Posted on 04/04/2014 4:26:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Obama administration today signaled that it was willing to work with Congress to move marijuana out of the federal outlaw-drug category known as Schedule I.
Under that classification, shared with heroin, ecstasy and other narcotics, marijuana has no legitimate use whatsoever, even for medical research or patient treatment. Lower schedule status, such as II or III, gives drugs limited medical legitimacy.
Today U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama's top cop, addressed a House Appropriations Committee budget hearing:
We'd be more than glad to work with Congress if there is a desire to look at and reexamine how the drug is scheduled, as I said there is a great degree of expertise that exists in Congress. It is something that ultimately Congress would have to change, and I think that our administration would be glad to work with Congress if such a proposal were made.
The move would not necessarily mean huge changes in a state like California, where you can tell a doctor you have back pain and have a bag of green a half hour later.
And keep in mind that the House is Republican-controlled.
While some conservatives, including Southern California's Dana Rohrabacher, are pro-decriminalization, it would be hard for us to believe Republicans would support some medical legitimacy for pot in a Tea Party world.
In any case, the Drug Policy Alliance explains the impact of rescheduling marijuana this way:
Re-categorizing marijuana would not legalize the drug under federal law, but it could ease restrictions on research into marijuana's medical benefits and allow marijuana businesses to take tax deductions.
Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the alliance, sounded cautions about expecting too much out of any possible rescheduling of the drug:
Rescheduling would be a modest step in the right direction, but would do nothing to stop marijuana arrests or prohibition-related violence. Now that the majority of the American public supports taxing and regulating marijuana, this debate about re-scheduling is a bit antiquated and not a real solution to the failures of marijuana prohibition.
Strangely, DEA chief Michele Leonhart has been making bizarre statements about weed this week.
First she said that voters in Colorado and Washington were essentially coerced into voting to legalize recreational pot. She also said that Mexican drug cartels were infiltrating those states to prepare to sell marijuana at prices cheaper than one could find at a legal retailer.
Then she stated that people should be concerned about legalization because dogs were getting stoned and sick in Colorado as a result of that state's new recreational-pot sales.
One has to wonder, after the president has said he believes alcohol is more dangerous that weed, how long Leonhart is going to last in this Obama administration.
Well, beer has no legitimate use whatsoever either. It certainly results in death sometimes too.
Maybe it should be a schedule 1 drug.
Just sayin’.
What better way to send us back to the dark ages.
“The move would not necessarily mean huge changes in a state like California, where you can tell a doctor you have back pain and have a bag of green a half hour later.”
Yes, it wouldn’t mean a huge change, because California is already treating it as a lower scheduled drug and doesn’t seem to care what the Feds think abou it.
Whatever your opinion on the drug legalization issue, I think it is important to note that these are the first real successful examples of state nullification that we have seen in a long time. Us conservatives can probably learn a thing or two from studying the tactics that the pro-marijuana crowd used to get that done.
Why go to the trouble to drug the general population when you can get them to do it themselves so you will be unopposed to do your agenda?
“Well, beer has no legitimate use whatsoever either. It certainly results in death sometimes too.”
Hmmm, beer can help with an upset stomach, it’s fizzy!
Whiskey’s good for sterilizing wounds too.
The only problem I have with legalizing marijuana is that it will make it more accessible to children. Despite what some say, it is a gateway drug, and it has long term effects on cognitive ability. It can also in fact lead to psychotic behavior in some cases.
Jerry Brown had this one right.
Who wants a country of stoners?
Finally. It’s taken this long, but 0bama has finally said one solitary thing I agree with. Whatever you think about legalization/etc., marijuana just doesn’t fit the criteria for a schedule 1 drug.
Just the sound of the men
smoking on the
choom,
gang...
This is all about making people more permissive and indifferent to Obama’s destructive leftist policies.
I guess the fact it will expand the power and size of government and turn it into a drug cartel is no big deal.
It’s probably worth asking ourselves why the population feels the need to escape reality, if we want to reverse the trend.
I’m not just talking marijuana, I mean, look at how many people nowadays take legal “anti-depressants”, which are psychoactive mood-enhancers themselves. I think there’s a fundamental dissatisfaction in our society, and people feel there is nothing they can do to change the situation, so they retreat to these things.
States should make their own laws regarding marijuana. I oppose a one-size-fits-all approach.
Modern man can get by without beer today, just as we don’t need meat anymore, but beer has been very important for thousands of years.
It would make one very big difference in California. Under the [federal] Internal Revenue Code, someone selling Schedule I drugs cannot deduct business expenses, so the medical marijuana shops in California pay federal income tax on their gross receipts, not on their net income. Re-scheduling marijuana to Schedule II or lower would permit them to take tax deductions for their rent, telephone and other business expenses.
Well, even if it was legalized, I don’t think it would go that far. Most people, even though it’s illegal, get the opportunity to try it, and only a minority seem to enjoy it and want to keep doing it. Even a lot of those folks grow out of it after a few years.
I expect if it was legal, more people would try it and use it, but it would still probably be a minority that abused it regularly.
Yes, it probably won’t be a free market thing either. Not only will the government highly regulate and tax it, they’ll most likely be in the business of distributing it too.
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