Bill to allow marijuana legalization introduced in U.S. House
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 4:39 pm
- 6 Comments
Legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday morning to allow each state to deal with marijuana as it sees fit.
Reps. Jared Polis, D-CO, Barney Frank, D-MA, Steve Cohen, D-TN, John Conyers, D-MI, Barbara Lee, D-CA, and Ron Paul, R-TX introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011 (HR 2306) as a salute to personal freedom, states’ rights and fiscal responsibility.
“I do not believe the federal government should be involved in the prosecution of adults for smoking marijuana,” Frank told reporters during an afternoon press call.
He said that smoking marijuana was a matter of personal choice and should be a matter of personal freedom. “Prohibition is not an effective way to deal with marijuana,” he said.
“Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom,” said Frank. “I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana, neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco, but in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.”
He said the country doesn’t have enough prisons, courts, police or money to continue prosecuting people for marijuana use.
But Frank isn’t optimistic about the bill’s prospects: “I don’t think it will pass this Congress, but it has no chance if it is not introduced. I don’t think much that is useful will pass this Congress.”
Frank indicated he has another bill ready that would allow states to manage medical marijuana on their own without interference from the U.S. Attorneys office, which may be introduced if it becomes apparent that this bill will fail to pass.
He and Cohen both said the bill is the beginning of a process that involves educating both the public and other officeholders.
“Prohibition has not worked,” Polis said. “Marijuana is widely available on the black market.”
Cohen said that being part of the team introducing this bill would “absolutely not” help him get re-elected in Tennessee, but that sometimes a person has to the right thing regardless of the fallout. He also said that as a general rule the people of the country are way ahead of their legislators on this issue.
He said the federal government simply cannot afford to keeping spending billions of dollars in a failed effort to keep people from smoking marijuana.
Unlike some other drugs, he said marijuana use does not lead to violence or property crimes. “It has a great affect on donut stores and ice cream stores.”
“This is a country that prides itself on freedom,” Cohen added.
Aaron Houston, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said this bill should appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats because of its emphasis on states’ rights.
Polis and others made the point that legalizing marijuana in the U.S. would deal a death blow to Mexican drug cartels, which he said get more than half of their revenue selling marijuana to Americans. Others on the call said the amount was more like 70 percent.
Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, said that since the 1960s, more than 22 million “otherwise law-abiding citizens” have been arrested in this country for marijuana crimes, with 90 percent of those people charged with simple possession. “We have totally failed to eliminate marijuana use, which was the goal.”
St. Pierre said the country has managed to reduce drunk driving and tobacco use without prohibiting the use of either tobacco or alcohol.
“It is not a question of if, but when,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which hosted the call. “The war on marijuana is fiscally unsustainable,” he added.
Cohen said that when marijuana became illegal in the 1930s it was seen as a racial thing, with most use thought to be among blacks and Latinos. “It is the same thing today,” he said noting that young black and Latino individuals are 4-7 times more likely to be arrested for drug use than any other group of people. “Things have not changed,” he said.
He pointed to the recent international study of the drug war and said it has been proven that the war on drugs cannot be won through prohibition. He said it is unfair that people arrested for drug possession have a scar on their record forever that makes it more difficult to get a job or go to college.
The bill, if passed, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and leave it up to each state to deal with marijuana individually. Some states could keep marijuana completely illegal, while others legalize it. In a state with legal marijuana, some counties could have laws against marijuana. Cohen noted that even after prohibition was repealed in the 1930s, some states did not legalize alcohol until the 1960s. The city of Boulder did not legalize alcohol until 1967.
Cohen said marijuana is thought to be the number one crop in Tennessee, where he said the vast majority of people support legalizing medical marijuana, with a small majority supporting decriminalization.
St. Pierre said there are four main groups of people who oppose legalization. First, law enforcement at all levels. Second, federal agencies such as the DEA. Third, alcohol companies, who don’t want the competition they would get from legalized marijuana. Fourth, parents groups, though he said those groups are less opposed than ever in the past as most parents today have been exposed to marijuana and have a more permissive attitude than parents in the past. Finally, he said are some large corporations.
He said very little opposition will come from religious groups, medical groups or business in general.
6 Comments
Comment posted June 23, 2011 @ 5:02 pm
This appears to be all too rational to be public policy. Decriminalization of an organic object cannot be the American way, can it?
What if creates job creators?
What if it generates a revenue stream?
Will the GOP say it was there idea?
Jeff Wilfahrt, Rosemount, MN
Comment posted June 23, 2011 @ 8:20 pm
If you were to take an inventory of human stupidity, somewhere towards the top of that incredibly long and depressing list would be the prohibition on marijuana. The prohibition maximizes harm in a whole bunch of ways…
-It punishes people suffering from cancer and other diseases for whom other medications don’t work or are unaffordable.
