Sessions Is All Talk: Drug Prosecutions Are Lower and Marijuana Industry Remains Intact
Although the Trump administration emerged with a raging hard-on earlier this year in the name of a renewed discipline to combat the War on Drugs, a recent analysis by CBS News indicates that all of the tough talk pertaining to the ramping up of drug prosecutions in the United States has, so far, resulted in nothing more than empty threats.
In May, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ripped to shreds an Obama-era policy that gave federal prosecutors some leeway when determining the fate of convicted drug offenders. The revised directive ordered the whole of Uncle Sam’s tribunal to go for the jugular when considering sentences for those people found guilty of drug-related crimes.
“We are returning to the enforcement of the laws as passed by Congress, plain and simple,” Sessions said of the policy change. “If you are a drug trafficker, we will not look the other way, we will not be willfully blind to your misconduct.”
The Justice Department’s message rattled the nerves of drug reform advocates who were concerned that Sessions’ plan would do nothing more than fill up prisons across the nation. However, that hasn’t exactly happened, according to researchers from Syracuse University’s Transactional Access Records Clearinghouse (TRAC).
The latest statics show that during February through June, federal prosecutors have only dealt with 8,814 drug cases. Last year, federal courts handled hundreds more—9,687 cases—during the same period.
When taking into consideration Trump’s first five months in office and Obama’s last seven, the combined number of drug convictions represents the lowest number this country has experienced in a related timeframe in more than two decades, the TRAC report shows.
Ever since Sessions was put in charge of the Justice Department, he has foamed at the mouth like a deranged animal when met with the subject of drug-related crime. He not only vowed to bury those involved with the illegal drug culture up to their necks, he has also spent the majority of his time in office trying to devise a clever method for taking down the legal marijuana trade.
Just this week, the attorney general upgraded his supposed attack on drug culture by suggesting that he would not only get tough on drug dealers, but he plans to make examples out of users, as well.
“This is not acceptable,” Sessions said last week, when speaking about the opioid epidemic. “We must not capitulate intellectually or morally to drug use. We must create and foster a culture that’s hostile to drug use.”
But as far as it can be seen, the diabolical wrath of Jeff Sessions is all talk.
Federal prosecutors are still not locking up more drug offenders, and the legal cannabis industry remains completely intact.
Yet, that is not to say the tides won’t eventually take a turn for the wicked, causing the entire scene to transform into some mutant breed of old school drug war politics. Considering the imbeciles hanging from the throat of this sleeping beast, it is distinctly possible that Sessions and Trump are simply waiting on the sidelines of their newfound drug war, just until they find the appropriate Satanic ritual to summon the bloated ghost of Richard Nixon. As soon as that happens, you better know damn well that this rotten creature will be woke, angry, ravenous and depraved.
Our only hope is that the vomit stewing in the guts of this monstrous affair does not leave behind a permanent stench.
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