US Congress Starts Moving on Reforming Pot Law

[cenacle]

Finally, Congress Starts Moving on Reforming Pot Prohibition
By Allen St. Pierre, NORML

Posted on August 1, 2008 at AlterNet.org
http://www.alternet.org/story/93631/

On July 30 something rather historic on a number of counts occurred in the nation's capital. Firstly, Congress is for the first time in a generation (1978) taking a serious look at reforming components of cannabis prohibition laws. In today's Congress, the support of the Congressional Black Caucus is pivotal to passing any substantive cannabis law reform. So I was so very heartened that Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO) joined us on this very hot and oppressively humid day in DC, along with the always jocose Barney Frank (D-MA), the bill's primary sponsor (along with Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX).

Second, the media attending the press conference on HR 5843, a bill that would decriminalize marijuana possession and use for responsible adults, fairly captured the event's narrative, i.e., 'it makes no sense to treat cannabis consumers like criminals' and 'why not start controlling cannabis in the same way society (and government agencies) already control alcohol products?' with no double entendre or goofy 'stoner stupidisms'. You can view a CNN video of the press conference here. Also, you can check out some YouTube footage here of my opening remarks.

Bill Piper from the Drug Policy Alliance spoke about the collateral effects that happen to citizens arrested for minor amounts of cannabis including, but not limited to: loss of student loans; denial to public housing, food stamps and job training; and denial of entry into the military and some government service jobs.

Rob Kampia from the Marijuana Policy Project discussed the broader implications of the federal government passing decriminalization legislation and how it could affect state efforts to reform cannabis laws, notably this November's decriminalization initiative on the ballot in Massachusetts.

As has been noted by others who attended today's press conference, there was a certain air of desperation coming from the part of the government who is responsible for supposedly 'controlling' currently illicit drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)chief propagandist David Murray attended the press conference, making himself available for questions afterwards and handing out his latest anti-cannabis handywork, and he seemed absolutely befuddled that anyone on the face of the planet could possibly compare cannabis and alcohol policies, and that there is no such thing as the responsible use of cannabis. Period. Even for medical purposes with a physician's recommendation. Period.

Wow. Can you say, 'flat earth'?

Indeed, there is much work to be done in cannabis law reform in the Executive Branch (which, astonishingly, is where ONDCP resides) and so-called anti-drug agencies. The tale Hercules and the cleansing of the Augean stables immediately comes to mind

As Chairman Frank noted in his prepared remarks, HR 5843 (and similar legislation HR 5842, which regards medical marijuana rescheduling) are not likely to come a full committee for vote until well into 2009. Given this candid assessment by Rep. Frank, for NORML members and advocates of cannabis law reform, there are still important phases that we can all help accomplish that will hasten passage of these important and reform-minded bills.

Rep. Frank and the other current co-sponsors of HR 5843 will be sending around a 'Dear Colleague" letter soon encouraging other members of the House to join them early on in support of their bill for the decriminalization of cannabis for responsible adult use and, therefore, like all legislation in the Congress, the more co-sponsors of a legislative bill, the better chance the bill's chance of passage.

With the change of presidency in the wings and a likely increase in the number of Democratic members being elected to the House of Representatives, NORML's expectations for HR 5843 is for there to be both subcommittee and full committee votes on Judiciary regarding this important legislation late into 2009.

Importantly, NORML members and advocates of cannabis law reform, for the next six months, need to truly concentrate their advocacy efforts on actively recruiting each of our elected members of Congress to become co-sponsors of HR 5843. Of the many lobbying and advocacy efforts one can employ to advance cannabis law reforms in America, getting a federal cannabis decriminalization bill passed and signed into law is the single most politically achievable public policy advance that is likely to happen in Congress in the next few years.

As our democracy prescribes, states will continue to largely serve as the catalyst of change and innovation in public policy making regarding cannabis, and this is very likely going to continue to happen with more and more municipalities and states passing progressive cannabis laws--at some point, ultimately, positively affecting the federal government.

At least that is how it is supposed to work, right?

Allen St. Pierre is the executive director of NORML.

[laughingwillow]

Wouldn't that be something?

lw

[Anonymous]

So what the hell does this mean for the average american cannabis smoker?

[laughingwillow]

It means nothing until the current administration is gone, imo. And even then, it might mean nothing for the average american smoker of da kine.

Illicit pipe dreams until then.....

lw

[senorsalvia]

I guess the legitimate thing to do is to keep track of this bill and urge your repective congressional folks  to sign on as supporters..  If they will not support this bill, then screw 'em..  Make it clear this is a clear vote breaker with you and your voting family....  Who knows, maybe this is one of those moments when the tide will begin to shift....

