Prohibition lobbyists are getting louder, despite increasing nationwide acceptance of cannabis. Often their remarks are frivolous, but some are downright offensive, which is what many are calling Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) comparison between slavery and cannabis.

Read The Room, Sir

Sessions made the comment during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties hearing on November 15 wherein civil liberties were being discussed, including pardoning people charged with cannabis possession and the difference between a pardon and an expungement. 

“The product [cannabis] is being marketed. The product is being sold. The product has been advocated by people who were in it to make money. Slavery made money also and was a terrible circumstance that this country and the world went through for many, many years,” Sessions said seemingly unaware of the paradox.

Unfortunately, the congressman’s words came as no surprise considering his many statements on the topic and his long-standing anti-marijuana stance.

“Marijuana is an addictive product, and the merchants of addiction make it that way,” Rep. Sessions said in 2018. “They make it to where our people, our young people, become addicted to marijuana and keep going.”

Cannabis Activists & Others Are Furious

Naturally, Sessions’ remarks did not sit well with other attendees at the committee meeting.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, who also spoke at Tuesday’s congressional hearing, warned that “prohibition of cannabis has taken far too high a toll on Black and brown community and called Sessions “offensive,” reported 1819 News.

“Words matter,” Woodfin said. “While I’m on record, I would just like to say to you directly, your committee members, that putting cannabis and slavery in the same category is patently offensive and flagrant.”

NORML Political Director Morgan Fox called Sessions’ statement “shameful.”

“Today, a sitting member of Congress equated the regulated cannabis industry with slavery,” Fox tweeted. “Shameful. Texas, when are you going to send Pete Sessions packing?”

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons