The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said today, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance.
Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, said Frank, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups.
“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time…”
Allen St. Pierre, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, likened Frank’s proposal — co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas — to current laws dealing with alcohol consumption. Alcohol use is permitted, and the government focuses its law enforcement efforts on those who abuse alcohol or drive under its influence, he said.
“We do not arrest and jail responsible alcohol drinkers,” he said.
Overdue.
Isn’t this rather old news? I remember reading about this months ago.
I can see a massive movement to the courts to overturn previous convictions if this goes through.
Ahhh. It’s good to be a lawyer. $$$$$$$$ Just thinking about this is giving me a buzz.
Yes, this country definitely needs more stoner bozos walking around.
Maybe if they taxed marijuana, they could make up at least part of the deficit. Sell it in liquor stores, and require the same constraints that alcohol have.
But there are those who would make you believe that it is step one in ‘losing’ the war on drugs.
yes we do.
#1 – watch less TV. Your brain is caught in a time warp. The press conference was today.
Finally, something useful spilling from Barney Franks’s mouth.
\sarcasm on\
You know it aint going nowhere as long as Bush is still in the White house though. Nope, can’t give an inch in the war on dangerous drugs, no sirie! Cause next thing you know, the terrorists will start pushing that Marijuanna stuff on all of our children, ensuring they will move on to crack and heroin.
\sarcasm off\
Don
The reason it hasn’t been made legal yet is that it’s too easy to grow on your own. After all, it’s a weed! That’ll make taxing and regulating it a ral pain in the keyster. The governments only real problem with it is taxes though.
The war on drugs is a multi billion dollar fiasco, that has made Mexican drug cartels rich.
Legalize it, restrict its sale and use the way tobacco and alcohol is restricted, and tax it heavily (300-500%). All the money goes to the government coffers instead of the cartels.
Everybody wins! (except the cartels)
#9 is entirely correct.
remember prohibition?
TAX the heck out of it.
Banning it only makes it more desirable..
Right?
“The Netherlands and the United States: A Comparison”
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm
In case you don’t like the Netherlands, this site has information from many different countries, the United States is still the highest…by far. http://www.csdp.org/research/
——
The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.
Source: John Irwin, Ph. D., Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg, America’s One Million Nonviolent Prisoners (Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 1999), pg. 4.
According to the US Justice Department, 27.9% of drug offenders in state prisons are serving time for possession; 69.4% are serving time for trafficking offenses; and 2.7% are in for “other.”
Source: Mumola, Christopher J., and Karberg, Jennifer C., “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Oct. 2006) (NCJ213530), p. 4.
————
Prison’s make the problem worse, not better.
“Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them.”
Source: Craig Haney, Ph.D., and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., “The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment,” American Psychologist, Vol. 53, No. 7 (July 1998), p. 721.
The so called “war on drugs” has never worked, will never work, and is a huge waste of money. Doesn’t it fit the definition of insanity?
Casual users, sent to jail really learn their lesson! That’s right, they learn how to become REAL criminals from the professionals they’re locked up with.
Meanwhile Uncle Ed legally downs 3 martinis and causes a wreck. Alcohol has killed hundreds of thousands. Marijauna hasn’t killed anybody. Drunks get in fights, knife and shoot others. Someone who is stoned always has a big smile and wouldn’t hurt so much as a fly.
Time to grow up, America. It would be a great tax source.
Look for big tobacco to fight this with more fear tactics that the uneducated American people are so easily swayed by.
Does anyone remember why they repealed Prohibition? Anyone?
TAXES
It was the Great Depression and the government couldn’t raise any money with income taxes. They could repeal Prohibition and tax liquor though. So, when this country is in a similar pickle in the future look for the government to legalize and tax weed. In the end it isn’t about morals, it’s about money.
#8 Breetai
It grows on the south side of my home (cheap summer cooling) with minimal care/maintenance to the roof-line and I do not pay taxes on the resulting beneficial product. This excellent product assists in to keeping heart and kidney medications down and the appetite up!
My favorite lines from the story are:
“Marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, according to the ONDCP.
