What Sessions is smoking

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is unleashing his prosecutors to enforce harsh federal marijuana laws in states that have chosen, through popular vote or their legislatures, to medicalize and legalize pot. Even though by doing so the Republican Party, which claims to believe in states’ rights and the rule of law, risks bigfooting those very rights and creating widespread statutory confusion — including in California, which just legalized recreational marijuana use by popular vote.

Even though Sessions promised Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who happens to be a Republican, that he would not take this step. Gardner tweeted that the action “directly contradicts what Attorney General Sessions told me prior to his confirmation,” “with no prior notice to Congress.”

Even though an opioid addiction crisis — which, by the way, often begins with dependency on a perfectly legal drug — grips the nation, and medical marijuana is a safer and less addictive means for many to manage chronic pain.

Even though statistics show black Americans are vastly more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans, who use the drug at similar rates. Or perhaps the disparities, which waste precious resources and make a mockery of equal justice, just don’t bother him.

What is Jeff Sessions smoking? The dogma of a bygone age.