NEW YORK — In a national vote widely viewed as a victory for conservatives, last year’s elections also yielded a win for liberals in eight states that legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use.
But the growing industry is facing a federal crackdown under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has compared cannabis to heroin.
A task force Sessions appointed to, in part, review links between violent crimes and marijuana is scheduled to release its findings by the end of the month. But he has already asked Senate leaders to roll back rules that block the Justice Department from bypassing state laws to enforce a federal ban on medical marijuana.
That has pitted the attorney general against members of Congress across the political spectrum — from Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, to Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, — who are determined to defend states’ rights and provide some certainty for the multibillion-dollar pot industry.
“Our attorney general is giving everyone whiplash by trying to take us back to the 1960s,” said Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat of California, whose district includes the so-called Emerald Triangle that produces much of the United States’ marijuana.
“Prosecutorial discretion is everything given the current conflict between the federal law and the law of many states,” he said in an interview last month.
In February, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the Trump administration would look into enforcing federal law against recreational marijuana businesses. Some states are considering tougher stands: In Massachusetts, for example, the Legislature is trying to rewrite a law to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in November.
About one-fifth of Americans now live in states where marijuana is legal for adult use, according to the Brookings Institution, and an estimated 200 million live in places where medicinal marijuana is legal.
Cannabis retailing has moved from street corners to state-of-the-art dispensaries and stores, with California entrepreneurs producing rose gold vaporizers and businesses in Colorado selling infused drinks.
Sessions is backed by a minority of Americans who view cannabis as a “gateway” drug that drives social problems, such as the recent rise in opioid addiction.
“We love Jeff Sessions’s position on marijuana because he is thinking about it clearly,” said Scott Chipman, Southern California chairman for Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana.
He dismissed the idea of recreational drug use. “’Recreational’ is a bike ride, a swim, going to the beach,” he said. “Using a drug to put your brain in an altered state is not recreation. That is self-destructive behavior and escapism.”
Marijuana merchants are protected by a provision in the federal budget that prohibits the Justice Department from spending money to block state laws that allow medicinal cannabis. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department did not interfere with state laws that legalize marijuana and instead focused on prosecuting drug cartels and the transport of pot across state lines.
In March, a group of senators that included Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, asked Sessions to stick with existing policies. Some lawmakers also want to allow banks to work with the marijuana industry and to allow tax deductions for business expenses.
Lawmakers who support legalizing marijuana contend that it leads to greater regulation, curbs the black market and stops money laundering. They point to studies showing that the war on drugs, which began under President Richard M. Nixon, had disastrous impacts on national incarceration rates and racial divides.
In a statement, Booker said the Trump administration’s crackdown against marijuana “will not make our communities safer or reduce the use of illegal drugs.”
“Instead, they will worsen an already broken system,” he said, noting that marijuana-related arrests are disproportionately high for black Americans.
Consumers spent $5.9 billion on legal cannabis in the United States last year, according to the Arcview Group, which studies and invests in the industry. That figure is expected to reach $19 billion by 2021.
A Quinnipiac University poll in February concluded that 59 percent of US voters believe cannabis should be legal. Additionally, the poll found, 71 percent say the federal government should not prosecute marijuana use in states that have legalized it.
But marijuana businesses are bracing for a possible clampdown.
“People that were sort of on the fence — a family office, a high-net-worth individual thinking of privately financing a licensed opportunity — it has swayed them to go the other way and think: not just yet,” said Randy Maslow, a founder of iAnthus Capital Holdings.
Source
Showing posts with label state's rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label state's rights. Show all posts
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Monday, February 27, 2017
Trump’s Proposed Pot Crackdown Is Out Of Step With Voters, Including Many Republicans
The Republican Party controls the legislative and executive branch for the first time since the 109th Congress. Understandably, leadership is anxious to push forward an agenda that comports with longstanding conservative principles of limited government as well as with the President’s populist rhetoric. Advocating for marijuana policy reform ought to be part of this federal agenda. Here’s why.