‘Smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science — it is not medicine and it is not safe,’ the DEA states on its Web site.”
So compared to another completely legal drug like, let’s say, tobacco?
Well, about time. And Barney Frank of all people saying that government should stay out of people’s private affairs… It must be a cold day in hell! Good for him to see the light…..now all he needs is to expand the spectrum.
#8 “The reason it hasn’t been made legal yet is that it’s too easy to grow on your own.”
Lots of folks these days brew their own beer. Okay, putting a few seeds in a pot and remembering to water them every so often is easier than home brewing (been there, done that), but if weed was available at the corner store like Miller and Bud (and Camels and Marlboro) most folks who wanted some would go that route.
It is damned easy to grow radishes even indoors in a pot, but if I want some, I go to the store. Even if they tax it, weed without the black market will be cheaper than weed with the black market that we have now.
While I support Mr. Frank and Mr. Paul’s efforts, I think they will go about as far as the impeachment proposals. At least until January 21, 2009. :).
I’ll be honest… I’ve never smoked pot in my life. It’s just my choice. However, I do NOT condemn anyone for smoking pot. In the grand scheme of things, there are worse things people could do to themselves or others.
There goes Bank of America.
Hasn’t California brought in something like 12 billion dollars from the sale of medical pot? If just one state can take in that kinda dough, then what would all states bring in?
SKL
#4, #9, #10, #13 – the problem with weed is that it grows, well, like a weed, making it hard for guv’ments to tax. Tobacco, in comparison, is a delicate princess of a plant and it’s easy to determine (a) where it can conceivably grow; and (b) whether it’s actually growing there. Ditto alcohol – the guv’ment is happy to allow low level (beer, wine) alcohol production, but woe betide anyone who tries to buy distilling equipment!
At least that’s a large part of the reason it’s still illegal in Australia, and I assume some of those same arguments apply in the US…
All drugs should be legalized. That way, only people choosing to put their health at risk will do so instead of having foreign governments interested in getting them hooked.
Yes, anti-drug is a fascist morality position. Look at how many famous people have been addicted to the worst drugs ever yet when they decide to change, they do. Nothing wrong with keeping “public intoxication” prohibitions on the books with mandatory counsellng in such cases==gee, just like alcohol.
As in all things “moral”==if you don’t want to do it, then don’t, and leave other people alone.
This article is long and I can’t vouch for its objectivity, but it covers the US history of the war on drugs. IMO it is required reading for this discussion.
http://tinyurl.com/yvgpue
terrorists will start pushing that Marijuanna stuff on all of our children, ensuring they will move on to crack and heroin.
I know you were kidding, but a lot of kids skip right past ‘the easy stuff’ today. The guy in the next office over took his 18-year old daughter through heroin withdrawal last week. She never smoked pot.
“We can’t have white women smoking pot because then they’ll start having sex with hispanics and negroes.”
Don’t laugh. This was actually one of the arguments for its criminalization.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
marijuana pa’ fumar
>“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said
So did he vote for the ban on light bulbs?
#22 – bobbo,
I’m with you on that. We can’t win the war on drugs. But, we can win the war on drug lords.
#11 – Stars & Bars “The Netherlands and the United States: A Comparison”
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm
Drug offences per 100,000 people:
USA: 560.1 NL: 12,683 (22.6 times more)
Divided with the incarceration rate above:
USA: €0.54 per 100,000 people NL: €2.23 per 100,000 people
Gun control. Social protection. Society as a whole.
I hope this passes – go Barney!
Like Moses, I also want to experience a talking snake on a hiking trip.
bobbo, would you extend this to tobacco as well?
Unfortunately, I think it would go the other way. Legalize drugs, and then the lawyers will go in and sue.
Government will NEVER allow the drug make-work to be taken away from it.
How do you expect a government to prosper anyway?
I’ll be honest, I have smoked pot and while I didn’t really feel anything different, I did eat half of the contents of a 7-11. Sitting through multiple green lights was another problem. I remember seeing bright lights flashing and things that sounded like car horns while listening to the car stereo blasting Pink Floyd.