sessions nominates.JPG

Sen. Jeff Sessions has made it clear, he's against marijuana legalization.

When Jeff Sessions sits before his colleagues in the United States Senate for his confirmation early next year, you're certain to hear again about a joke he told decades ago. It came up in his last confirmation hearing in 1986, when the Senate rejected his appointment to the federal bench.

Paraphrasing here, but what Sessions is said to have said went something like this ...

I didn't think the Klan were such bad guys until I found out they smoked marijuana.

Sessions has said that he meant it as a joke and that it doesn't in anyway reflect how he feels about the hate group. To be certain, though, Sessions will be grilled on his attitude toward civil rights.

But there's another thing here that means a lot for a Trump Justice Department -- the end of that joke, marijuana.

While Sessions's attitude toward civil rights enforcement is up in the air, his thoughts on drug enforcement are clear. Sessions believes strongly that marijuana is an evil substance and that the Obama administration's enforcement of drug laws has been weak. Now that Sessions could be in the driver's seat at the U.S. Justice Department, that could soon change.

Sessions is on the record saying that the "Just Say No" prevention campaigns from 30 years ago sent the right message and that good people don't smoke pot.

"It was the prevention movement that really was so positive, and it led to this decline," he said. "The creating of knowledge that this drug is dangerous, it cannot be played with, it is not funny, it's not something to laugh about, and trying to send that message with clarity, that good people don't smoke marijuana."

Recreational use of marijuana is or will soon be legal in eight states. Twelve more states have passed some degree of decriminalization of marijuana, and more than a dozen more have legalized marijuana or cannabis oil for medicinal use.

The trouble is that those legalization efforts depended on the federal government looking the other way. Under federal law, marijuana is still a controlled substance, but the Obama administration has refused to enforce those laws in states where it has been legalized.

Again, on the record, Sessions has blasted the out-going administration for those choices, calling Obama's approach "beyond comprehension."

If the Senate approves Sessions' appointment as Attorney General, and if Sessions direction of the Justice Department follows his rhetoric from the past several years, it could put the administration in conflict with public opinion, the momentum of which has been steadily moving toward legalization.

Gallup has polled Americans on marijuana since 1969, when only 12 percent supported legalization, but since then, those numbers have shown a steady increase in support for legalization. In 2013, a majority of Americans first said they supported legalization, and Gallup's latest poll, 60 percent said they were in favor, record support.

While a majority of Republicans told Gallup this year that they still opposed legalization, that opposition was not monolithic. Of those respondents, 42 percent said they supported full legalization.

Session's has made his position clear, but could it conflict with his boss? That depends on which Trump you choose to believe. Like many other issues, on marijuana, Trump has been all over the board. His opinions have changed depending on when and where he was talking and to whom he was speaking.

In a 1990 speech, Trump said he was in favor of full legalization of all drugs in general and called the War on Drugs a failure. At the CPAC conference this year, he said he supported medical marijuana but said he felt very strongly that legalization was bad. Most recently, according to the Washington Post, Trump said in a Nevada rally that it should be left to the states to decide.

"In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state," Trump said then.