The Other Anti-Pot Sessions Strikes Again

The Other Anti-Pot Sessions Strikes Again

Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t the only Sessions in the US government that you should be hating on.

Another one, by the name of Pete Sessions, hasn’t been getting the same attention as his namesake although he’s just as evil.

In some circles, the Texas Rep is a well-known prohibitionist. This week, he strikes again by rejecting two cannabis reform bills; the first of which was created to augment the Fiscal Year 2019 budget bill, and if passed, it would have protected banks who chose to work with legal cannabis businesses in states where it’s been legalized.

The lack of access to proper banking services has long been the bane of the cannabis industry’s existence. Companies throughout the country are left with no choice but to operate strictly on an all-cash basis, because cannabis is a federally illegal substance and this makes financial institutions hesitant to do business with them. Aside from that, cannabis businesses don’t have access to regular financial services that are available to other industries, such as the ability to get loans.

The second bill that Rep. Sessions blocked would have legalized the sale of adult-use pot in Washington, DC. Although cannabis has been legal since 2014 in the capital, Congress has prevented retailers from opening. The only choice that locals have in obtaining their supply is either by growing it, purchasing it from the black market, or be lucky enough to receive it as a gift. Sessions was slammed by Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), who proposed the bill which would reverse the rider preventing DC from providing funding to the cannabis industry. “This rider has unintentionally benefited violent drug gangs,” she told the House Rules Committee. “For that reason, some refer to it as the ‘Drug Dealer Protection Act’. As one marijuana dealer told the Washington Post, the rider is ‘a license for me to print money.” Regulating marijuana like alcohol would allow DC, instead of drug dealers, to control production, distribution, sales, and revenues of cannabis.”

Her efforts were futile, since Rep. Sessions is influential enough to reject bills, considering he’s the chair of the House Rules Committee.

Our only hope so far is if Sessions gets sacked during the midterm elections, and that someone else more supportive of cannabis takes his place.

What Gives?

In September 2017, Rep. Sessions blocked the passing of the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Act, a measure that protects cannabis businesses from being prosecuted or arrested by the Department of Justice in states that have legalized pot. The bill has been passed every single year…. Until he blocked it.

But that’s not the only reason why he’s a royal pain in the ass. He has also blocked several other amendments that would have been beneficial in improving state-legal cannabis regulations. These include the blocking of proposals that could have improved hemp projects, loosened restrictions on conducting scientific research on pot, protecting 8 states where adult-use cannabis has been legalized, and programs that could have allowed DC to regulate adult-use sales.

It still remains unclear what Sessions gets out of blocking the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer agreement. However, in 2017, AG Jeff Sessions requested help from Congressional heads in ending the protections available for the medical cannabis industry, saying: “The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.” Based on this, it’s safe to assume that Sessions blocked the agreement as an effort to kiss AG Sessions’ ass.

Instead of using his position of power to help the cannabis industry and the patients who badly need the medicine, Sessions has been doing the opposite. One of his most dishonorable moves was blocking a vote that could have allowed military vets to access medical cannabis. That makes him the only member of Congress who is against helping vets obtain medical cannabis. In 2017, Sessions blocked a vote on the Veteran Equal Access amendment, and the Senate Appropriations committee ended up voting 24-7. He essentially crushed the bill, eliminating any possibility of it being passed. The bill makes up part of the 2018 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill.

During a debate earlier this year in which the congress was deciding on amendments that would protect state cannabis regulations from federal interference, Sessions said: “I, as probably everybody in this room knows, have a strong opinion on drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol.”

“Marijuana is an addictive product, and the merchants of addiction make it that way. They make it for addiction. They make it to where our people, our young people, become addicted to marijuana and keep going,” he argued.