Trump says he is likely to support ending blanket federal ban on marijuana

[Butifldrm]

Trump says he is likely to support ending blanket federal ban on marijuana

By EVAN HALPER

JUN 08, 2018 | 2:10 PM

| WASHINGTON

  

President Trump speaks to the press before departing the White House for the G-7 summit. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images)

 

President Trump said he likely will support a congressional effort to end the federal ban on marijuana, a major step that would reshape the pot industry and end the threat of a Justice Department crackdown.

Trump’s remarks put him sharply at odds with Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on the issue. The bill in question, pushed by a bipartisan coalition, would allow states to go forward with legalization unencumbered by threats of federal prosecution. Sessions, by contrast, has ramped up those threats and has also lobbied Congress to reduce current protections for medical marijuana.

Trump made his comments to a gaggle of reporters Friday morning just before he boarded a helicopter on his way to the G-7 summit in Canada. His remarks came the day after the bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed their measure.

One of the lead sponsors is Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who is aligned with Trump on several issues but recently has tangled with the administration over the Justice Department’s threats to restart prosecutions in states that have legalized marijuana.

“I support Sen. Gardner,” Trump said when asked about the bill. “I know exactly what he’s doing. We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”

The legislative proposal, which is also championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), would reshape the legal landscape for marijuana if it becomes law.

California and eight other states, as well as Washington, D.C., have legalized all adult use of marijuana. An additional 20 states permit marijuana for medical use.

But even as states legalize, marijuana has remained a risky and unstable business because of federal law making it illegal. Concerns about federal law enforcement seizures have inhibited most lenders from working with marijuana businesses. And investors have also proceeded cautiously.

“If you are in the marijuana business … you can’t get a bank loan or set up a bank account because of concern over the conflict between state and federal law,” Gardner said at a news conference Thursday to unveil the new bill. “We need to fix this. It is time we take this industry out of the shadows, bring these dollars out of the shadows.”

He called it a “public hypocrisy” that the firms are expected to pay taxes yet are barred from participation in the financial system.

A lifting of the federal prohibition also would bolster efforts to create uniform testing and regulatory standards for marijuana, and potentially free scientists to pursue research into the medical uses of marijuana.

Trump’s support could potentially have a major impact, providing political cover for Republicans who worry about being tagged as soft on drugs. Still, the proposal faces a tough road in Congress.

Even though most lawmakers now represent areas where pot is legal for at least medical use — and public opinion polls show majorities of Democratic and Republican voters nationwide favor legalization — congressional leaders have shown little appetite for loosening restrictions. The House is blocking the District of Columbia from permitting sales of recreational pot, even after its voters chose to legalize. A 2014 budget amendment that protects medical marijuana businesses from Drug Enforcement Administration raids is perpetually under attack.

“It faces tremendous head winds,” John Hudak, a marijuana policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said, referring to the Gardner-Warren bill.

Trump said he is likely to support the federal legalization effort despite a warning against it from a coalition of narcotics officer groups.

“We urge you to see through the smoke screen and reject attempts to encourage more drug use in America,” they wrote in a letter to Trump Thursday.

The marijuana industry continues to be whipsawed by mixed messages from the administration.

In January, the Justice Department sent pot businesses into a panic by rescinding an Obama-era policy that restricted prosecutors from targeting sellers who operate legally under state laws. Sessions warned at the time that any pot business could find itself in the crosshairs of prosecutors — regardless of whether marijuana was legal in their state.

The move enraged Gardner, who said the administration had earlier given him assurances that there would be no such raids, at least in his state. At Gardner’s behest, Trump in April ordered an abrupt retreat from the announced crackdown. Trump made the order without even consulting Sessions, a sign of their tense relationship.

But prosecutors did back off. During this administration, there have apparently been no federal raids or seizures of pot companies for sales that are legal under state law.

“Remarkably little, if anything, has changed,” said John Vardaman, a former Justice Department attorney who helped draft the Obama-era rules, known as the Cole memo, after former Deputy Atty. Gen. James M. Cole, who issued it. “Almost every U.S. attorney in states where marijuana is legal has decided to apply the same principles as the Cole memo,” said Vardaman, now an executive at Hypur, which sells banking compliance software to marijuana companies.

