Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently issued new sentencing rules to help fill prisons, and his renewed attack on marijuana is certain to put more and more people behind bars. The only people who benefit from this are private prison owners, and they are currently celebrating Sessions’ moves because they know it’ll only serve to make them even richer. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made it clear that his focus, as Attorney General of the United States, is going to be to renew the failed war on drugs policy within the U.S., that started under President Reagan, and all it served to do was put thousands upon thousands of people in prison for non-violent crimes, like possessing marijuana. Or, smoking marijuana. And, Jeff Sessions wants to return us to those days in the 80s, and 90s, and early 2000s when having a small amount of pot on you could land you in prison for 10 or 20 years. In fact, they’re already working on strengthening sentencing laws throughout the United States to make possession of marijuana, even give you more jail time. And, the only people who are going to benefit from any of Sessions’ drug policy here are the people who own shares in private prisons.
The people who own private prisons right now are celebrating around the clock because they understand what Jeff Sessions war on drugs means. It means more inmates, which means more federal money, which means more money in profits at the end of the year for these jackasses who run these prisons. That is the only purpose of this policy.
Now, Jeff Sessions may actually believe that marijuana is bad and we need to do something about it because he cares about the American public so much, but I doubt it. I don’t believe anything Jeff Sessions says. I don’t believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a racist, I don’t believe when a racist says that they care about the welfare of anyone in this country. Because, clearly, you don’t.
So, whatever the reasons for Jeff Sessions renewed war on drugs, it doesn’t matter because the end result is always going to be the same. We’re going to put more people in prison who don’t deserve to be in prison, and we’re going to enrich the private prison CEOs who don’t need anymore money, who provide sub-standard care for their inmates, who hire people off the street who are unqualified to be guards, who have an escape rate much higher than regular federal prisons. But, they’re the people who are going to make all the money from this.
Meanwhile, Sessions is now telling us that he and his Department of Justice might start going after States’ medical marijuana. They want to take away medical marijuana. They want to give those profits back to big Pharma. Now, Jeff Sessions, obviously, is not running for an office, the office he currently holds is not an elected one, so he doesn’t have to worry about campaign money. But, the rest of the Republican Party does. And, so, that’s why he’s going to continue to get support from the rest of the Republicans because they want that big Pharma money when Jeff Sessions kills medical marijuana laws like he wants to do. They’re going to want that money from the private prison industry when he starts packing their prisons full of people who have half an ounce of pot on them. And, that’s why they’re not going to stand up to Jeff Sessions.
Now, I don’t care if somebody smokes pot or not. It’s your personal decision. But, you can not deny the benefits that we have seen in the area’s where marijuana, both medicinal and recreational, has been legalized. State of Colorado is pulling in millions of dollars in new revenue, and tourism revenue, from legalizing marijuana. Same thing in areas of the Pacific Northwest. That’s why more and more states are moving towards this. It makes them money. It gives them money so that they can repair the roads, and bridges, and fund the teachers, and fire departments, and police officers that they need to keep their state functioning.
It’s allowing people who were addicted to painkillers and opioids to get off of them. People who suffer from chronic pain, instead of having to take a medication with dangerous side effects, can take a cannabis oil that alleviates their pain, doesn’t cause a high because it contains no THC, and gets them off of those medications that damage their liver, or damage their heart, when you have to take four or eight ibuprofen, or aspirin, or Advil, or whatever, every day.
That’s what’s happening. And, Jeff Sessions wants to take it away because he’s still living in an era, in the United States, where marijuana is some kind of gateway drug that leads you to heroine, and cocaine, and crack, and eventually death, and prison, and murder. That’s Jeff Sessions’ mindset. The United States has come a long way since we first outlawed marijuana. Unfortunately, Jeff Sessions hasn’t.
