June 13, 2017

Jeff Sessions Wants to Crack Down on Medical Marijuana Because….

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to go after medical marijuana suppliers:

I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. 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.

Uh huh. Let’s check out this “potentially long-term” uptick in violent crime. I’m using numbers from the National Crime Victimization Survey for 1994-2015 (see here for background). The projection for 2016 is based on an increase of 5.3 percent reported by the FBI for the first half of 2016:

If you think that this plus an opioid epidemic justifies cracking down on medical marijuana, I don’t have anything more for you. This is my best shot. But I’d sure suggest cracking down on drug gangs and opioid manufacturers first.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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