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Obama Willing to Further Legitimize Marijuana (Really)
LA Weekly ^ | Fri, Apr 4, 2014 | Dennis Romero

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: choomgang; government; marijuana; obama
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To: Boogieman

There are some groups in this country that think it is necessary to brutally beat people to get their point across. Some attack a person though social media or advertisers in an effort to change reality.


21 posted on 04/04/2014 4:43:31 PM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: nickcarraway

Both types? “Medical” and “recreational”?


22 posted on 04/04/2014 4:44:59 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (We are human beings. The debate, ANY DEBATE, is NEVER OVER!)
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To: Telepathic Intruder
The only problem I have with legalizing marijuana is that it will make it more accessible to children.

Legalizing marijuana would make it harder for children to get it. Bars and liquor stores check ID, because the ABCC will shut them down if they sell to minors. People who sell illegal drugs don't worry about things like that. I have heard from friends of mine with high school kids that it's much easier for their kids to get grass than beer.

23 posted on 04/04/2014 4:44:59 PM PDT by Lurking Libertarian (Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege)
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To: nickcarraway

Hardly a surprise from the Choom-Ganger-in-Chief.

America-2014 for you. Dopehead dregs and perverts. That’s what’s come to define this country. I’ll be damned if I see America as even worth trying to salvage anymore.


24 posted on 04/04/2014 4:45:32 PM PDT by greene66
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To: Boogieman

It will probably be virtually mandatory. Even before it was legal you could get pulverized if you refuse to do it.


25 posted on 04/04/2014 4:46:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Telepathic Intruder

If you think drug cartels are bad, wait until the government and big business are making money off it. They will make the Zetas look like the Boy Scouts.


26 posted on 04/04/2014 4:48:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: null and void

dumBO risks alienating his core Chicago constituency.


27 posted on 04/04/2014 4:50:53 PM PDT by depressed in 06 (America conceived in liberty, dies in slavery.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

> Both types? “Medical” and “recreational”?

There sre SO many people with medical problems in California. They walk around like zombies unable to work because they have no energy and to top it off they are so hungry all the time but that’s okay; the government gives them free food, housing, unemployment checks, and housing. I don’t think its working though because they don’t ever seem to be out looking for work anymore...


28 posted on 04/04/2014 4:51:55 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: nickcarraway
I'm in the category of person that says the federal busybodies have no right to tell me what to do about guns, drugs, or sexuality. At what point we decided it was ok for them to do that, I don't know. Maybe they should do what they're supposed to do, viz. secure the borders. Oh wait, they don't do that.

Nevermind.

29 posted on 04/04/2014 4:52:20 PM PDT by LouAvul (In a state of disbelief as to how liberals destroyed America in a mere 40 years.)
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To: Lurking Libertarian
Legalizing marijuana would make it harder for children to get it

How do you figure? The government will need to make sure kids get marijuana, because they'll be making billions of dollars from it. Face it, ten years after legalization, people won't even know what the word, "libertarian," means. The government will expand tenfold and control every aspect of our lives. George Soros has been promoting marijuana because he explicitly know that.

30 posted on 04/04/2014 4:52:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

There will still be a war on drugs because of the ppl evading the tax! Just put it on the EBT card a stoned population has to be easier to deal with! Roll another fatty there Slim!


31 posted on 04/04/2014 4:52:40 PM PDT by DocJhn
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To: nickcarraway

Cocaine, Morphine, Meth and Opium are schedule II drugs. Changing the schedule doesn’t mean that the drugs become legal, it just means that doctors can prescribe them if there’s a medically appropriate usage of them. I’ve got no problem at all with that at all. There was never any reason under the law for it to be schedule I in the first place. The thing is, the administration could move it down the schedule if they wanted to do so. Making a show of asking congress to do it is nothing more than a political move as the administration makes its push for the pothead vote this fall.


32 posted on 04/04/2014 4:53:38 PM PDT by Blackyce (French President Jacques Chirac: "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.")
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To: Lurking Libertarian

Well, I respectfully disagree that legalizing it will make it harder to get illegally. It will be more wide-spread, so that if a kid wants it they will be able to get it from just about anyone. And do you really think the government is going to crack down hard on something they made legal? Obama is already refusing to enforce laws that he disagrees with.


33 posted on 04/04/2014 4:56:18 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder (The only thing the Left has learned from the failures of socialism is not to call it that)
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To: Lurking Libertarian

Hasn’t worked that way in CO.


34 posted on 04/04/2014 5:03:21 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: ansel12

I look at it like this.

If you wanna do something at the end of the day to unwind and make yourself feel better, or even make yourself feel as you wish to feel, then do it.

Now of course, I mean within reason, i.e. I do not mean cocaine and heroin and meth, or even a full bottle of JD, but within reason.

I’m an adult, and I’m going to do what I want, and that is just about all there is to it.

Especially here lately, I just am not particularly concerned with what laws say anymore, especially since, Mr. Eric the Black said we can ignore laws that we don’t agree with.


35 posted on 04/04/2014 5:05:51 PM PDT by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: nickcarraway

however, tobacco will be banned from sale on military bases


36 posted on 04/04/2014 5:06:36 PM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
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To: nickcarraway

Well, I don’t know where you live, but I’ve never had that experience.


37 posted on 04/04/2014 5:09:24 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

Consider yourself lucky.


38 posted on 04/04/2014 5:10:25 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Even a stopped clock...

But, it won’t get him my vote. I don’t think there are many single issue pot voters who would otherwise vote GOP that would vote for him because of this.


39 posted on 04/04/2014 5:11:02 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Conscience of a Conservative

marijuana just doesn’t fit the criteria for a schedule 1 drug.
*********************
AGREED 100% , it should be studied ,, it has hundreds of potentially useful compounds within it... and while he’s at it he should send Holder on a tour requesting that non-violent mj offenders have their sentences reduced .. lets get a few million more people back to work... they’re doing absolutely no-one any good in jail.


40 posted on 04/04/2014 5:13:07 PM PDT by Neidermeyer (I used to be disgusted , now I try to be amused.)
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