While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump realized early who his friends weren’t. The Koch. brother are among that group. The powerful conservatives who back many P.A.C. dedicated no money to the Trump campaign. Now that he is President, the Koch’s are still trying to stand between Trump and any kind of greatness. This time, their fighting him when it comes to cannabis.
“You are never going to win the war on drugs. Drugs won,” Mark Holden, one of the influential network’s top leaders, told reporters in Colorado Springs, according to the Denver Post. His statements came as the network opened a three-day retreat at The Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs.
In Denver Post reporter John Frank’s story Sunday, Holden, the general counsel for Koch Industries—the second-largest privately owned company in the US—said the network has disagreed with Sessions’s decision to re-evaluate a federal policy not to interfere in state medical marijuana systems and taken issue with the attorney general’s request that Congress lift restrictions to allow the justice department to crack down on state-legal medical programs. He said Sessions’ stance represented a “failed big government top-down approach,” adding that “we should let the states decide.”
Charles and David Koch have spent millions to further their conservative political goals. Some of those aims overlap with policies supported by liberals. Holden, for example, is currently in charge of a network-backed effort to address overcriminalization and criminal justice reform.
The Koch. brothers aren’t the only conversations against Trump’s views on cannabis and the war on drugs. Roger Stone, longtime Trump supporter has been vocal in his opposition to the DOJ and Trump.