WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - It seems that the Trump administration is getting ready to crackdown the use of marijuana under Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
According to reports, a new study from the DoJ's Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety will link the use of marijuana and violent crime that will enable the Justice Department to crackdown cannabis and seek tougher sentences for those farming, selling and using the drug.
Democrat Senator Brian Schatz called the proposal 'backward and inhumane' in a tweet. 'I hope every third-party voting progressive remembers this,' he stated. 'There's a real difference between R's and D's.'
During Obama's 8 years of administration, the use of marijuana was decriminalized in about 21 states.
However, the stance of Trump's administration is different from its predecessor, with Sessions, who is leading the Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, saying that it would be would 'unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund prosecutions, particularly in the midst of a historic drug epidemic and a potentially long-term uptick in violent crime.'
'Task Force subcommittees will also undertake a review of existing policies in the areas of charging, sentencing, and marijuana to ensure consistency with the Department's overall strategy on reducing violent crime and with Administration goals and priorities,' Sessions wrote in a memo updating the U.S. Attorney's Offices and Department of Justice Department component heads on the work of the task force.
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