Protesters flock to downtown Tampa to bird-dog Jeff Sessions

At a small, hastily assembled protest in downtown Tampa, activists took to busy sidewalks to draw attention U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' visit to the city. He was in town to ask local officials to help the Trump administration confront the opioid crisis, and promised to support them in their efforts.

As they waited for him to pass through downtown on his way to the event, activists from Surly Feminists for the Revolution as well as the Weed for Warriors Project called Sessions out for doing little to confront rampant prescription drug addiction while needlessly going after marijuana.

"We wanted to get some people out to draw attention to his current policies so that we stay engaged and stay informed as we head into the 2018 election and beyond," said Erin Aebel, activist and founder of Surly Feminists for the Revolution, an anti-Trump Facebook group with a national membership base.

She said she and a fellow organizer helped create the event when they found out Sessions would be in town. Her criticisms of Sessions, she said, are myriad.

"He has criticized citizens' [use of] cell phone videos, he has ignored the concerns of Black Lives Matter, which are [against] biased policing and police brutality — instead, he's focused on other issues. He won't phase out for-profit prisons, which Obama was starting to do. He's moved away from federal oversight for state police and he said that people who smoke marijuana are bad people. And I think that's terrible in a state where we have legal medical marijuana."

Army veteran Kelly Parrott took issue with a range of Sessions' policies — and made jabs at his notorious repetition of the phrase "I don't recall" while being questioned under oath.

But some of her criticisms of Sessions verged on personal. With help from a bullhorn, she told those gathered about how she was raped while serving. She said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs didn't seek a comprehensive treatment for her, but instead kept trying to prescribe her harmful pharmaceuticals that exacerbated her symptoms and turned her into an addict.

"Nobody tried to help me, nobody tried to talk to me," Parrott said. "They just prescribed more meds and more meds and more meds."

With help from marijuana and other alternative treatments, she said she was able to overcome her addiction and keep her PTSD at bay.

But she's still angry that Sessions and his ilk are encouraging more addicts by vowing to go after marijuana users and purveyors in states where it's legal, including Florida. 

As they spoke, marched and chanted, the activists cut through downtown Tampa's lunch hour noise. Periodically, a horn would honk and a passerby would voice support for the cause.

When he spoke to an audience gathered at the Tampa headquarters of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida, Sessions said people in pain who are considering taking prescription drugs should instead consider aspirin, the Tampa Bay Times reported Wednesday.

This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2018.