Posted on 12/16/2017 6:32:14 AM PST by Kaslin
Congress is ending the year with battles over tax reform and how to fund the government into next year. Another battle being fought is over the future of medical marijuana in America.
The Justice Department is working overtime to remove a restriction in current law that prevents the federal government from prosecuting medical marijuana businesses in states where it has been made legal. The problem is that if the Department of Justice is successful, it would undermine a number of promises that President Donald J. Trump made on the campaign trail.
A coalition of federalist-minded conservatives and libertarians have voiced strong support for the restriction that has been in existence since 2014 when Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) offered a bipartisan amendment to defund the power of the Justice Department to prosecute medical marijuana states. Since 2014, a funding rider has been included in every appropriations bill defunding any effort by the federal government to use Justice Department resources to effectively overturn state laws permitting medical marijuana use.
It seems that Trump’s own Justice Department has forgotten the repeated promises that candidate Donald J. Trump made on the campaign trail. According to a Fox News transcript posted on February 11, 2016 from the O’Reilly Factor, Trump said about medical marijuana “I’m in favor of it a hundred percent.”
And that was not the only time.
There are numerous other examples of candidate Trump promising to protect states that have allowed medical marijuana. PolitiFacts brought up three examples.
On July 29, 2016, Trump said: "I wouldn’t do that [using federal authority to shut down recreational marijuana], no … I wouldn’t do that … I think it’s up to the states, yeah. I’m a states person. I think it should be up to the states, absolutely."
On March 8, 2016, Trump said: "I think it certainly has to be a state — I have not smoked it — it’s got to be a state decision … I do like it, you know, from a medical standpoint … it does do pretty good things. But from the other standpoint, I think that it should be up to the states."
And Oct. 29, 2015, Trump said: "The marijuana thing is such a big thing. I think medical should happen — right? Don’t we agree? I think so. And then I really believe we should leave it up to the states. It should be a state situation ... but I believe that the legalization of marijuana – other than for medical because I think medical, you know I know people that are very, very sick and for whatever reason the marijuana really helps them - … but in terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state."
Those promises continued after Trump was sworn in as president. The New York Times reported that in February of this year Trump’s spokesman said “the president understands the pain and suffering that many people go through who are facing especially terminal diseases and the comfort these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring them.” How is it possible that Trump’s own Justice Department can engage in an aggressive effort to undermine these promises?
The Washington Post reported on June 13, 2017, that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has personally lobbied Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana providers.The Post reported on a letter Sessions sent to Congress in May requesting that they block a vote on the “Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment” that specifically protects the “use, distribution, possession or cultivation” of medical marijuana. The Republican leaders of the House listened and blocked consideration of the amendment during the appropriations process earlier this year.In the Senate, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was successful in attaching the language to the Senate version of the appropriations bill. The end of year spending bill is expected to resolve the House and Senate language on this subject later this month.
The libertarian group Free the People has activated to educate voters that Trump’s own Justice Department is trying to undermine a campaign promise. There is a strong possibility that Sessions, not President Trump, wins on this issue if this issue is buried in a year-end spending bill with no opportunity for members to force a vote on the specific issue of the funding rider. Leaders in Congress will end up drafting up a year-end spending bill behind closed doors and many worry that this will not contain the Leahy-Rohrabacher language.
President Trump has been a promise keeper as president. He has worked hard to keep promise after promise from pushing a tax cut to nominating Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. It is tough to understand how his own Attorney General has been allowed to undermine his numerous promises to allow states that have passed laws to allow medical marijuana.
It’s very simple. Because recreational mj growing is now “legal” - if permits and licenses are obtained, with certain rules and restrictions, now the illegals growers have not only come out of the closet, but like locusts, come from all over the place, and figure there are too many for LE to take care. Which is the fact. Legal growers have to have their dope tested for excess ag etc chemicals, only sell to OR licensed sellers, pay taxes, etc. So few want to go that route when they can - so far - just grow illegally without any repercussions.
How can a tiny Sheriff’s office take care of way over 1000 illegal grow ops, many run by regular criminals, MX, Russian, Bulgarian etc gangs? Ha ha - doesn’t happen.
They refuse to see even the slighteet downside to legal dope/dope use.
No, “It’s All Good”.
A point that occurred to me - just as with legalization of sodomy and homos wanting just “tolerance” and to be left alone, but now it’s mandatory fagdom in everyone’s face, kindergarten, sensitivity training, transpervs in mil, hatespeech, criminal cake bakers and all the rest - so the mj legalization if it continues and spreads, will immediately usher in the Libertarian wet dream of ALL drugs legal. That’s the LP platform - ALL drugs legal.
The stoned out Eloi utopia.
George Soros is the source.
He sets it up and bankrolls all of it.
You want to ban alcohol?
flee to other topics.
Projection - YOU'RE the one fleeing YOUR topic of the "liberty to fry your own brain", which legal alcohol fits to a T.
No, that's the voices in your head. I readily acknowledge that non-use is the best choice with regard to marijuana, or alcohol, or tobacco. As for legality: alcohol Prohibition should have taught us that the cure of banning is worse than the disease of use - it does more to enrich criminals (with all the ills that follow) than to reduce use.
Yet you want it legal so more and more people will get stupid. The argument that “booze is bad so we should legalize mj which is just as bad”. Yeah, makes sense not/! Of course mj is worse than booze, and this is something no pro-dope person will ever admit.
Wherever mj is legal, use goes WAY WAY up, especially with young people such as teenagers, so their lives can get ruined early on.
Only someone who uses mj would think that is a good idea.
Another fact that dopers refuse to acknowledge.
No one is free to do that. No one is free to harm another. We have laws against that, and we have laws against driving while intoxicated. You seem to be a prohibitionist and don’t understand how that hurt the country before.
So your theory is that many people who before legalization were responsible enough to avoid breaking the law, will after legalization be so irresponsible as to smoke themselves into chronic stupidity? Can you provide any reason to accept this dubious theory?
The argument that “booze is bad so we should legalize mj which is just as bad”.
That's your straw man. The real argument is that booze is bad yet legal and that's the right choice (because alcohol Prohibition showed us that the cure of banning is worse than the disease of use - it does more to enrich criminals, with all the ills that follow, than to reduce use) and that the same logic applies to marijuana.
Of course mj is worse than booze
Nonsense - alcohol is more addictive, and is the only one of the two that can cause fatal overdose.
Wherever mj is legal, use goes WAY WAY up
False. In Colorado between 2003 and 2014 (the year of legalization) monthly pot use percentage went up by 0.87%/year among 18-25 year olds and 0.59%/year for 12 and older; after legalization those rates dropped to 0.48%/year and 0.50%/year.
Believe it or not, I have many things going on in my life that prevent me from playing in a verbal tarpit with dopers.
Have fun with your bong!
Yes, I don't doubt that you view facts and logic as a "tarpit." Expect more of the same every time you post your baseless BS claims.
“Believe it or not, I have many things going on in my life that prevent me from playing in a verbal tarpit with dopers.”
Translation: I have enough time to make wild baseless claims but not enough time to deal with your facts.
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