Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that federal laws against marijuana remain in effect even in states that have voted to legalize the drug.
"I do not believe there's any argument [that] because a state legalizes marijuana, that the federal law against marijuana is no longer in existence," Sessions told radio host Hugh Hewitt. "I do believe that the federal laws clearly are in effect in all 50 states and we will do our best to enforce the laws as we are required to do so."
In the previous administration, Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memo stating that recreational marijuana businesses would not be prosecuted in states that he legalized marijuana.
"And a lot of money is being made and banked. One RICO prosecution of one producer and the banks that service them would shut this all down. Is such a prosecution going to happen?" Hewitt asked.
"I don't know that one prosecution would be quite as effective as that," Sessions responded. "I can't comment on the existence of an investigation at this time . . . You're making a suggestion. I hear it."
Sessions' deputy, Rod Rosenstein, said in September that the Justice Department is in the process of reviewing Cole's memo.
"We are reviewing that policy. We haven't changed it, but we are reviewing it. We're looking at the states that have legalized or decriminalized marijuana, trying to evaluate what the impact is," Rosenstein said while at the Heritage Foundation, according to Forbes. "And I think there is some pretty significant evidence that marijuana turns out to be more harmful than a lot of people anticipated, and it's more difficult to regulate than I think was contemplated ideally by some of those states."