Jeff Sessions On Marijuana: 'Won't Commit' To Obama Policy

WASHINGTON, DC — Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, on Tuesday offered a hazy picture of how he would handle the issue of marijuana. Eight states have legalized recreational marijuana, and the Obama administration has not enforced the federal marijuana ban.

During Sessions' confirmation hearings Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy asked Sessions about his views on marijuana.

"I won’t commit to never enforcing federal law," Sessions said.

In previous comments, Sessions has been staunchly anti-pot. He said he opposes legal recreational marijuana and called the Obama administration's pot policy "untenable."

"Good people don't smoke marijuana," Sessions said during a Senate hearing in April.

On Tuesday, Sessions refrained from talking about his own views on marijuana and instead pointed to the federal ban. He said, "Congress should pass a law" if there's popular support to end the prohibition. He added that it shouldn't be the attorney general's job to decide which laws should be enforced.

"We should enforce the laws as we are able," Sessions said.

In November, voters in Maine, Massachusetts, California and Nevada legalized recreational marijuana, which is already legal in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

President Obama's administration has adopted a wait-and-see approach — a policy that Trump appears to favor.

"Marijuana should be a state issue," Trump said in 2015.

During the rest of the confirmation hearings, Sessions sought to establish himself as a future top U.S. attorney who would operate independently from the president who appointed him.

He said he disagrees with a total ban on Muslim immigration into the United States, another idea Trump floated during the campaign. And if criminal charges were to be brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Trump's Democratic opponent — Sessions said he would want it to be done by a special prosecutor.

Trump threatened as much against Clinton during one of the pair's presidential debates.

Sessions is the first of Trump's appointees to receive a hearing, and the setting should be a familiar one for the Alabama politician. Sessions has sat as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for much of his 20-year tenure in Congress.

• More: Jeff Sessions Declares Independence In Attorney General Confirmation Hearing

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• Maine Legalizes Marijuana
• Marijuana Is Now Legal in Massachusetts
• California Legalizes Marijuana
• Green Wave: Marijuana Legalization Passes in 4 of 5 States

Photo: Left: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. Right: Shutterstock

Doug Gross (Patch Staff) contributed to this report