Jeff Sessionss ridiculous anti-drug crusade
By Tana Ganeva November 21 at 1:58 PM
A few days ago, it looked as if the popularity and profitability of marijuana would spare pot reform from the lurching chaos of Donald Trump’s administration. But then Sen. Jeff Sessions — probably the only person on earth who’s nostalgic about Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign — was announced as President-elect Trump’s choice for attorney general.
As my fellow guest blogger Steven Hale wrote on Friday, Sessions’s record and public statements indicate that he’ll be a nightmare for civil liberties. In terms of drug policy, Sessions stands out even in the GOP for his steadfast rejection of scientific evidence.
At a Senate hearing in April, Sessions held forth on the (nonexistent) dangers of legalization. “We need grown-ups in charge in Washington saying marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought to be minimized, that it is in fact a very real danger. You can see the accidents, traffic deaths related to marijuana,” he &feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">said. “And you’ll see cocaine and heroin increase more than it would have, I think.”
Renowned scientist Nancy Reagan aside, there is actually no compelling evidence that marijuana is a “gateway” to harder drugs. As Maia Szalavitz has explained, although many people who do heroin or cocaine have tried pot, it’s more a matter of correlation than cause and effect. Citing the National Institute on Drug Abuse statistic that someone who tries marijuana is 104 times more likely to use cocaine, she noted, “Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members are probably 104 times more likely to have ridden a bicycle as a kid than those who don’t become Hell’s Angels, but that doesn’t mean that riding a two-wheeler is a ‘gateway’ to joining a motorcycle gang. It simply means that most people ride bikes and the kind of people who don’t are highly unlikely to ever ride a motorcycle.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/11/21/jeff-sessionss-ridiculous-anti-drug-crusade/?utm_term=.84962ef3c400&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
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