Remember when Jeff Sessions tried to turn the tide against cannabis legalization? Even within his own Justice Department, the bumbling effort by the US attorney general appears to have fallen flat.
On Tuesday, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts—the latest state to launch a regulated retail cannabis market, though stores have yet to open—signaled that he plans to let the state’s legalization rollout move forward.
“I will not effectively immunize the residents of the Commonwealth from federal marijuana enforcement,” US Attorney Andrew Lelling, a Trump appointee, said in a statement. “My office’s resources, however, are primarily focused on combatting the opioid epidemic that claims thousands of lives in the Commonwealth each year.”