Banking is the area in which the Gardner bill could most help pot companies.

The Senate proposal, and a companion bipartisan measure in the House, would amend the Controlled Substances Act so that its marijuana provisions do not apply to any person or business that is in compliance with state laws. To put bankers at ease, it specifies that such marijuana sales would not be considered trafficking and do not amount to illegal financial transactions.

“The very people you want involved in this market are the ones who have been most reluctant to get involved because of the banking issue,” said Vardaman. “If you address that, you would have enormous beneficial effects for the industry.”

While Trump’s comments were welcomed by marijuana activists, they remain on edge, especially because of Trump’s spotty record at actually pushing legislation through Congress.

“We have seen this president voice his support for a lot of things related to cannabis, but he has done absolutely nothing to move legislation,” said Hudak. “This is just more empty rhetoric from a president who is vague on this issue.”

Gardner is hoping he can persuade more of his conservative colleagues to join the crusade by framing the issue as one of state’s rights. Several Republicans, including Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Don Young of Alaska, are demanding an end to federal marijuana laws that intrude on the states. Their movement is slowly growing in Congress.

“This is a chance for us to express that federalism works,” said Gardner, who like some other Republicans was not a proponent of marijuana but took up the cause after his state’s voters endorsed legalization, “to take an idea that states have led with and provide a solution that allows them to continue to lead.”

2:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional analysis and reaction.

This article was originally published at 8:50 a.m.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-marijuana-20180608-story.html

[Shabibilicious]

 

GO RV, then BV  

[divemaster5734]

it's both hysterical, and sad, to watch all those ignorant sheep formerly known as liberals in their hypocritical and determined  pirouette, echoing the divisive connotations of their tenfold disgraced mindless leaders such as  Pelosi and Schumer, who blindly and forcefully assume their everything anti-Trump posture, clueless of the   dismally pathetic spectacle the rest of the entire planet see's they have become. 

They have proven themselves to be not only willing but absurdly proud of their bigotry, and so steadfast in their prejudice that they tell lies  and flip-flop on long held "personal convictions" in an instant, as long their NEW, (but they will not admit it), position is in direct opposition to any and every Trump administration position.

How else can their opposition be explained?

How is it they have spent the last sixty years fighting this cannabis prohibition, only to vehemently oppose it for the singular reason being Trump supports it?

How many thousands of their incarcerated brethren do they now oppose by default?

This is the hysterically funny part, however, that they cannot grasp the very poignant truth of the senseless and needless human suffering, the hundreds of thousands of negatively impacted children who will grow up without a parent, the mind numbing monetary loss of commerce, of which the greatest loss is indirectly,  well into the trillions and beyond even into that unnamed or even counted realm of numerical values previously only visited by engineers in their  complicated and hypothetical journey  through the virtual cosmos to create a more perfect reality.

In their blind opposition they are in fact supporting all those demon possessed and sure to rot in hell for eternity prosecutors and "judges" who have successfully bastardized the word "justice" to in reality mean "just us", those vile and soulless bastards who engage in daily corruption, collusion, and misdirection while incarcerating innocent humans for fun and profit, while at the same time condemning those very same individuals to a life of tyranny and oppression due to their new "second class citizen" status, yes, those very same liberals who have demonstrated they are in reality "libtards" because they can't remember what they stood for yesterday, and wont tell you what they will stand for tomorrow until Trump makes his position clear, so they can oppose it, they have been so focused on hating everyone and everything Trump have become so discombobulated  when confronted with their hypocritical declarations they are unable to even recognize they have become the very definition of Modern Nazi, which is among the most reviled, disgusting, and pathetic of feckless dolts to wander amongst us and waste perfectly good air whilst sewing their ignorant division.

