The first bill HR5843, co-sponsored by Reps, Ron Paul (R-TX) and William Lacy (D-MO) would eliminate all existing federal penalties including arrest, incarceration and fines that prohibit the possession and personal use of less than 100 grams of marijuana.
According to Congressman Frank "It is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something in which society does not seriously wish to prosecute." He then followed up by saying, "Having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes."
A national poll in Oct. 2007 conducted by CNN found that 40 percent of those surveyed favored possession of small quantities of marijuana, while 70 percent thought that offenders should be fined but not jailed.
There are currently 12 states that have passed laws decriminalizing marijuana for personal use:: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon.
In the other bill authored by Franks, HR 5842, cosponsored by Reps. Paul, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Sam Farr (D-CA), would force the DEA and other federal authorities to respect states’ current laws on medicinal cannabis and end DEA raids on facilities distributing medical marijuana legally under state law.
"When doctors recommend the use of marijuana for their patients and states are willing to permit it, I think it's wrong for the federal government to subject either the doctors or the patients to criminal prosecution," Frank said. "The norm in America is for the states to decide whether particular behaviors should be made criminal."
Marijuana Facts:*
60,000 individuals are behind bars for marijuana offenses at a cost to taxpayers of $1.2 billion per year.
REFERENCE: Marijuana Arrests and Incarceration in the United States. 1999. The Federation of American Scientists' Drug Policy Analysis Bulletin.
Taxpayers annually spend between $7.5 billion and $10 billion arresting and prosecuting individuals for marijuana violations. Almost 90 percent of these arrests are for marijuana possession only.
REFERENCE: NORML. 1997.
The state of California saved nearly $1 billion dollars from 1976 to 1985 by decriminalizing the personal possession of one ounce of marijuana, according to a study of the state justice department budget.
REFERENCE: M. Aldrich and T. Mikuriya. 1988.
New Mexico's 2001 state-commissioned Drug Policy Advisory Group determined that marijuana decriminalization "will result in greater availability of resources to respond to more serious crimes without any increased risks to public safety."
REFERENCE: New Mexico Governor's Drug Policy Advisory Group. 2001.
Marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1991, while adult use of the drug has remained stable. During this same period, the number of arrests for cocaine and heroin fell by approximately 33 percent.
REFERENCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2000.
Police arrest more Americans per year on marijuana charges than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
REFERENCE: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2001.
Marijuana violations constitute the fifth most common criminal offense in the United States.
REFERENCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2000.
More than 734,000 individuals were arrested on marijuana charges in 2000. Eighty-eight percent of those arrested were charged with marijuana possession only.
REFERENCE: Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2001.
Almost 5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana since 1992. That's more than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington DC and Wyoming combined.
REFERENCE. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
According to editors of the prestigious Lancet British medical journal: "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."
REFERENCE:Deglamorizing cannabis 1995.
According to a 1999 federally commissioned report by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM), "Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications."
REFERENCE: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999.
The National Academy of Sciences further found, "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."
REFERENCE: National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999.
More than 76 million Americans have admittedly tried marijuana. The overwhelming majority of these users did not go on to become regular marijuana users, try other illicit drugs, or suffer any deleterious effects to their health.
REFERENCE: Combined data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 1996.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 35 percent of adults admit to having tried marijuana. Of these, only 5 percent have used marijuana in the past year, and only 3 percent have used marijuana in the past month. According to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: "Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use."
REFERENCE: President Jimmy Carter: Message to Congress, August 2, 1977
Convicted marijuana offenders are denied federal financial student aid, welfare and food stamps, and may be removed from public housing. Other non-drug violations do not carry such penalties. In many states, convicted marijuana offenders are automatically stripped of their driving privileges, even if the offense is not driving related.
REFERENCE: Section 483, Subsection F of the Higher Education Act of 1998.
Under federal law, possessing a single marijuana cigarette or less is punishable by up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine, the same penalty as possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine or crack.
REFERENCE: J. Morgan and L. Zimmer. 1997.
In several states, marijuana offenders may receive maximum sentences of life in prison.
REFERENCE: Normal
A recent national study found that blacks are arrested for marijuana offenses at higher rates than whites in 90 percent of 700 U.S. counties investigated. In 64 percent of these counties, the black arrest rate for marijuana violations was more than twice the arrest rate for whites.
REFERENCE: J. Gettman. 2000. The NORML Foundation: Washington, DC.
*Combined fact information above from Mike Gravel 08
A 2002 Time/CNN poll found 80 percent of respondents support the legalization of medical marijuana.
There are currently 12 states that have laws protecting medical marijuana patients from prosecution: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
To date the DEA continues to raid medical marijuana dispensaries operating in these states, enforcing the war on drugs, free Americans.
VIEW POINT:
The first time I knowingly violated the law and smoked marijuana was in 1967... and yes I inhaled. At that time here in California the penalty for possession of even a seed was 5 to life.
Our trusted government back then proved in laboratory studies that "marijuana turned otherwise normal human beings into psychotic lunatics that were capable of suicide and other acts of violence without just case or provocation."
We've come a long way !
Demand the immediate release of all people serving time for possession of marijuana , especially life sentences.
