In a two-page memo issued to his staff and made publicly available last Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors to seek the toughest possible charges and sentences for drug crime suspects, a drastic shift from the more lenient approach that became a pillar of Barack Obama’s presidency.
In conjunction with revised U.S. sentencing guidelines, Obama commuted the sentences of more than 1,700 drug offenders, including those of the mother and grandmother of Broncos receiver Demaryius Thomas.
Sessions’ new order created a wave of uncertainty in the medical marijuana industry and could factor heavily into the NFL Players Association’s effort to change the league’s approach to marijuana use among players.