Sessions: DOJ ‘Not Going to Stop Prosecuting Marijuana’ Cases

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that the U.S. will not “be better off” if it allows marijuana to be “sold at every corner grocery store” and be readily available to American teenagers.

Sessions noted the possession and distribution of marijuana still remain illegal under federal law — even if some states have legalized and regulated the drug for recreational and medicinal purposes. Saying the Justice Department intends to develop strategies for how to deal with the issue, the attorney general made clear the department will not stop prosecuting marijuana cases in states that have legalized it.

“And we’ve got to be careful that a few bad apples don’t cause us to pull away from proven crime-fighting techniques that … save lives by the hundreds.”

“I do not believe that this country is going to be better off if we have marijuana sold at every corner grocery store — and that it’s available in large amounts to even teenagers,” Sessions said. “No matter what the law is, once you make it quasi-legal or basically legal, then it filters easily into the young people’s hands where it does the most psychological damage.”

Although the Department of Justice does not have the personnel available to “walk the streets like the local police,” Sessions promised that his office will not turn a blind eye to the impact of the drug.

“It remains as you know — federal law remains in effect and it makes it unlawful to distribute or possess marijuana in any state even though the state might legalize it,” Sessions said. “So within those states we’re going to develop plans that have a good, sound basis to it and we’re not going to stop prosecuting marijuana in those states … we are going to develop a fair plan for that.”

The attorney general also signaled his department will emphasize supporting local police departments as one of its top priorities under President Donald Trump’s administration. One of the Department of Justice’s top concerns, Sessions said, is restoring morale to the nation’s local police forces by reviewing existing consent decrees for civil rights violations.

“We are looking at that. There are a number of principles that I believe in. First and foremost, we need to make absolutely sure, Laura, that any consent decree does not increase crime, does not reduce public safety, does not make it more dangerous to walk the streets,” Sessions said. “And we have had some instances where the restraints that curtail community-based policing and the broken windows concepts that have proven to work so well — some of that has been retreated from.”

Under former President Obama’s administration, some of the crackdowns may have gone too far, Sessions suggested. Although the attorney general reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring police abuses do not go unpunished, he said it’s important to enable police departments to do their jobs effectively.

“In addition, some of the [consent] decrees have hurt the morale of the police officers. They’re not as aggressive as they used to be to actually confront crime on the streets,” said Sessions. “We’ve seen in Chicago, for example, after a lawsuit involving the ACLU that Chicago eventually settled — we’ve had a dramatic drop-off in the number of arrests and stops on the streets while the murder rate in Chicago is going through the roof.”

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“So, first and foremost, police departments need to be disciplined, police officers have to be disciplined. They have to respect the citizens of their communities. And most of them do overwhelmingly,” Sessions added. “And we’ve got to be careful that a few bad apples don’t cause us to pull away from proven crime-fighting techniques that … save lives by the hundreds.”

Under Sessions’ guidance, court-ordered consent decrees will be reviewed so states and departments are not “micro-managed” by the federal government, the attorney general said.

“Some of them probably do need to be reviewed, and we need to study them. But often the cities, the mayors in some of these cities, all like these decrees. And they don’t want to change them, maybe. So we’ll have to see. Each one will be different,” Sessions said. “But I do take very seriously my responsibility to try to make sure that any action that involves a police department that has had some difficulties — and we may have to take some lawsuits against departments who are not meeting their constitutional duties. But if we do so, any agreement, any settlement, any court order that gets entered into should be done in a way that does not make it harder for them to do their jobs. That’s fundamental.”