Jeff Sessions be damned, even his home state of Alabama wants legal marijuana

Vices By Will Brendza

It's no secret the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hates weed. Through both his unfounded words and miserly actions, he's become the cannabis Grinch: grumpy, wrinkled and eager to leap down chimneys to steal trees from needy children.

Funny enough though, even in his home state, the push for legal pot is gaining momentum.

Alabama is the quintessential southern state, with deep Christian roots and thick Confederate blood. It's a highly conservative place, too. And yet, despite the traditional far-right mindset, and despite the lunatic prejudices of a Keebler-like senator, the majority of Alabama residents are for legalization. A recent study, conducted by Consumer Research Around Cannabis, surveyed 21 counties in the area around Birmingham. The organization found 60.2 percent of the sample supported medical and/or recreational legalization in the state.

The phenomenon isn’t isolated to Alabama, either. Republicans have long been the anti-marijuana party, but in recent years has started to lean towards the dank side. According to a recent Gallup Poll, national Republican support for marijuana legalization has increased from a mere 20 percent in 2004 to a record high of 51 percent in 2017.

And the trend shows no signs of tapering off any time soon.

Even Sessions’ professional peers have begun to distance themselves from his persecution of pot. After January’s rescinding of the Cole Memos, several powerful Republican senators lambasted Sessions including Colorado’s Cory Gardner, who Tweeted, “This reported action directly contradicts what Attorney General Sessions told me prior to his confirmation. With no prior notice to Congress, the Justice Department has trampled on the will of the voters in CO and other states.”

Outside of his latest action, the prudish Attorney General has been busy since his appointment. He has blocked the DEA from running any further scientific studies on cannabis and repeatedly denies any and all medicinal benefits of it completely ignoring the vast and growing body of evidence to support it.

He's also still regularly quoted saying things like, "We need grownups in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.”

Sessions is, in his own way, declaring war on the marijuana industry.

Yet with so much opposition to Sessions’ lone Reefer Madness campaign, the Attorney General might soon find himself charging into battle alone. In which case, his dreams of killing cannabis will go forever unrealized. And with luck, America will watch as Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III turns tail and runs whimpering back to Washington like a whipped mutt.

Because Alabama, it appears, won't allow him back without a bong-full of the good stuff.