It leave's one to ponder the obvious, we put down lame horses to end their sufferage in an act of love, shouldn't we also do the humane and brotherly same?
I can't imangine the turmoil of the pergatory of their existance today, how can one become so confused they scream "hater", when they are the only ones to hate? How can one destroy other persons property while pointing at those very same humans who just suffered a loss and cry "thief"?

If we are our brother's keeper as they so passionately declare, is it not our responsibility to offer a  permanent relief from their oh so painful to witness distress?

Our cost would be minimal, even so, I'd be happy to contribute, no, it would be sad to see them go, but the rest of the world would certainly go on much more cohesively without the discontent, destruction, and despair they sew, and that is what would make me happy.

 

JMHO...DM

 

[bostonangler]

7 minutes ago, divemaster5734 said:

they are unable to even recognize they have become the very definition of Modern Nazi,

 

Video clips of a meeting of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist/alt-right group, show speaker Richard Spencer leading a Nazi salute.

 

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alt-right-hail-trump-salute/

 

B/A

[divemaster5734]

2 hours ago, bostonangler said:

 

Video clips of a meeting of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist/alt-right group, show speaker Richard Spencer leading a Nazi salute.

 

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alt-right-hail-trump-salute/

 

B/A

Just shows ya how completely confused that moron must be, everyone knows that the Nazis were socialists, born from the 2nd modern communist party established in 1892.

Nazi's considered themselves socialists, and Nazism is only a slightly modified form of international socialism, one with a singular nation state as focus instead of the global kum-by-yah bs the masses are expected to swallow in order for their commoner born yet aristocrat ambitious leaders to live their deservedly exalted  life at the expense of others.

Unless, of course, you are talking about the national socialist party of America, thats a nazi one, the Nazis were The National German Workers Socialist Party, Nazis, or "nationals" for short.

As for someone claiming to be "alt-right" Nazis, any nutjob can call themselves anything, I think they mostly call themselves Jesus, but that just the ones we lock up unfortunately.

But for you to take one nutjob and declare they are what every single alt-right stands for, is even more dishonest than for me to remind you what  Mussolini said when they kicked him out of the international socialist party, "You can't force me out of The Party.I am, and always will be, a socialist."

Or did you forget both him and Hitler were members of that party, and it was the socialist party that they both grew to power.

Most people forget, Mussolini's "Nazism" was nothing but pure worship of The State. He rejected Hitler's version, until Hitler invaded Italy that is. Until then Mussolini SAVED an estimated 700,000 Jews fleeing Germany, which then pissed of Hitler.

 

I'm "Alt-Right"

To me, that means non-Establishment, it means abolishing the 2nd constitution, burn the fiat "money", abolish lobbyists, reverse HR 1934 and reinstate common law, no more statutes, no more prosecutor immunity,  teach personal responsibility in school, no more political indoctrination.

 

Did you know, every single state is the same as a separate country, we were the original "UN", besides the UK.. and every states constitution gives credit to a "Creator" of life, usually called Providence, which is why man does not have the right to own man, only God has that right, and since we have free will given by God, we have no right to infringe upon it. 

If God says it's OK, who am to argue?

Is only when you interfere with MY God given rights that  theres a problem.

But be careful, in Natural Law, the penalty for stealing anything, not just a horse, is death, the penalty for infringing upon another divinely created Human's rights is mostly death, which is why they created the statute, and a sanction as repayment, which is what inspired the House in 1933 to declare "All Laws are not Laws, they are Statutes"

No kidden, look it up.

 

As long as you don't mnd being called Hitler it's OK to label whateverthehell you want to, but I already know how you feel about that bastard.

So now you know,  and please understand, while you may hate Trump, which is your right,  you are also enjoying the benefits of the work of the real Alt-right, which is where I believe Trump lives as well.

Everytime you make a reference to a Nazi as alt-right you will be spreading a lie from now on.

Everytime you pretend as though the alt right are haters, you are a hater of the truth, because we now know the real Nazis were socialists.

The ball is in your court, if you continue to spread the lies and disinformation then do not be surprised when you are treated with the same lack of respect and disregard.

 

Today was fun, but  have to go, be back in a month or so.