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House Bill Would Grant States Right to Regulate Marijuana
Proposal would open door to medical, recreational use
WASHINGTON - The federal ban on marijuana would end and states would earn the right to regulate the drug under a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
The Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011 would allow states to decide how to regulate marijuana, opening the doors for medicinal and recreational use. (Pot File) The Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011 would allow states to decide how to regulate marijuana, opening the doors for medicinal and recreational use.
The bill is believed to be the first of its kind, and it could close a gap in state and federal laws that finds some medical-marijuana users in Colorado facing federal courts.
"We live in this situation now in Colorado where marijuana is sort of legal and it's sort of illegal," said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver.
Under the bill, introduced by Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Ron Paul, R-Texas, and co-sponsored by, among others, Boulder Democratic Rep. Jared Polis, states and counties would decide when and where to allow the possession and sale of marijuana, regulating it like they can control alcohol.
Federal agents would not be allowed to arrest people for possessing or distributing marijuana unless they were violating local laws. They could, however, arrest people who were trafficking the drug between states where it was legal and states where it was illegal.
Supporters don't expect it to pass. They introduced it in hopes that the public will warm to the idea and a similar law will pass in the future.
"This is an educational process that's going on," Frank said in a teleconference.
Fourteen states have decriminalized marijuana, and 16 states have laws protecting people who use it medicinally.
Public opinion is divided on the issue. Data released by the Pew Research Center this past spring show that 50 percent of Americans oppose legalizing marijuana while 45 percent — the highest number in 40 years — favor legalizing it.
Polis said he supported the bill because he believes "the drug war has failed."
"Marijuana is in the market," he said in the teleconference. "By regulating the market, we can protect minors. We can focus our resources on keeping people safe in our communities."
The bill also prohibits the federal government from considering marijuana arrest statistics when divvying out grants to crime-fighting groups.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.; Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., also co-sponsored the bill.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllYou know, all they'd have to do is say "States could tax marijuana like cigarettes or alcohol and earn revenue that way" and this would probably pass in a heartbeat… oh wait, it's got the T-word in there, never mind.
As someone who has never done anything harder than a European beer, I hope this passes eventually. This whole hang-up over marijuana is ridiculous.
Just out of curiosity, how easy do the kids in the states find pot? And how easy is it for them to get alcohol? If it's easier for them to get weed than hooch, you're doing it wrong.
why would you rather they drink?
If it is easier for the kids to get drugs than it is for them to get booze than something is wrong. I didn't say that they should do either, thanks anyhow for the distraction, I was trying to make the point that one of those drugs was regulated and the other wasn't. Which is most readily available in any high school in NA?
The fact that pot is illegal makes it more profitable to the crooks, it makes it easier for the kids (who the pols claim they want to protect.) to get pot, it also helps to spread corruption thru the courts, the police and the politicians. (see the articles about how your rights have been stripped away because of the war on some drugs, and the effect that war has on the for profit prison industry)
I've smoked weed for over 20 years, the cops have never interdicted my supply of weed. Ever. Moreover the prison guards are having trouble keeping the drugs out of the prisons they work in!
The price of weed is the same today as it was when I started smoking it.
The drug war has failed in all of its publicly proclaimed justifications. Usually, when the victors surround you and you cannot continue to fight, one surrenders.
45 to 50? The stupids have it
No way. I say we think about those numbers a bit:
1. Remember that cell-phone users don't get hit with phone polls. Exclusive cell users tend to be younger, more urban, more hip, more tolerant.
2. 18-35 year olds hang up on pollsters way more often than old-timers.
3. Anti-prohibition feelings alter radically depending upon cannabis availability and cultural acceptance -i.e. some States are WAY more pro-pot than others.
I think this should read as "45% of the old people and bored landline users who bothered to respond are anti-prohibition-even Nebraskans who've never SEEN the stuff!"
Sounds better, don't it? ;)
Give it 5 years and at least one West Coast State will end prohibition. Give it 10 and it'll be nationwide.
Just need a couple of million more geezers to croak. ;)
I'm sixty years old and have been a daily pot smoker for forty four years. At least half of the people I know smoke pot. These fine upstanding citizens are Engineers, Teachers, Professors, Police Officers, Woodworkers, Musicians, Artists,and Hi-tech people. They are smart, creative, intelligent, and motivated. They are not criminals, deadbeats, troublemakers, or wild-eyed dope-heads. There is nothing these people do to justify destroying their lives with malicious prosecution and imprisonment. They have injured no one, damaged nothing, or caused any harm to anyone. So where is the crime? America is in serious trouble. We have a government rife with hi crimes, corruption, and treason. A banking, financial system on the verge of collapse due to massive theft and government collusion. The military, industrial, prison, complex, that seams hellbent on destroying everything that once made America the envy of the world. There are thousands of people doing irreparable treasonous damage to this country that should be prosecuted and jailed. Instead we jail eight hundred thousand people a year for smoking a herb that hurts no one. The big banks, trial lawyers, courts, prosecutors,and private prisons make billions off one of the largest scams on earth. How is this travesty of justice possible in a country that is based on the concepts of personal freedom and liberty. In the near future in America, it will be illegal to be in possession of any plant, or to speak of liberty.
Obama, in his speech on Afghanistan, never mentioned the most important factor in our continued presence in that "graveyard of empires" -- The Narcosaurus.
It is something never openly discussed in Wall Street bank board rooms or the network news rooms of the mainstream media.
Certainly never before the American people.
But it is one of the central driving factors of our imperial foreign policy with the Third World, and has been for decades.
Last week we observed the 40th anniversary of the beginning of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs upon the American people.
When will we observe the commencement of the covert War for Drugs, which has lasted over sixty years, and whose massive institutional corruption, money-laundering, and military interventions have fueled the military-industrial complex and the National Security State?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/742...