Welcome to the Growery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!
Barney Frank and Ron Paul Introduce Bill to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition
June 22, 2011 - Huffington Post
I just left a landmark news conference on Capitol Hill where -- along with Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and spokespersons from three other advocacy organizations -- we announced the introduction of the first-ever bill to end marijuana prohibition on the federal level.
This bill, the "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011," is broader and bolder than the medical marijuana bills that Congressman Frank has introduced in every Congress since 1995. The bill introduced today would allow states to determine their own marijuana laws -- not just medical marijuana laws -- without federal interference.
The passage of today's bill is our ultimate goal on the federal level. That is, when the bill ultimately passes, our work in Washington, D.C. will essentially be completed.
The bill would essentially treat marijuana like alcohol on the federal level: It would allow states to choose between prohibiting marijuana entirely, making marijuana medically available, decriminalizing the possession of marijuana, taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, having "dry" and "wet" counties, regulating marijuana like tomatoes, and so forth.
The bill would also remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Since Congress and President Nixon placed marijuana in the strictest of five schedules in 1970, marijuana has been in the same category as heroin, PCP, and LSD -- drugs that supposedly have no therapeutic value and a high potential for abuse.
In fact, the bill would not just remove marijuana from Schedule I; it would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances entirely. By doing so, the bill -- once again -- would treat marijuana like alcohol. (Alcohol and tobacco are the only two drugs not to be scheduled.)
If and when the bill passes, the federal government's role would be reduced to monitoring the importation of marijuana from foreign countries, as well as prohibiting marijuana from being transported from a marijuana-legal state to a marijuana-prohibition state.
We expect that the bill will receive neither a hearing nor a vote in the 2011-2012 House, which is controlled by Republicans. Unlike in most state legislatures -- which give all bills hearings and committee votes -- the vast majority of bills in Congress die quiet deaths. This is partially because it's physically impossible to find the time to give more than 10,000 bills hearings, and partially because committee chairs can kill bills they don't like simply by doing nothing.
(By way of comparison, our medical marijuana bill failed to receive a hearing or a vote in the 2009-2010 House, which was controlled by mostly supportive Democrats. Indeed, we actually had the votes needed to pass the bill in the House crime subcommittee, which was chaired by a strong supporter!)
While today's bill won't pass anytime soon, its significance cannot be overstated: The bill serves as the ultimate organizing tool for the Marijuana Policy Project and other organizations.
For example, approximately 150 of the 435 members of the House support medical marijuana, but most of the 150 have been silent about or hostile to broader marijuana policy reform. Activists who live in the districts of these pro-medical marijuana House members will now have the opportunity to start a new conversation with these elected officials.
Also, if the federal debate shifts solidly from "medical marijuana" to "marijuana legalization" -- a process that started during the Prop. 19 initiative campaign in California last year -- then perhaps the passage of medical marijuana legislation on Capitol Hill will be seen as less radical, or even inevitable.
The federal bill also adds additional legitimacy to the initiatives that are sure to be on the ballots in California, Colorado, and possibly Washington state in November 2012. In past initiative campaigns that sought to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol, our opponents said that our initiatives were pointless, because what we were proposing was against federal law anyway. Now we can say, "Actually, there's legislation in Congress that would remove federal obstructionism to what we're trying to do here in Colorado. So let's go ahead and pass the initiative, and then we'll push Congress to pass the federal bill in early 2013."
The "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011" has six original sponsors -- five Democrats and one Republican. Our goal is to increase that number to 15 sponsors by the fall of 2012. In the meantime, my organization will be dedicating substantial resources to passing a ballot initiative in Colorado in November 2012; if that initiative and/or the initiatives in California and Washington state pass, then our nation will have a real debate about the federal bill in the weeks and months after Election Day.
Registered: 05/05/08 Posts: 9,372 Loc: PNW
Last seen: 11 years, 6 months
Re: Barney Frank and Ron Paul Introduce Bill to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition [Re: alienscience] #566780 - 06/23/11 09:47 AM (13 years, 5 months ago)
Registered: 08/19/10 Posts: 1,241 Loc: Washington
Last seen: 4 years, 11 months
Re: Barney Frank and Ron Paul Introduce Bill to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition [Re: Nothing Is] #566851 - 06/23/11 03:35 PM (13 years, 5 months ago)
Registered: 04/20/08 Posts: 8,488 Last seen: 11 years, 5 months
Re: Barney Frank and Ron Paul Introduce Bill to End Federal Marijuana Prohibition [Re: smurf_master] #566901 - 06/23/11 06:00 PM (13 years, 5 months ago)
Just because he believes in God doesn't mean he's a creationist. I kind of doubt Ron Paul believes the world to be 5,000 years old and I feel he tends to separate his religion from his politics as best he can, one of the reasons why you hardly ever hear him talking about his religion. And of course his views on homosexuality separate him from many creationist Christians.
Q: Do you believe homosexuality is a sin?
Dr. Paul: I’m not as judgmental about that probably because of my medical background. I don’t see it in [such] simplistic terms. I think it’s a complex issue to think it’s a sin or other problems with the way people are born. It’s too complex to give an answer as simple as that [that homosexuality is a sin.]”
Q: Do you believe God says homosexuality is a sin?
Dr. Paul: Well, I believe a lot of people understand it that way but I think everybody is God’s child, too, so, you know, I have trouble with that.
-------------------- kickin-two-hundo said: you know what i did in english class? I came to class stoned out of my mind every day, i chugged vodka in the back of class, i put dead fish in the ceiling tiles. i put a gallon of old milk and orange juice in the file cabinet before winter vacation. i brought snakes in a tied up sweater and let them loose during class. i didnt go to school to learn, i went because i had to. i didnt care, and i didn't fucking listen to that stupid bitch. and i still don't fucking care. i tore the pages out of her books and burned them, and threw away all the books in the class, two books per day.
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Shop: 
Edit 
Reply 
you crazy pro marijuana creationist
