A former Jets player is suing Jeff Sessions to legalize marijuana

[jpak]

Source: Washington Post

Former NFL player Marvin Washington is one of five plaintiffs who are suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration in federal court to legalize marijuana, the New York Post reported Monday night.

Washington, a defensive lineman known mostly for his time with the New York Jets over his 11-year NFL career, is the co-founder of a company that sells hemp-based sports performance products that do not contain THC, the component of cannabis that causes a high in marijuana users. In the lawsuit, he claims that the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug — in other words, a substance that has a high potential for abuse and one that has no accepted medical use — prevents him from receiving federal grants to open a business that “would allow pro football players to use medical marijuana for pain management in lieu of more addictive opioids,” the Post reports.

NFL players “are fed opiates and pharmaceuticals throughout the week, from training camp until the end of season. That can be June to January. It’s not normal,” Washington told the New York Daily News in June. “I think the Players Association should demand that [players] have an alternative to opiates. This is scientific-based. This is not hocus pocus. That’s where I want to see this in the very near future, players that have an alternative to opiates.”

As delineated by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), substances such as marijuana, heroin and LSD are considered Schedule I drugs but drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine are considered less dangerous Schedule II drugs because, while also addictive and subject to abuse, they have accepted medical uses in the eyes of the federal government.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/07/25/a-former-jets-player-is-suing-jeff-sessions-to-legalize-marijuana/?utm_term=.9c948f7ba1e9

[barbtries]

1. marijuana being a schedule I drug is almost a joke

except it has brought grief to so many families unnecessarily.

[Dustlawyer]

2. It was first demonized because the Cotton industry wanted to stop Hemp.

Now it is so law enforcement can get big budgets and asset seizure money. Legalize pot and we do not need near as much interdiction on the other drugs. Also pot might be a gateway drug, but not how you think. If legal pot poses no problems, we may decide to legalize it all and spend the money on treatment centers instead of cops and prisons!

[NobodyHere]

3. Why Jeff Sessions?

Does he control whether or not marijuana is legal?

[metalbot]

4. Not legal, exactly

But he could in theory order that it be rescheduled.

That being said, I don't see how a lawsuit could force him to make such an order.

[jmowreader]

5. He knows Jeff Sessions hates marijuana, correct?

The likelihood of Sessions legalizing marijuana is even less than the likelihood of anyone here voting to reelect Trump. IOW it ain't happening.