The former Alabama senator once joked that he thought the Ku Klux Klan was "ok" until he found out they smoked weed. During a 2016 Senate hearing, he called marijuana a dangerous drug. He also didn't shy away from Reefer Madness-era moralizing: "Good people," he said, "don't smoke marijuana."

Federal law shares Sessions' sentiment. The US still bans marijuana outright, placing it in the same category as heroin and cocaine. But these days, opposing pot is bad politics. During the November election, marijuana legalization polled better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In Colorado, which has legalized both medicinal and recreational marijuana, one report found the industry added $2.4 billion and 18,000 jobs to the local economy in 2015. Even the staunchly conservative Florida governor Rick Scott has approved a measure legalizing medical marijuana for the terminally ill. Sending federal agents to raid marijuana dispensaries in the 29 states that have legalized weed in one way or another only seems likely to alienate voters.