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Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to reverse an Obama Administration policy that discouraged the Department of Justice from enforcing federal marijuana laws, especially in those states with some form of legal possession and use. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana. The majority of these states’ laws allow for the medicinal use of the drug by prescription; seven states have gone all in and allowed recreational use, with limits on amounts that can be possessed and the number of plants an individual may cultivate for personal use.

These seven states are not particularly committed to mellowing out their populations. What they are interested in are windfall tax revenues. A 2016 study by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation points out that revenues in states with fully-legalized marijuana far exceeded initial estimates. With cannabis entering the realm of legitimate business, payroll and business tax collections also increase. And there is the overall benefit of capturing tax revenue that is out-of-reach when pot is sold on the black market.

One would think that the foundational conservative tenet of federalism would be in play here, that a Republican Congress would be interested in repealing Federal anti-marijuana statutes and leaving regulation to the individual states. On the other hand, pharmaceutical and alcohol groups lobby against loosening of the marijuana laws. It is not a stretch of the imagination to see that these groups are angling to get a slice of, if not the entire, pie. Afterall, legal marijuana is a 50 billion dollar-per-year industry and the dominant providers of our intoxicants feel it should be theirs.

Which brings us to AG Sessions and his motivations. As a Senator, he was consistently opposed to relaxing Federal marijuana laws. In his view, there is no difference between marijuana and opioids such as heroin or oxycontin. As the nation’s top prosecutor, he has made it clear that all Federal drug laws should be enforced. He went so far as to instruct Federal prosecutors in drug cases to seek the most serious charges with the harshest penalties. He assembled a DoJ task force last spring to develop a legal strategy for renewed marijuana enforcement. The group came up with no new policy recommendations, but that apparently is not stopping Sessions from having the Feds adopt a get-tough stance.

There may be another force at work- this is politics, after all. The governments of three of the states that allow recreational pot use are under the full control of the Democrats. As of January 1, California joined this group when it moved from medicinal use to full recreational use. Some projections see the potential for a one-billion-dollar increase in annual revenues for the Golden State. A look at these maps might lead to the conclusion that depriving the states of these revenues may be a way to poke the Democrats in the eye.

Is a conspiracy like this possible? Maybe I’m just a little paranoid. Or, maybe I should join up with ole Jeff Beauregard and quit smoking this stuff.