what we’ve accomplished will not be so simply undone.
Hopefully enough of us will take the time in the next few days to flood the Senators’ phone lines – all of us asking for them to reject the drug war advocate as the Attorney General – that they will realize that he is not who the people of the United States want to see in office – and reject him and appoint someone else.
