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.
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.
Both types? “Medical” and “recreational”?
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.
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.
It will probably be virtually mandatory. Even before it was legal you could get pulverized if you refuse to do it.
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.
dumBO risks alienating his core Chicago constituency.
> 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...
Nevermind.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Hasn’t worked that way in CO.
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.
however, tobacco will be banned from sale on military bases
Well, I don’t know where you live, but I’ve never had that experience.
Consider yourself lucky.
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.
marijuana just doesn’t fit the criteria for a schedule 1 drug.
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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.
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