Rep. Rohrabacher optimistic on future of cannabis under Trump

California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher is one of the marijuana industry’s staunchest allies in the U.S. House of Representatives, and while many in the cannabis trade may be fretting about the future, Rohrabacher predicted that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will leave industry oversight to the states.

That extends to Trump’s pick of Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general, who is on the record as a cannabis opponent.

“This president has made clear that he believes in a states’ rights approach to marijuana,” Rohrabacher said Friday in a phone interview with Marijuana Business Daily. “And if the president is in favor of a states’ rights approach to marijuana, I am certain that Jeff Sessions, being a man of high integrity, will not be undermining his president’s position and (will) be enforcing what Trump wants rather than what Sessions has done in the past.”

Sessions is a constitutionalist, Rohrabacher said, and as such, Sessions’ approach to running the U.S. Department of Justice likely will be to leave local law enforcement to the states instead of, for example, using the Drug Enforcement Administration to target state-licensed cannabis businesses.

Rohrabacher said it’s possible he may be leaving the House, because he’s in the running to be appointed secretary of state by Trump. But even if Rohrabacher leaves, he’ll make sure the cannabis industry still has allies in Congress.

“If I leave, I’ll be leaving several of my Republican colleagues the responsibility of following through on what we started,” he said.”Thomas Massie of Kentucky will probably be the guy leading the show if I’m gone.”