A step forward ?
Marijuana advocate sees Sessions’ ouster as a plus
With Nevada’s marijuana industry flourishing, one of its greatest threats was eliminated this week when President Donald Trump forced the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions after nearly two years on the job, a leading Las Vegas pot advocate said.
It is hoped Matthew G. Whitaker, a former football player for the University of Iowa and Sessions’ chief of staff since October 2017, will take a more progressive stance on marijuana as acting attorney general than Sessions, said Andrew Jolley, president of the Nevada Dispensary Association.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Jolley said.
Jolley, who manages The+source Dispensaries in Las Vegas and Henderson, said Sessions’ view of the cannabis industry was “especially negative.”
Whitaker, who ran for U.S. Senate nomination in Iowa, said during a 2014 Republican primary debate he sympathized with patients who benefit from cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive cannabinoid in marijuana that has painand anxiety-relieving properties.
In the same debate, Whitaker said he disapproved of state efforts to legalize marijuana while the plant remains illegal under federal law.
Asked about the passage of a Cbd-only medical cannabis law that year in Iowa, Whitaker said he supported the initiative.
“Families are going to be positively impacted by what happened in the state Senate,” he said. “And I applaud them for helping those families who need that