{"id":342625,"date":"2018-01-06T13:56:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T12:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/get-your-hands-off-our-weed\/"},"modified":"2018-01-06T13:56:55","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T12:56:55","slug":"get-your-hands-off-our-weed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/get-your-hands-off-our-weed\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Your Hands Off Our Weed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>      <!-- START CONTENT --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/republicans-to-jeff-sessions-get-your-hands-off-our-weed\"><strong>The Daily Beast<\/strong><\/a><br \/>January 5, 2018<\/p>\n<p><strong>Attorney General Jeff Sessions has pulled off something that would have been unthinkable just a few years back: he managed to rally Republican lawmakers behind weed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sessions announced on Thursday that he would be rescinding a policy from the Obama administration that had discouraged prosecutors in states where marijuana was legalized from bringing charges for marijuana-related crimes, unless they involved distribution to minors, revenue sale benefiting gangs or cartels and a few other federal priorities. In its place, federal prosecutors would be given discretion (not guidance) to pursue marijuana-related prosecutions.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement was a reversal of a <a class=\"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2013\/08\/30\/us\/politics\/30justice-marijuana-memo.html\">memo<\/a> authored by former Deputy Attorney General James Cole in 2013, who wrote the Obama-era guidelines after Colorado and Washington voted to decriminalize marijuana for recreational use. And it managed to tick off a number of lawmakers from those states as well as the eight others\u2014in addition to Washington D.C.\u2014who have voted to legalize recreational marijuana use since.<\/p>\n<p>Charlie Baker, the Republican Governor of Massachusetts, called the Sessions policy \u201cthe wrong decision,\u201d while pledging to \u201creview any potential impacts.\u201d Republican Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada told The Daily Beast in a statement that he believed \u201cNevada\u2019s marijuana industry is a model for other states.\u201d Bill Walker, the Independent \u00a0Governor of Alaska, called the decision \u201cdisappointing,\u201d adding that he was \u201ccommitted to upholding the will of Alaskans on this issue and maintaining our State\u2019s sovereign rights to manage our own affairs while protecting federal interests.\u201d Alaska became the <a class=\"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external\" href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/3719828\/marijuana-legal-alaska\/\">third<\/a>\u00a0state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2015.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/republicans-to-jeff-sessions-get-your-hands-off-our-weed\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<p>      <!-- END CONTENT --><\/p>\n<p style=\"color:#333; font-size:11px;\">This article was posted: Friday, January 5, 2018  at  8:38 am<\/p>\n<hr class=\"dotted_line\"\/>\n<hr class=\"dotted_line\"\/><!-- share and follow --><br \/>\n      <!-- end of share and follow --><\/p>\n<div class=\"print_sub\">\n<h3 class=\"sub_titles\">&#13;<br \/>\n        \t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/republicans-to-jeff-sessions-get-your-hands-off-our-weed.html\/print\/\" title=\"Print\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"WP-PrintIcon\" src=\"https:\/\/hw.prisonplanet.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-print\/images\/printer_famfamfam.gif\" alt=\"Print\" title=\"Print\" style=\"border: 0px;\"\/><\/a><br \/>\nPrint this page.<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/republicans-to-jeff-sessions-get-your-hands-off-our-weed.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Daily BeastJanuary 5, 2018 Attorney General Jeff Sessions has pulled off something that would have been unthinkable just a few years back: he managed to rally Republican lawmakers behind weed. Sessions announced on Thursday that he would be rescinding a policy from the Obama administration that had discouraged prosecutors in states where marijuana was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-342625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}