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Published: Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Last modified: Monday, May 26, 2008
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: George
Date: 2008-05-06 03:35:10
According to Ron Paul's book "The Revolution : A Manifesto", the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 had little to do with real science or medicine and a lot to do with petty ethnic grudges, careerism in the Bureau of Narcotics, disinformation and propaganda in the press, etc.. Hearings on it took about 2 hours and had very little to do with the health effects of marijuana. They had 2 "experts" testify on the subject. One was a professor who injected 300 dogs with the active ingredient in marijuana of which 2 died. When asked whether he had chosen dogs for the similarity of their reactions to those human beings, he shrugged and said, " I don't know, I am not a dog psychologist". The other expert was a guy that represented the American Medical Association and he said that knew of no evidence that marijuana was dangerous drug. One congressman didn't like his answer and suggested that he go home. An "offical expert" was asked to testify about the substance insanity-inducing properties. In his testimony he claimed that after 2 puffs on a marijuana cigarette, he turned into a bat and flew around the room for 15 mins. (lol)
That was pretty much all Congress needed to hear to outlaw marijuana. If you want the whole story, read Ron Paul's book. It will open your eyes on the ignorance of government..
Posted By: Jess
Date: 2008-05-06 06:52:14
Just to let you know, George Washington was a huge advocate of mary jane! He grew it himself and encouraged it's growth throughout the southern states. He wrote his gardener to remind him to seperate the male from the females, so obviously he wasn't growing it for rope! He would be livid to know that we had outlawed his beloved herb! Actually it was George who brought hemp to this continent to begin with as it is NOT a native species and it's use in Mexico was a byproduct of it's popularity here. Check out "Sex, Drugs and Magick" by Robert Anton Wilson, he quotes Washington's diaries and writings, and gets more in depth about the illegalization of drugs in this country.
Posted By: Gary R. Carter
Date: 2008-05-06 08:21:30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html
Did Tashkin just say its safer than Flinstones vitamins?
Posted By: patrick henry
Date: 2008-05-06 09:08:16
Actually George Washington did not bring hemp to the new world. Washington never left the country. If you remember the first form of european government in the new world was communism with John Smiths common store. The communist government of what became the state of VA MANDATED hemp be grown for the colony. George Washington was indeed a hemp farmer.
As far as an indigenous plant, I would disagree, in his letters to George Mason he had thanked him for the English hemp seeds he had brought back as they were less harsh than the Indian hemp of the Americas (hemp is a native American word).
The first draft of the Declaration of Independance was written on VA Hemp paper grown of Jeffersons farm. The signed document was printed on English Hemp paper meant as an insult,
Cannabis is the oldest recorded herb used for medicinal purposes used in China 16000 years ago.
The fact that the FED usurps its power by over turning state propositions for legalization should have us all in arms as a direct assault on states sovreignty.
Phillip Morris and Anheser-Busch are huge contributors to the war on drugs.
Read the "Emporer wears no clothes" by Jack Herrer
Biodeiesel can be made from hemp for 38 cents a gallon with almost no carbon emissions.
The US Government commissioned farmers during WWII to grow cannabis, see "Hemp for Victory"- US Dept of Agriculture.
Hemp meets none of the classification rules of the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, which makes it Federally illegal.
Cannabis prohibition is less successful than alcohol prohibiton.
END THE DRUG WAR
LoD
Posted By: GetReal
Date: 2008-05-06 10:10:05
In the earliest days of America, immigrants were required to grow cannibis because it was the most useful plant known. The earliest settlers would not have survived without this plant of many uses. Taxes were collected in cannibis only. New Americans who refused to grow cannibis were often jailed for not growing it. Over the years the situation has been spun 180 degrees. Medical users are crowding the jails at tax-payer expence just for trying to survive. American farmers are going bankrupt because they are not allowed to grow industrial hemp. If you've read this far, contact your Congressman and ask for their support to right this travesty of justice! Tell your US representative to support HR5843 & HR 5842.
Posted By: Jess
Date: 2008-05-06 12:58:42
The word "hemp" is not Native American, but English first coined around 1000 AD. The cannabis plant is indigenous to Asia, though different strains were bred throughout the ancient world. The strain Washington preferred was the India strain. I was wrong about him bringing it here as it was brought here by the English to be used for the manufacturing of rope and sails. From "The Writings of Washington" vol.35 pg 72 "What has been done with the seed saved from the Indian Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sown again..." and on pg 323 "the Indian hemp is for all purposes superior to th New Zealand variety." He really liked his weed!
Posted By: David S
Date: 2008-05-06 14:24:52
The people who would lose the most, if marijuana is legalized, are those who are involved in distributing and selling it illegally. Legalizing it would put them out of business. It may just be my suspicious nature but it makes me wonder if the politicians who fight legalization are involved in the game.
Posted By: Libertas
Date: 2008-05-07 07:43:52
Thanks for the point David.
This is exactly part of the problem, not only does cannabis have a variety of uses, if packaged and sold it could be taxed. (government revenue for the states) (licensed growers could sale hemp for paper, rope, and cloth.) Researchers would have an unlimited supply to test for medicinal purposes, narrowing down why the over 400 compounds in hemp are so darn helpful. (Anyone in here drink tea?)
And as David mentioned, as soon as it is legal, the federal government would (or states) start regulating it. If you are caught selling unregulated marijuana you could be fined for not having a license. (or other various things) I do not necessarily believe that Fed regulation is necessary but very much State regulation for taxes.
Monetarily it is a no brainer, safety wise, you cannot OD, and legalization would get rid of a good portion of demand in the black market, you will see a drop in crime related to growing and sales.
Sry, I know some economists and some doctors that truly see it as a cash crop that is not harnessed.
I did not even know about the biodiesel. Talk about staying green. When will congress finally wake up.
Posted By: ken locke
Date: 2008-10-26 07:10:20
Show your support :)
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