How will local US Attorney's likely respond to new marijuana enforcement guidance coming from AG Jeff Sessions?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this morning's big federal criminal justice news reported here by AP (and also covered here at Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform):

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rescinding the Obama-era policy that had paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, two people with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.  Sessions will instead let federal prosecutors where pot is legal decide how aggressively to enforce federal marijuana law, the people said. The people familiar with the plan spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it before an announcement expected Thursday....

The move by President Donald Trump’s attorney general likely will add to confusion about whether it’s OK to grow, buy or use marijuana in states where pot is legal, since long-standing federal law prohibits it.  It comes days after pot shops opened in California, launching what is expected to become the world’s largest market for legal recreational marijuana and as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal.

While Sessions has been carrying out a Justice Department agenda that follows Trump’s top priorities on such issues as immigration and opioids, the changes to pot policy reflect his own concerns.  Trump’s personal views on marijuana remain largely unknown.

Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and has blamed it for spikes in violence, had been expected to ramp up enforcement.  Pot advocates argue that legalizing the drug eliminates the need for a black market and would likely reduce violence, since criminals would no longer control the marijuana trade....

Sessions’ policy will let U.S. attorneys across the country decide what kinds of federal resources to devote to marijuana enforcement based on what they see as priorities in their districts, the people familiar with the decision said.

Sessions and some law enforcement officials in states such as Colorado blame legalization for a number of problems, including drug traffickers that have taken advantage of lax marijuana laws to hide in plain sight, illegally growing and shipping the drug across state lines, where it can sell for much more. The decision was a win for pot opponents who had been urging Sessions to take action....

The change also reflects yet another way in which Sessions, who served as a federal prosecutor at the height of the drug war in Mobile, Alabama, has reversed Obama-era criminal justice policies that aimed to ease overcrowding in federal prisons and contributed to a rethinking of how drug criminals were prosecuted and sentenced.  While his Democratic predecessor Eric Holder told federal prosecutors to avoid seeking long mandatory minimum sentences when charging certain lower level drug offenders, for example, Sessions issued an order demanding the opposite, telling them to pursue the most serious charges possible against most suspects.

I want to see exactly what new guidance and statements will come from the Department of Justice and Attorney General Sessions before opining on what this all likely means and portends for federal criminal enforcement and sentencing.  But the question that serves as the title of this post strikes me as the really critical one concerning what comes next. I am inclined to guess that a few local US Attorneys we eager to be free of restrictions created by the 2013 Cole Memo, but that many others have been happy to have a reason not to be to focused on state-legal marijuana business activity. How the implement the new instructions from their boss will be extremely interesting and important for federal marijuana policy, politics and practices in the weeks and months ahead.

Related post from MLP&R:

• AP reporting AG Jeff Sessions to rescind Cole memo to give more prosecutorial authority to local US attorneys

UPDATE:  A helpful reader highlighted to me that this news comes on the heels of the announcement yesterday, as detailed in this press release, that "Attorney General Jeff Sessions [Wednesday] announced the appointment of 17 federal prosecutors as Interim United States Attorneys pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546."