States Gird For Marijuana War With Jeff Sessions

[Jimbo101]

Huffington Post

Communities are rising up green and steeling for a “states’ rights” battle over the cultivation and sale of recreational marijuana — despite a warning about a crackdown by the federal government.

“There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week. “Recreational use ... is something the Department of Justice will be looking into,” he said, emphasizing: “I do believe you’ll see greater enforcement” of federal law.

Pot remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act, even though recreational use of marijuana has been approved in eight states and Washington, D.C. It’s legal for medical use in 30 states.

Now growers, smokers and even state officials are preparing to guard the crop across the nation. A major concern is revenue. The non-profit Tax Foundation estimates that a mature legalized marijuana industry would generate up to $28 billion in tax revenue for federal, state and local governments. Colorado raked in $70 million in taxes in 2015, exceeding expectations.

A report on jobs predicts that the legal marijuana industry in the U.S. could create more than 250,000 jobs by the year 2020, Forbes reports. That’s more than projected job gains from manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom fired off a letter on Friday to Donald Trump urging him to “work in partnership with California and the other … states that have legalized recreational marijuana for adult use.” The government “must not strip the legal and publicly-supported industry of its business, and hand it back to drug cartels and criminals,” he added.