U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions moved to rescind Obama-era guidance, aka the Cole Memo, which allowed states to implement their own cannabis laws without federal interference. His boss, President Donald Trump, said if elected he would make cannabis a states' rights issue.

The Obama Justice Department deputy attorney general, who authored it in 2013, set out certain criteria that would allow states to implement their own laws mostly without intervention, if followed.

This past April, Sessions directed a Justice Department task force to review the memo. Sessions, a vocal critic of cannabis legalization, has hinted for months that he would move to crack down on the growing cannabis market.

Last May, Sessions sent a letter to congressional leaders requesting they get rid of an amendment in the department’s budget that blocks the Justice Department from using federal money to prevent states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

The move, which is likely to put the federal government in conflict with states where cannabis is legal for recreational use, has the emerging cannabis market entrepreneurs questioning what will happen next.

This appears to be the Trump Administration’s MO: lob a bomb, step back and watch all the chaos unfold.

Though the Trump Administration and Jeff Sessions announced that they will retract the Cole memorandum, and that would devolve prosecutorial authority to the local US Attorney's offices in each state, it's unlikely that the US Attorney in Oregon, or any of the other 7 states where adult use cannabis is legal, would attempt to prosecute people who are abiding by state licenses. If the federal government did attempt to prosecute people who are abiding by a state-issued license, no jury would convict them.

The American people will not just sit idly by while Sessions and the Trump Administration upend all the progress that has been made in dialing back the mass incarceration fueled by cannabis arrests and would destabilize an industry that is now responsible for over 150,000 jobs. Ending our disgraceful war on marijuana is the will of the people and the Trump Administration can expect severe backlash for opposing it.

We cannot stand idly by while all of the hard-won battles of cannabis activists are in jeopardy. Please support cannabis legislation!