The Cannabis Industry Apocalypse
Roger Stone and Jared Freedman
When President Trump was campaigning, he was interviewed several times where the question of marijuana and state’s rights had come up. In all cases, then Candidate Trump said he believed that medical marijuana was fine, for the states that had passed laws about it, though he thought recreational use was a more complicated issue.
Since the election, President Trump has gone out of his way to demonstrate that he is keeping his campaign pledges. Taken at his own word, President Donald J. Trump has said it is important to him to keep his promises, and that he understands he will be judged based on how hard he fights to keep his word.
It would be understandable, then, that President Trump would be dismayed at the behavior of his current Attorney General Jeff Sessions. On May 10th of this year, AG Sessions, in contravention of President Trump’s publicly stated position, announced he would be voiding the ‘Holder Memo’ from August 2013 that stated that the Department of Justice would not be charging and sentencing offenders of anti-marijuana federal laws in states where legalization had been passed. Jeff Sessions, and his fellow Drug Warriors hope to turn back the clock on personal freedom and liberty, perhaps in hopes of enriching their prison industrial complex buddies. The privately owned for profit prison industry received a giant boon in the form of Jeff Sessions, as one of his first official acts was to overturn the late Obama era ban on for profit private prisons.
Many states that have committed themselves to abiding by the will of the people have vowed to fight any federal efforts to enforce antiquated marijuana laws in their jurisdictions, most notable being California and Oregon. Other states have neither the will nor the wherewithal to fight a rabid federal Department of Justice, so will likely capitulate if called to task.
Many pundits openly deride AG Sessions, correctly saying that there is no budget for the kind of enforcement the Attorney General envisions, and that all of his talk of getting tough on pot is just a bunch of smoke.
“Not so fast” would be the watch phrase as Chris Christie enters the picture. While laying low and minding his ‘p’s and ‘q’s as the Trump supporting Governor of New Jersey, it is no secret that Chris Christie deeply desires a post in the Trump administration. Drug Czar to be exact, now that the Attorney General position he desired is filled by Sessions.
Our government sources tell us that a new plan is being floated within DOJ circles, a plan that could spell the end of the cannabis industry, just as it is about to take off. Chris Christie is said to be the architect of this plan, although AG Sessions is also said to have embraced the plan wholeheartedly.
The primary issue that is stopping the Attorney General from bringing the Jack Boot down on the neck of the cannabis industry is money. As mentioned, the DOJ doesn’t have a budget to do the kind of enforcement championed by its leader. Enter the plan of Chris Christie.
Christie’s plan is based on sound legal principles and current federal law. There is little to stop the execution of this plan, other than acts of US Congress or directives from the President of the United States of America. Without further ado, presented here to the public for the first time, is the Cannabis Industry Apocalypse:
Of primacy in this plan is the fact that Marijuana is still a Schedule I substance. Schedule I is reserved for drugs that are so dangerous and have zero redeemable attributes, that a special set of laws was created to combat them. Heroin and LSD share this list with marijuana, but not cocaine, a Schedule II substance.
Most people, upon learning that our federal government views marijuana as a far worse substance than cocaine are rightly incredulous, but how this state of affairs came about is not the purpose of this article. What is important here is that marijuana and all derived products that contain THC, the primary psychoactive component of the cannabis plant, are Schedule I substances, subject to the full might and fury of federal law enforcement officers.
The only thing keeping the feds off the back of the cannabis industry were the DOJ memos from the prior administration, which were explicitly undone by the current administration in the past few weeks.
Another important clue to their plans comes from a recent DOJ announcement that the DOJ will no longer be donating part of the proceeds that it receives from civil asset forfeitures to a variety of non-profit groups but will instead be keeping all the proceeds for itself to be used for increased staffing and greater enforcement.
In order to address the lack of budget necessary to start large scale enforcement, the Christie Plan lays out the following actions:
- Issue Subpoenas to the twenty-nine states that have legalized cannabis, in any form, and demand their entire set of licensing records, for growers, dispensers, doctors, and users.
- Use conventional DOJ budgets to hire new DOJ staff to fight the states that refuse to turn over their licensing records. The DOJ will sue each state, in order or revenue, for compliance.
- Use current staff to open a criminal investigation for violation of manufacture, transport, sale, and or consumption of a Schedule I substance, against the entire list of licensees.
- Using this new investigation as a rationale, demand that the Treasury Department turn over financial records of the entities named in the state licensing records.
- Using the data returned by the Treasury Department, the DOJ will sort the list from highest asset entities to the lowest asset entities.
- The DOJ, through its field offices of US Attorneys, will order investigators to physically visit facilities and offices of the highest asset value entities.
- If there is any evidence that the entity handled or facilitated the handling of actual THC containing marijuana based products, they will go on the Red List.
- Red List targets will have individual formal investigations started, and when enough evidence has been gathered, all financial assets of the entity will be seized under current asset forfeiture laws.
- The assets will be liquidated and the proceeds will be used to hire and staff brand new teams of Marijuana Enforcers.
- These new teams will repeat the steps in this plan over and over until the Cannabis Industry ceases to exist.
It is easy to see how it wouldn’t take very many large-scale busts to put a chilling effect on the entire cannabis industry, bankrupting individuals, companies, cities, counties, and states that have come to rely on the industry of their daily bread.
Only Congress or President Trump can stop this madness, and they had better do it quickly, or it will be too late.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/politics/jeff-sessions-marijuana/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/14/politics/u-s-marijuana-banks/
https://news.vice.com/story/jeff-sessions-just-did-something-the-private-prison-industry-will-love
http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=797