Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Biden is aiming increasingly personal and sarcastic jabs at Trump

Views of the campus protests are too broad — and too narrow

Attorney general moves to reclassify marijuana as lower-risk drug

I coach my son’s sports team. Why is he so disrespectful during practice?

Miss Manners: How to decline donation requests at checkout

Ask Amy: My friends took my advice, but they’re doing it wrong

Biden’s internet-for-all program needs Musk’s help

Microsoft’s “responsible AI” chief worries about the open web

How the push to ban TikTok spurred a new Washington influence machine

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

I learned to heal my sadness by cradling dying chickens 

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

Meet Emo, the AI robot that can predict your smile

Speaker Johnson: deploy National Guard to Columbia

Man arrested at Yellowstone for allegedly kicking bison while drunk

Southwest passengers now get a $75 voucher for big flight disruptions

The Rick Steves guide to life

A murder plot that cannot be ignored: India must come clean at last

How to confront antisemitism, deal with protests — and respect free speech

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

UnitedHealth grew very big. Now, some lawmakers want to chop it down.

The new face of flooding

How celebrity tequilas are changing the very nature of tequila

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

Borrowers, don’t miss this important student loan forgiveness deadline

Chance to move over .500 slips away as Nats lose to reigning champs

T.J. Oshie, the heart of the Caps, wants to keep playing. He’s not sure if he can.

Nationals sweep away the Marlins to get back to .500

The delusions behind Biden’s plan for Middle East peace 

Middle East conflict live updates: Blinken meets Netanyahu in Jerusalem; U.S. presses Israel on Gaza aid

Is Bougainville the next battleground between China and the U.S.?

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is asking congressional leaders to undo federal medical-marijuana protections that have been in place since 2014, according to <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/351079834/Sessions-Asks-Congress-To-Undo-Medical-Marijuana-Protections">a May letter that became public Monday</a>.

The protections, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/amendment/113th-congress/house-amendment/748/text">prohibit the Justice Department</a> from using federal funds to prevent certain states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

In his letter, <a href="https://www.massroots.com/news/exclusive-sessions-asks-congress-to-undo-medical-marijuana-protections">first obtained by Tom Angell of Massroots.com</a> and verified independently by The Washington Post, Sessions argued that the amendment would "inhibit [the Justice Department's] authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act." He continues:

I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.

Sessions's citing of a "historic drug epidemic" to justify a crackdown on medical marijuana is at odds with what researchers know about current drug use and abuse in the United States. The epidemic Sessions refers to involves deadly opiate drugs, not marijuana. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/28/attorney-general-sessions-wants-to-know-the-science-on-marijuana-and-opioids-here-it-is/?utm_term=.7a25a2a31965">growing body of research</a> (<a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana-medicine">acknowledged by the National Institute on Drug Abuse</a>) has shown that opiate deaths and overdoses actually decrease in states with medical marijuana laws on the books.

That research strongly suggests that cracking down on medical-marijuana laws, as Sessions requested, could perversely make the opiates epidemic even worse.

In an email, John Hudak of the Brookings Institution characterized the letter's arguments as a "scare tactic" that  "could appeal to rank-and-file members or to committee chairs in Congress in ways that could threaten the future of this Amendment."

Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department also sought to undermine the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment. It circulated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/06/the-justice-department-says-it-misled-congress-on-medical-marijuana/?utm_term=.749a5f327774">misleading talking points</a> among Congress to influence debate over the measure, and it attempted to enforce the amendment in a way that "defies language and logic," "tortures the plain meaning of the statute" and is "at odds with fundamental notions of the rule of law," in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/20/federal-court-tells-the-dea-to-stop-harassing-medical-marijuana-providers/?utm_term=.72d005643977">ruling of a federal judge</a>.

The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment has <a href="https://www.massroots.com/news/medical-marijuana-protected-in-congressional-budget-deal">significant bipartisan support in Congress</a>. Medical marijuana is incredibly popular with voters overall. A Quinnipiac poll conducted in April found it was supported by <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2453">94 percent of the public</a>. Nearly three-quarters of voters said they disapprove of the government enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized it either medically or recreationally.

Through a spokesman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said that "Mr. Sessions stands athwart an overwhelming majority of Americans and even, sadly, against veterans and other suffering Americans who we now know conclusively are helped dramatically by medical marijuana."

Advocates have been closely watching the Trump administration for any sign of how it might tackle the politically complex issue of marijuana legalization. As a presidential candidate, Trump had offered<a href="http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/feb/28/gavin-newsom/true-campaign-trump-said-states-should-decide-lega/"> support of state-level medical marijuana regulations</a>, including the notion that states should be free to do what they want on the policy. But Sessions's letter, with its explicit appeal to allow the Justice Department to go after medical marijuana providers, appears to undermine that support.

The letter, along with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/02/it-took-jeff-sessions-just-one-month-to-turn-obama-era-drug-policy-on-its-head/?utm_term=.01c261379b04">a signing statement from President Trump</a> indicating some skepticism of medical marijuana protections, "should make everyone openly question whether candidate Trump's rhetoric and the White House's words on his support for medical marijuana was actually a lie to the American public on an issue that garners broad, bipartisan support," Hudak said.

Cornell University, BA in religious studies

Christopher Ingraham was a reporter on The Post’s business desk from 2014 to 2021. He currently writes <a href="https://thewhyaxis.substack.com">the Why Axis</a>, a newsletter about the data shaping and informing our lives.