[Stonehenge]

We have to wait until the brainwashed fools die off before any meaningful change will happen, I'm afraid. Ralph Nader is in favor of ending the drug war but how many support him? The big pharm companies are against decrim and the politicians are in their pocket.

As long as our political system is bought and paid for by the highest bidder, we will not see meaningful change. How many stoners are willing to jack up serious cash as opposed to the billions spent by the big companies? The public has been clamoring for campaign reform for decades. They want this mess cleaned up. What has happened in all that time? Nothing, that's what.

Anyone who refuses to be a tool can't be elected in the current system.

[senorsalvia]

Sadly, I have got to agree with you Stony...  I was just thinking about things like this the other evening, and remembered how you recently indicated that you would be voting Nader....  I did that in the last election and I have a sort of chilling feeling that my vote (and others like mine) did, in fact, throw the election to Shrub as opposed to Gore....  I really wish for a strong and viable 3rd party, but it just never seems to garner enough of the voters imagination to be a true option....  I wonder why George Soros does not attempt to fund and solidify a strong 3rd...

[Bushpig]

Regardless of that Stoney, looks like if the door is slightly ajar you'd be rude not to try and push it down, so I say go for it, write some letters to your congressional reps and get a push going!

Bushpig

[Stonehenge]

Bush, that is certainly worth trying. I'm not saying to give up totally on the present system. However, I am saying that at present it's all a puppet show to make the masses think that something is happening.

Sal, no vote that goes to the right candidate is wasted. You are being tempted by the old hackneyed 'lesser of the evils' argument. Shrub won by cheating, not by winning the vote. The evidence of vote fraud was overwhelming. By a strange coincidence, the corporate controlled media showed no interest in that, despite sworn testimony by eye witnesses to voting machine tampering including employees of Diebold itself.

If Obama is better than McShrub, then we are supposed to vote for him instead of an honest candidate. Well, McShrub is better than shrub himself so he will get a lot of lesser of the evils votes too. Life imprisonment for smoking a joint is better than the death penalty so if you believe the lesser of the evils argument, you should vote for life imprisonment.

Not!

[cenacle]

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread381248/pg1

That's for you, Stoney

Can't say that I disagree with you entirely, as you know, but of course I don't agree entirely either. In my view, Obama is the best candidate either "major" party has produced in a long time. I agree with him on some things, not on others. I frankly like that he comes from working class people, and that he has seen the world, and lived other places. He's smart, he's genial, he's a person with empathy, and he has a good sense of humor. My vote will go for him, not against McCain, and I'm hopeful he'll be elected.

Will he reform the government in one fell swoop? I don't think so. But I am hopeful at the many good things he and the people he brings in will do. I believe they will work on restoring the rule of law over the rule of men, that the war in Iraq will wind down, that the US will rejoin the community of nations.

Will he legalize pot? (Which is this subject of this thread). I don't think so, wish he would just come out in favor of legalization, but I don't even think he has to. The states are doing that, as the story says. There are medical projects ongoing about MJ's benefits. There are places like Seattle where cops are told to make MJ's busts "lowest" priority.

Now that leaves the prisons, and as you pointed out, the many MJ smokers still locked up. I think that might come to a Supreme Court ruling, frankly, just a guess. I don't foresee a large enough majority in Congress with the courage to do the right thing and end the War on Some Drugs.

So it's just a long damn fight, best going right now state by state. I don't have a lot of faith in Congress doing much, but it's good to see some action there. I'd like to see Obama get in for many reasons, but one of them is to push the Supreme Court back to the center, and then maybe get the MJ laws up there.

There are many reasons to be cynical, to opt out, to call the whole thing a fraud. Some days I do too. I'm sitting here with two Master's Degrees and 14 years of experience in my field, and I've been jobless for nearly two months. Jobhunting every damned day of the week.  I'm watching my savings dwindle a bit at a time, feeling the stress of this situation every single day. I have a life to defend and a partner too, this is serious business for me. I do not expect Obama to come in and save my day. But I do expect that he will take on that mantle of power and begin to do the right things again, and make decisions for the people's sake and not the damned multinational corporations. I'm hopeful right now, still, despite all, and nobody is taking this away from me.

[Stonehenge]

Yeah, that article summed up a lot of the way I look at things. It's all a puppet show for the masses. In ancient rome, they had bread and circuses. Have we come that far since then?

I hope your job hunt turns up the golden prize. Consider something outside the exact thing you were doing. A related field gives you more roundedness in your resume. My suggestion of yard work in the meantime was not in jest. In 20 to 30 minutes you can cut a yard and do some trimming for $30 to $50. I bet you weren't making that much in your old job.

My cousin in cali who is a car saleman says business is off 50%. When your expenses go up and up and your income goes down, it hurts. We are all suffering from shrub-enomics.

