$10 Billion in Legal Pot Sales Last Year – Taxes in Some States Support Public Schools
The Trump administration will rescind an Obama-era policy that enabled the rapid growth of the multi-billion dollar legal recreational marijuana industry. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has falsely compared marijuana to heroin, is expected to crack down on marijuana growers and sellers who, under the laws of several states are operating legally, but are violating federal law.
“The move by President Donald Trump’s attorney general likely will add to confusion about whether it’s OK to grow, buy or use marijuana in states where pot is legal, since long-standing federal law prohibits it,” the AP reports. “It comes days after pot shops opened in California, launching what is expected to become the world’s largest market for legal recreational marijuana and as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal.”
Legal sales of pot blossomed to $10 billion in 2017. Many cities and states rely heavily on the taxes these businesses produce, enabling them to improve public education. The Trump administration, under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has shown a preference for charter schools, which are generally run by private businesses.
“The Obama administration in 2013 announced it would not stand in the way of states that legalize marijuana, so long as officials acted to keep it from migrating to places where it remained outlawed and out of the hands of criminal gangs and children,” the AP added.
In March the Attorney General urged a group of law enforcement agents to “focus” on “preventing people from ever taking drugs in the first place.”Â
Sessions told local, state, and federal agents, “I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable.”
“I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful,” Sessions said. “Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”
There have been no reports of fatal overdoses of marijuana.
Studies show marijuana is not a so-called gateway drug to dangerous drugs, and it is almost entirely not addictive. A strong majority of Americans – 64% – now support the legalization of marijuana. Even the majority of Republicans support pot legalization.
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Image:Â Official DHS photo by Jetta Disco via Flickr
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