Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today released the following statement regarding news reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will rescind current policy and allow federal prosecutors to decide how aggressively to enforce marijuana laws:
“Attorney General Sessions’s reported decision is a direct attack on patients. Parents should be able to give their sick kids the medicine they need without having to fear that they will be prosecuted. Veterans should be able to come home from combat and use the medicine they need without having to fear they will be prosecuted. This is about public health, and it’s about reforming our broken criminal justice system that throws too many minorities in prison for completely nonviolent offenses. I urge my colleagues to join me in fighting this shortsighted decision and supporting my broadly bipartisan bill, the CARERS Act, to keep the federal government out of the way when doctors and patients decide that medical marijuana is the best treatment for them.”