Obama is a tool. He may be a better tool than Mc but he lost me when he flip flopped on the core issues. Slogans mean nothing to me. Pulling out of Iraq in 16 months is a solid commitment. He waffled on that and now just says he will "end" it. But when? He supports spying on americans and is against pot. He says the spying bill he supported is "better" than the other one. Lesser of the evils again which leads to more evil.

[senorsalvia]

As far as the vote fraud thing.  Well, I'm residing in the state of Florida. Can there be a state with more instances of illegalities and manipulations at the polls??  I think not...  That said,  I noticed that the term corporate media was referenced.. I wonder just 'what' the big bugaboo media truly consists of...  I mean, on the one hand, you have the right bemoaning the media for being predominantly liberal-left-biased, and on the other, we  have your assertion of a corporate control spin.  Since most corporate powers are seen as right wing; what's the math forula for this one???  Do we have a left, or a right biased media???  Is the bias asserted with an overeaching agenda?  What might that be???   As far as voting 3rd party at this stage in the culture of US politics..  I can understand and appreciate voting 3rd, but let's face it; casting a vote for a 3rd party candidate may feel like the proper way to go, but I see it as a philisophical shout out, hoping to catch the attention of enough folks to form a choir.   I don't see voting for Obama as a lesser of evils...  He's certainly not without flaws, but his statements of intentions convince me I would rather have him at the helm than McCain...  Like I have said before, I yearn for a strong and viable 3rd party, but truth be told, I do not for the life of me expect to see a 3rd part with enough overall voter support to be a true political force and contender in my lifetime....That's just the entrenched head in the sand mentality of the US voter, and it will take something like a 30's style depression, or a true WWW3 to change things, I'm afraid.........

[cenacle]

Do we have a left, or a right biased media???  Is the bias asserted with an overeaching agenda?  What might that be???.........

There is no free media in the US. There are about six powerful owners of the vast majority of TV stations, newspapers, radio stations. Their agenda is simple: to control in perpetuity what they have. They favor conservative propaganda because it is based in control of the masses by fear and distraction. Spend the media's print and air time on celebrity gossip, racist propaganda, and raising war fever. Make sure people vote in a mode of fear, like someone is trying to take away from them something: their guns, their daughters, their Bibles. Scare and scare and scare them, then throw in a little tit and ass to shake things up.

I guess if I was one of the "haves," I'd have more sympathy. I'd be doing well and want to keep what I have, and pass it on to children. I'd want my fellow rich friends to do well too. I'd be suspicious of change, of any effort to take from me what I felt was mine. Maybe at best I would like to be like the Kennedys and work to help those less fortunate. But I sure as fuck would not want to be poor, seeing what that's like.

But then again, the "have-nots" are played too, by their fears of those who are different, by the threat that the "other"--whether black, Muslim, female, gay, etc.--was going to come in and push them out.

One way or another, we all have fears and vulnerabilities, and the more we are kept from each other, pitted against each other, by means of religion, nationalism, gender, skin color, the more a very few stay in charge, and do well while the rest of us suffer, and some of us even help them.

It's fucked, Sal, and I don't see an easy answer, or maybe even a hard one. I'm not saying I have a solution of any kind, or that Obama does. But I do think that change is possible, and hope drives the actual action needed to change, and that despair and hate is a potent cocktail drunk by all who think we are not all profoundly interdependent, and need to learn how to fucking do things right.

[Anonymous]

Stonehenge is a Prophet of God and speaks only truth!

I agree with everything he has said in this thread!

[senorsalvia]

Do we have a left, or a right biased media???  Is the bias asserted with an overeaching agenda?  What might that be???.........

There is no free media in the US.





One way or another, we all have fears and vulnerabilities, and the more we are kept from each other, pitted against each other, by means of religion, nationalism, gender, skin color, the more a very few stay in charge, and do well while the rest of us suffer, and some of us even help them.

It's fucked, Sal, and I don't see an easy answer, or maybe even a hard one. I'm not saying I have a solution of any kind, or that Obama does. But I do think that change is possible, and hope drives the actual action needed to change, and that despair and hate is a potent cocktail drunk by all who think we are not all profoundly interdependent, and need to learn how to fucking do things right.

Speaking of hate being that potent cocktail...  I've been reading some stuff lately that chronicles the 60's/counterculture /Weathermen/SDS and the like....  I gotta tell 'ya I'm  not that far from engaging in, shall we say, "uproarious dissent"...  Would such action change anything??  Hmmm, I dunno...  Maybe there are times when suffice is to slow down the terrible onslaught of a crippling behemoth of a machine...  "The pump don't work if'n the vandals steal the handle"....