John Boehner Would Like to Wish You a Happy 4/20

Boehner, who joined the advisory board of cannabis investment firm Acreage Holdings this month, told Bloomberg that Republicans are catching up with national trends, in the same way they did with same-sex marriage. “Over the last 10 or 15 years, the American people’s attitudes have changed dramatically,” he said. “I find myself in that same position.”

But there’s more to it for the right than just the pressure of public opinion. Many Republicans in Congress represent states that have legalized marijuana in some form—per Governing magazine, 22 states had enacted laws or approved ballot measures before April allowing medicinal use, and in eight states it was permissible to use the drug recreationally. The industry brought in $9 billion nationwide last year, per BDS Analytics, a cannabis research firm—oh, what a time to be alive—and sales stand to skyrocket as legalization expands and use becomes less taboo.

It’s evident, then, that lawmakers have political incentive to protect their states’ interests if the federal government encroaches upon them—which happens to be the primary reason Republican members of Congress have become involved in the pot debate this year. In January, the Trump Justice Department rescinded an Obama-era memo that indicated it would direct federal law enforcement resources away from legalization states, under the assumption those states would be able to police themselves. The so-called “Cole memo” (named for its issuer, then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole) read, in part:

Colorado Republican Cory Gardner interpreted the rescission as a threat from the Trump administration to his state, calling it “extremely alarming.” He followed through in the coming months on his warning that he would hold up Justice Department nominees, delaying the confirmation of about 20 in all, the Washington Post reported. Gardner finally received a commitment from Trump last week that DOJ’s activity would not affect Colorado, as well as nebulous “assurance” that Trump “will support a federalism-based legislative solution to fix this states’ rights issue once and for all.”

But it’s not just Gardner who has invoked this 10th Amendment defense of marijuana legalization—he’s simply the most prominent elected member to do so. After nixing the Cole memo, dozens of representatives from legalization states wrote House leaders requesting language in appropriations legislation that would bar DOJ from using federal money “to prevent any of [the states listed] from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of marijuana on non-Federal lands within their respective jurisdictions.” There were 47 states listed in all, representing those with legalization laws pertaining both to marijuana and Cannabidiol, a non-mind-altering compound in cannabis that may provide some of the full drug’s benefits. The signees included California Republicans Tom McClintock, Dana Rohrabacher, and Duncan Hunter; Colorado Republicans Scott Tipton, Ken Buck, and Mike Coffman; and nine other GOP reps.

While their argument is couched in constitutional law, what do they say of the merits of legalization, itself? This part—the substance of the matter—remains sticky. Although the firm Boehner advises works with cannabis companies that produce marijuana for recreational use, the former House speaker told Bloomberg he was swayed after seeing its effects on a friend suffering from back pain and considering its possible benefits for veterans. Sen. Orrin Hatch, another high-profile Republican, implored Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this month to stop blocking growers’ applications for federal research of marijuana. Only the University of Mississippi is contracted for such research today. “Last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration had been gearing up to allow facilities other than the University of Mississippi to grow pot for research. But after the DEA received 26 applications from other growers, Attorney General Jeff Sessions halted the initiative,” Kaiser Health News reported.

“Ninety-two percent of veterans support federal research on marijuana, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is aware that many veterans have been using marijuana to manage the pain of their wartime wounds,” Hatch and California Democrat Kamala Harris wrote. “America’s heroes deserve scientifically-based assessments of the substance many of them are already self-administering.”

Opponents of marijuana legalization like Bennett say the talk of “medical” use is a slippery slope—a way for people with nonspecific symptoms of “severe pain” to obtain cards, not prescriptions, to obtain the drug legally, which makes it more likely that pot finds its way to adolescents and those who have no medicinal need for it. In his 2016 book Going to Pot, Bennett proposed a compromise medical marijuana plan to stem the spread of legalization: for “those who possibly will benefit from marijuana use to obtain prescription marijuana, while obviating the fraud that characterizes most state-authorized medical marijuana programs.”

Bennett still condemns marijuana’s recreational use—more than ever, in fact, given his concern that available forms of the drug contain much higher concentrations of THC today than they did in the days of Woodstock. “Marijuana potency, as detected in confiscated samples, has steadily increased over the past few decades. In the early 1990s, the average THC content in confiscated marijuana samples was roughly 3.8 percent. In 2014, it was 12.2 percent,” the National Institute on Drug Abuse notes.

“We are spending money and political capital on strengthening the health, education, and productivity of our populace, yet society believes it appropriate to push for greater availability of a drug that hinders, and negatively affects (perhaps dramatically), those very efforts,” Bennett wrote.

To his chagrin, a bigger chunk of that society includes Republicans.