Posted on 09/10/2013 3:40:48 AM PDT by markomalley
The Obama administration is facing criticism over its attempt to straddle the federal law that makes marijuana illegal and state laws that permit recreational use of the drug.
In the first congressional hearing since the administration announced a new, permissive enforcement policy, law enforcement and drug-prevention groups and their congressional allies see an opportunity to push back. The administration's Aug. 29 announcement allows the two states where recreational marijuana use has been legalized — Colorado and Washington — to go their own way without federal interference as long as they implement strong enforcement systems.
"We are at a precipice," said Kevin Sabet of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a drug prevention group. "We're about to create Big Marijuana by allowing the commercial production, retail sales and mass advertising of this drug similarly to how we have had Big Tobacco for the last hundred years."
The lead witness at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was to be Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who signed the guidance putting the new marijuana enforcement standards in place.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who spent eight years as a prosecutor early in his career, says the Justice Department should focus on prosecuting violent crime and should respect the votes in Colorado and Washington to legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal and medical use.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee's top Republican and co-chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, says Attorney General Eric Holder's action was "the wrong message to both law enforcement and violators of federal law."
"When marijuana will be fully legal to buy, diversion of the drug will explode," nine former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs said in a letter to Holder.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Executive order ... marijuana legalized ... every kid in the nation votes perpetually for the hierarchy obumbles names to replace him (if in fact he actually leaves)
Pot is the side issue imho. When potentially serious offenses are technically illegal but law enforcement looks the other way, you end up with a very bad situation with a high potential for abuse by authorities who can pick and choose when and where to enforce.
I see the criminal mis-representation of Marijuana as a highly addictive drug as one of our biggest problems ... It has lead to a huge number of people having criminal records (especially in the black community) and denying them the prospect of productive employment for decades...
Federal control of marijuana has been a litany of misconduct, from Anslinger's deceptive Marijuana Tax Act that was sold to Congress as a minimal tax on hemp farmers, that immediatly turned into a ban that relied on a systematic violation of Fifth Amendment rights to enforce it, to the Controlled Substances Act that enacted yet another abuse of the Commerce Clause, and burying of the Shafer Report. Everything they've done has a stench about it.
Hey... WW III, obamacare, one world order UN’s destruction of the Constitution, out of control legal system, corruption at ever level, an invasion of our homeland... maybe you guys should deal with the most serious issues first. This is why many of you will be unemployed with the rest of us soon... arseholes!
I have yet to see any bona fide medical use of marijuana. There is not a single research study that I have found that corroborates any medical use for marijuana. However, I have seen many anecdotal stories that suggest that it has a large placebo effect (which is a known effect of almost any drug).
With all of these legalization efforts, I wonder what the rate of lung disease and cancer will look like in a few years (marijuana is more carcinogenic than tobacco). Also, I wonder how many people will end up permanently disabled because of cannabis induced mental disorders, notably psychosis, memory impairment, and "amotivational syndrome" (meaning they have no initiative to do anything). I'm afraid that the public health impact of marijuana legalization is going to be huge, since it seems like people are flocking to use it now.
That's because as a schedule I drug, it is not permitted to be studied in academe, only by the government, and since government studies consistently show that it is less harmful than alcohol, they don't release the studies to wider audiences.
marijuana is more carcinogenic than tobacco
Please cite your sources. Since marijuana has not been widely studied, esp. in the US, this claim is dubious at best. Meanwhile, several studies have shown that the tars in marijuana are fat-soluble and can be broken down in the body while tobacco tars are not. Long-term marijuana smokers have shown no signs of extended use similar to what is seen with tobacco smokers, and it has been stated in several circles that marijuana is contraindicated to increased rates of lung disease or cancer.
I smoked marijuana for several years in college. I suffered extensively from 'amotivational syndrome,' so I can speak to the dangers of the drug with those affected. However, just like with alcohol, some people tolerate it better and can use it recreationally without any ill effects. Since I never once saw violence or assault with marijuana users, I can't honestly say that it causes anyone harm except maybe a disagreement over the last of some Ramen noodles.
I've been clean from marijuana for over 5 years, and I have no desire to go back to using; but I cannot in good conscience say that I support its prohibition.
What? Your worse than a fed, the THC reduces the carcinogenic properties in marijuana. Permanently impaired? Just more hyperbole. Alcohol does far, FAR more damage to impair a human than marijuana (ever hear of the term wet brain?). You sound like a scare monger over marijuana with most of your "facts" being patently false.
Cannabis (”marijuana” was a term invented to create a racist link between the plant and Mexicans/blacks as part of the propaganda campaign to have it banned) is well known to be an effective anti-cancer agent.
The hemp plant, from which it comes, is the single most useful plant known to mankind, with literally hundreds of distinct medical and industrial applications.
Go look up some Founding Fathers’ quotes on it. It is clear that the men who created this country not only all grew it, but many of them also smoked it. It is very possible that it can claim some credit for development of the philosophy that created America. Yes, it is historical fact that at least some of our Founding Fathers were pot-smoking hippies.
You seem to suffer from a lack of information. Anybody who wants pot buys it now. No problem. It gets delivered like a pizza, only faster. Dealing dope is far more profitable than running a pizza joint.
Study the prohibition of alcohol. Use of booze went up under prohibition, and we got the side effect of organized crime.
Legalize it. All of it. Anything that takes power from fedgov is good by me.
ugh
Taxpayers should not be paying for peoples pot.
Libertarians are scum of the earth, dragging their children to pot festivals shows us what they really want.
I totally agree. They shouldn't be paying to have people's doors smashed in and be roughed up by a bunch of guys with sub machine guns over a plant, either.
Same as this administration’s Federal approach to same sex marriage and illegal immigration. AND it imposes its will on states that choose to enforce existing laws saying “that’s OUR territory”.
That’s okay, they are pushing 0.08 (and lower) convictions on white people now (Hispanics are released before trial, LEO don’t want to get into possible illegal immigration cases).
The rates of criminal convictions of EVERYONE are being “normalizized”. Got to get people in the system somehow.
Organized crime is in organized labor these days. Would legalizing labor eradicate organized criminals?
People keep agreeing to turn local power over to the federal government, thinking they’re going to get their local values as national law. What the keep ending up with is beltway values as local law, and no way to get it back.
How is fedgov imposing its will on states by allowing them to regulate mj as they choose?
Why doesn’t hussein just issue an edict dissolving Congress.
Constitution? What? Where?
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