The election of Donald J. Trump was not the only politically significant victory on Election Day. Somewhat lost in the media frenzy was that millions of voters went chose to put an end to America’s nearly century long experiment with cannabis criminalization.
Majorities of voters in eight states decided in favor of initiatives to permit the use of marijuana by either adults or by qualified patients, and to regulate those markets accordingly. Voters’ support for reform was essentially non-partisan. Blue states like California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada voted in favor of legalization, as did red states like Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota.
To those of us who have worked on this issue for some time, these results were hardly surprising. Outside of the Beltway, Americans’ support for enacting regulatory alternatives to pot prohibition is uniquely bipartisan. According to the latest national polling by Gallup, six out of ten Americans believe that the adult use of marijuana “should be made legal.” By party, Gallup pollsters found that legalization was most likely to be favored by Independents and Democrats, but also that support among Republicans had more than doubled over the past decade.
Support among Republicans for legalizing medical marijuana is even higher, with 85 percent of GOP voters endorsing its therapeutic use, according to nationwide survey data released this week by Quinnipiac University. But perhaps most strikingly, Quinnipiac pollsters also reported that nearly three-quarters of voters – including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – “oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana.”
Nonetheless, the Trump administration appears to be planning on doing just that. In fact, on the same day that Quinnipiac released its latest survey data, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated that the Justice Department was intending to pursue the “greater enforcement” of federal anti-marijuana laws in the eight states that now regulate its adult use.
Such a move by the federal government would be a stark departure from the position of the prior administration, which largely let these voter-initiated laws move forward unfettered. It also represents an about-face in Trump’s own position, as he previously said that he would not use federal authority to target adult use laws. For instance, while campaigning in Colorado in August, Trump responded to the question “[Do] you think Colorado should be able to do what it’s doing?” by stating, “I think it’s up to the states, yeah. I’m a states person. I think it should be up to the states, absolutely.”
And so it should be. According to a 2016 report by the CATO think-tank, these adult use regulatory schemes are working largely as voters intended. They are not associated with increased marijuana use among young people, or rising rates of crime or accidents in the workplace. “The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents,” the report’s authors concluded. Further, tax revenue derived from the regulated markets now exceeds initial expectations.
Rather than picking an unnecessary fight with the majority of American voters, including a significant portion of Trump’s own base, the administration should consider embracing common sense marijuana law reforms. Endorsing bipartisan legislation, HR 975: The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act,” would be a good place to start. In accordance with the electorate’s wishes, passage of the act would prevent the federal government from criminally prosecuting individuals or businesses that are engaging in state-sanctioned activities specific to the possession, use, production, and distribution of marijuana.
Despite more than 70 years of federal marijuana prohibition, Americans’ consumption of and demand for cannabis is here to stay. It is time for politicians to acknowledge this reality and amend federal marijuana laws in a manner that comports with majority public opinion and the plant’s rapidly changing legal and cultural status. The Trump administration has the opportunity to take the lead on this issue. It would be an enormous political misstep for them to do otherwise.
Source
The election of Donald J. Trump was not the only politically significant victory on Election Day. Somewhat lost in the media frenzy was that millions of voters went chose to put an end to America’s nearly century long experiment with cannabis criminalization.
Majorities of voters in eight states decided in favor of initiatives to permit the use of marijuana by either adults or by qualified patients, and to regulate those markets accordingly. Voters’ support for reform was essentially non-partisan. Blue states like California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada voted in favor of legalization, as did red states like Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota.
To those of us who have worked on this issue for some time, these results were hardly surprising. Outside of the Beltway, Americans’ support for enacting regulatory alternatives to pot prohibition is uniquely bipartisan. According to the latest national polling by Gallup, six out of ten Americans believe that the adult use of marijuana “should be made legal.” By party, Gallup pollsters found that legalization was most likely to be favored by Independents and Democrats, but also that support among Republicans had more than doubled over the past decade.
Support among Republicans for legalizing medical marijuana is even higher, with 85 percent of GOP voters endorsing its therapeutic use, according to nationwide survey data released this week by Quinnipiac University. But perhaps most strikingly, Quinnipiac pollsters also reported that nearly three-quarters of voters – including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – “oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana.”
