CRACKING DOWN ON THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC IS FINE, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POT EPIDEMIC THAT LEGALIZATION IS CAUSING IN THE FACE OF FEDERAL MARIJUANA PROHIBITION LAWS?

Sessions' first proposed budget: A crackdown on immigration and violent crime

By Joseph Tanfani

Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2017

In the first budget proposal under President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department is seeking hundreds of millions in new funding to pay for an immigration crackdown on the border and a surge in resources to fight violent crime.

Like the Department of Homeland Security budget, which includes billions for expanded immigration detention, more border agents and technology to catch those crossing the border illegally, the Justice Department budget is a reflection of the new get-tough policies promised by Sessions. The budget asks for another 300 federal prosecutors – 230 to focus on violent criminals and gangs, and another 70 to concentrate on filing criminal charges on those crossing the border illegally.

The shift in the spending priorities are in line with other policy changes ordered by Sessions, including a renewed focus on seeking stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drugs and other crimes.

The $27.7-billion budget seeks 450 new attorneys and support workers for the immigration courts, which are now clogged with a backlog of 560,000 cases. There would also be another $50 million for increased immigration detention, plus 40 new U.S. marshal jobs to help take care of the expected increase in immigrants heading to federal court.

With Trump’s immigration initiatives tied up in federal court, the budget seeks another 15 lawyers to handle that litigation, plus 12 more to help handle property acquisition needed for Trump’s promised Southwestern border wall.

Violent-crime enforcement would get another $198 million, with the largest amount, $70 million, going toward setting up more anti-violence and gang task forces. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod J. Rosenstein said more resources are needed because of what he called an “alarming increase” in the rates of murder and other violent crimes. The department is also asking for another $40 million for more drug enforcement to combat the opioid epidemic, which he said is spreading “havoc throughout the United States.”

Sessions’ new policies should lead to an increase in prison population, so the budget contains funding to fully open a new supermax prison in Thomson, Ill., with room for 1,500 to 2,000 inmates.

The department also wants to put more resources behind the FBI’s efforts to counter cyber attacks and to figure out ways around encryption technology, along with another 50 agents to counter foreign intelligence and threats from homegrown terrorists.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If the DOJ doesn’t crack down on the manufacture and distribution of marijuana in Colorado, Washington, California and the other states that have legalized pot, legalization of this gateway drug will spread like wildfire. Then we will end up with as many stoners as the tobacco users we had when smoking was considered cool. And that will lead to a significant increase in the use of heroin and other opioids, coke, meth, designer drugs, etc.