Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), a leading congressional opponent of marijuana legalization, said cannabis use "hurts your DNA," turns people into "losers," and exposes young women to assault. He made the remarks on "High Stakes," a podcast from the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM).
"If you want to become a loser in life—if you want, as a young woman, to be around areas where the knowledge that you have of being assaulted, taken advantage of, and harming your life—just go forth and be around marijuana," he said.
Sessions said he became aware in college of people who used marijuana and "dropped out of life," calling it "a danger to someone's future." He claimed there is "not one positive effect" of cannabis, despite nearly every U.S. state having legalized it medically and the Trump administration's partial federal rescheduling officially recognizing its therapeutic value.
He noted his father, former FBI Director William Sessions, put the "Winners Don't Use Drugs" warning on numerous arcade games, saying "it says right under there, William S. Sessions, director of the FBI."
Sessions said marijuana "integrates itself to destroy your ability to effectively grow your mind, your brain and your body, and it correspondingly hurts your DNA and beyond," linking legalization to psychosis and addiction "in every single state that has legalized marijuana." He argued Colorado voters expected tax revenue from legalization that "never materialized because nobody wants to pay taxes," which he said fueled illegal sales and emergency room visits for psychosis.
He also called cannabis a "starter drug" leading to use of other substances, and said he would keep pressing policymakers, including the administration, to recognize its cost to American society, pointing to heroin and cocaine "that flows into this country."
Calling marijuana a "catalyst for deaths on the highway," Sessions recently joined a press conference with a drug-testing industry group pushing the Department of Transportation to keep testing safety-sensitive workers for marijuana despite federal rescheduling. As former chairman of the House Rules Committee, he blocked dozens of cannabis and drug policy amendments from reaching floor votes.