Nonetheless, the Trump administration appears to be planning on doing just that. In fact, on the same day that Quinnipiac released its latest survey data, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated that the Justice Department was intending to pursue the “greater enforcement” of federal anti-marijuana laws in the eight states that now regulate its adult use.
Such a move by the federal government would be a stark departure from the position of the prior administration, which largely let these voter-initiated laws move forward unfettered. It also represents an about-face in Trump’s own position, as he previously said that he would not use federal authority to target adult use laws. For instance, while campaigning in Colorado in August, Trump responded to the question “[Do] you think Colorado should be able to do what it’s doing?” by stating, “I think it’s up to the states, yeah. I’m a states person. I think it should be up to the states, absolutely.”
And so it should be. According to a 2016 report by the CATO think-tank, these adult use regulatory schemes are working largely as voters intended. They are not associated with increased marijuana use among young people, or rising rates of crime or accidents in the workplace. “The absence of significant adverse consequences is especially striking given the sometimes dire predictions made by legalization opponents,” the report’s authors concluded. Further, tax revenue derived from the regulated markets now exceeds initial expectations.
Rather than picking an unnecessary fight with the majority of American voters, including a significant portion of Trump’s own base, the administration should consider embracing common sense marijuana law reforms. Endorsing bipartisan legislation, HR 975: The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act,” would be a good place to start. In accordance with the electorate’s wishes, passage of the act would prevent the federal government from criminally prosecuting individuals or businesses that are engaging in state-sanctioned activities specific to the possession, use, production, and distribution of marijuana.
Despite more than 70 years of federal marijuana prohibition, Americans’ consumption of and demand for cannabis is here to stay. It is time for politicians to acknowledge this reality and amend federal marijuana laws in a manner that comports with majority public opinion and the plant’s rapidly changing legal and cultural status. The Trump administration has the opportunity to take the lead on this issue. It would be an enormous political misstep for them to do otherwise.
Source
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Senate approves amendment to get the federal government out of state medical marijuana dispensaries
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted on and approved Thursday an amendment designed to stop the federal government from interfering with state medical marijuana laws. The 20-10 vote mirrors an amendment in the House, which passed 242-186 in a vote last week.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., introduced the amendment -- which blocks the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from using funds to interfere with the implementation of state laws allowing for the cultivation, distribution and use of medical marijuana -- to the Senate version of the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The amendment is nearly identical to the one that passed the House of Representatives, which was introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
Many in the medical marijuana community were excited by the Senate Appropriations Committee's approval, suggesting that the similar language in both the House and Senate makes it likely that the amendment will be part of the final version of the spending bill. "This is another resounding victory for medical marijuana patients, their families and their care providers," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, in an emailed statement.
Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, added that "with so many votes going our way these days, each new one gets less and less exciting. But that’s a good problem to have. We’re entering an era where marijuana reform is accepted as mainstream and not seen as controversial, and that’s exactly where we want to be. With this vote, it’s now clear that a growing bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is ready to get the federal government out of the way of the effective implementation of state marijuana laws."
Source
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., introduced the amendment -- which blocks the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from using funds to interfere with the implementation of state laws allowing for the cultivation, distribution and use of medical marijuana -- to the Senate version of the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The amendment is nearly identical to the one that passed the House of Representatives, which was introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
Many in the medical marijuana community were excited by the Senate Appropriations Committee's approval, suggesting that the similar language in both the House and Senate makes it likely that the amendment will be part of the final version of the spending bill. "This is another resounding victory for medical marijuana patients, their families and their care providers," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, in an emailed statement.
Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, added that "with so many votes going our way these days, each new one gets less and less exciting. But that’s a good problem to have. We’re entering an era where marijuana reform is accepted as mainstream and not seen as controversial, and that’s exactly where we want to be. With this vote, it’s now clear that a growing bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is ready to get the federal government out of the way of the effective implementation of state marijuana laws."
Source
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