The Trump era of drug enforcement has officially arrived, and it sounds a lot like the old days.

The message came this week in the form of a memo from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to all federal prosecutors: Stop seeking leniency for low-level drug offenders and start seeking the toughest penalties possible.

…

“It can’t be emphasized enough that the direction they’re pointing is 180 degrees wrong,” said David Alan Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Stanford Law School. “Mandatory minimums have had a terrible effect on the American criminal justice system, and we need to retreat further from their use, not return to the patterns of usage a decade ago.”