-It means that more people will continue to use alcohol before they get behind the wheel. Of course you shouldn’t be driving under the influence of any substance. But if more people were doing it while high than drunk, we’d probably see far less death on the roads.
-Keeping it illegal perpetuates a regime of fear and ignorance with regard to all other illegal substances, some of which have shown great promise in treating various psychological conditions. See http://www.maps.org for some background on this.
-Keeping it illegal preserves the capacity of Big Pharma to peddle fake cures for fake illnesses. You don’t know how bad this is most likely. See Marcia Angell’s two part series on the failures of psychiatry and pharmaceutical drugs: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/illusions-of-psychiatry/
-Keeping marijuana illegal makes it that much harder for embracing the incredible possibilities of hemp as a major crop. In a time when we need to be thinking about sustainability in everything, hemp would be a huge problem-solver. It can be used to make paper, thus reducing the deforestation crisis around the planet. Mixed with other materials into ‘hempcrete’ it can make incredibly tough and durable building walls and reduce use of other non- or less renewable resources.
-Marijuana prohibition is a decision that means we believe it’s more ethical that hundreds of people are murdered in Mexican drug wars than having a few extra people getting a little high. And *not dying*. When an anti-drug policy implicitly decides that any rational assessment of harm doesn’t matter or carries no decisive weight, then we’re pretty much staring straight into the face of insanity.
America is really in many ways a fear and ignorance-based culture.
Now, where can I get a joint? It’s been ages…
Comment posted June 24, 2011 @ 7:59 am
lets legalize it and make the general public even more stupid or naive
so we can be walked over even more
if a cancer patient needs it there is a way to get it
but it seems all the people who have chronic pain these days who have a medical pot license and are giving true pain suffers a bad rap and worse treatment because doctors don’t take chronic pain sufferers seriously any more
legalize it and hire a million more cops to enforce it with illegal growing practices including driving under the influence
along with social ramifications
if you want pot you can get it or grow it your self
if you dont know how get a book on how to grow tomato’s
legalize it and give doctors one chance of abuse and they lose their license for good
or watch their malpractice insurance sky rocket ,
ignorance of weed,, now a day is a very powerful drug compared to the 70′s when it was called ditch weed ,
this all coming from a person who probably spilled more than a average pot smoking person has smoked
stupid idea and another waste of taxpayer money
but if it is legalized i will be first in line to get a license and resell it ,so i can afford real drugs for chronic pain such as methadone ,a very good drug when used properly and less than 50 cents a day to stay out of pain
be true to a doctor and he will keep you out of pain ,,but never abuse that privileged doctor patient trust
Comment posted June 24, 2011 @ 8:37 am
Sure would be nice to take a couple hits. I quit when I had to pee in a cup.
Can you imagine being sent to prison because you got caught with a joint 3 times.
In the 70′s we got caught quite a few times. Pay your ticket just like a speeding ticket.
Comment posted June 25, 2011 @ 9:11 am
Legalizing marijuana saves use taxes payers money. We are fighting and spending worthless tax payers money on something that should be legal. OK so u save all that money now you tax it you make more money.
I’m going to say it just like the probation of alcohol. FDR took this ban off. Now when he did this the the Milwaukee brewery hired 600 employees right then and there. That year they paid 10 million dollars to the government in taxes. You see this would be that same thing. You need someone to grow it producing jobs. Then you want to make it better you have a store passifically for marijuana. A smoke shop were u Ho in and you can buy it. Now all the stored hire people. Now k so you let people grow 1 or 2 plants in there home at one time. So these smoke shops sell the seeds. They tax the seeds as well. Now those people growing have to buy lights and everything to grow. Meaning they spend more money. In return helps use get out of this recession.
We need to legalize it. I think this will help the economy big time. It will put these drug cartels out of business . 70 percent of there profits are from selling marijuana on the black market in the united states. Now as on your comment about methadone. That is why we have drug addicts. You know my uncle just got his medical marijuana license in maine. He would not take any opiet drugs because he knows they are addicting. He told his Dr they are addicting doctor says no its not. He has three vertebraes in his back all messed up. They can’t do surgery or might make it worse or kill him. He want the marijuana for his pain. So anyone who say they need pain meds is just addicted to opiets plan and simple. This could only help us not hurt us.
Let’s hire more police. That’s a bitch of crap. Maybe if we stop arresting people for marijuana and worrying about marijuana. We could actually get some where else with the crime rate and the war on cocaine and herion. We tie all these people up in court and jail and let all these serious offenders out of jail early to do another crime and go back because jails are over crowded with marijuana convictions for possesion. Ok so you have a kid trays not of legal age to smoke marijuana getting caught if legalized. Ok so you give that indivual a fine to pay. Does every body see were this is going? It makes money and get our economy rolling again.
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