Thread: U.S. House votes to protect state-level marijuana laws in Colorado, elsewhere

U.S. House votes to protect state-level marijuana laws in Colorado, elsewhere

Jun 3, 2015, 2:14pm MDT
Updated Jun 3, 2015, 2:39pm MDT
Molly Armbrister
Denver Business Journal

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill denying the use of federal funds to interfere with medical cannabis patients or providers in states where medical marijuana is legal.

The measure passed by a margin of 242 to 186 that included more than 65 Republicans, according to a release.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, and Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California, would have extended the same protections to non-medical retail marijuana businesses and consumers in states where adult use has been legalized, but the measure failed 206 to 222.

Colorado's marijuana business has been allowed to operate since recreational marijuana became legal on Jan. 1, 2014 largely because of a 2013 decision by the U.S. Justice Department to allow Colorado and Washington to create their own structures for regulating marijuana, even though it is illegal at the federal level.

The decision by the House signifies willingness in another branch of the federal government to allow leeway for states that have legalized marijuana.

“The federal government shouldn’t be swooping into Colorado to decide how we regulate marijuana any more than it should be swooping into Louisiana to tell them how they should regulate fried crawfish,” Polis said. “In Colorado, we’ve seen that regulating the marijuana industry is a far more successful approach than leaving the market in the hands of criminal cartels. With each passing year, Congress moves one step closer to leaving marijuana policy up to the states, where it belongs. I’m confident that with time, we’ll finally get there.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/ne...arijunana.html

Wonderful and shame on those who wanted to prevent states rights to sell recreational marijuana and hiss boo shame on all those who voted against the medical marijuana bill.

It's nice to see the tide turning on this issue. It needs to turn more and hopefully it will. I'm glad to see at least 65 Republicans supporting the bill and am ashamed of the remainder for not supporting it.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

“The federal government shouldn’t be swooping into Colorado to decide how we regulate marijuana any more than it should be swooping into Louisiana to tell them how they should regulate fried crawfish,” Polis said. “In Colorado, we’ve seen that regulating the marijuana industry is a far more successful approach than leaving the market in the hands of criminal cartels. With each passing year, Congress moves one step closer to leaving marijuana policy up to the states, where it belongs. I’m confident that with time, we’ll finally get there.”

The War on Drugs is a delusion.

The only policy which will work long term is Legalization, regulation, taxation, and education. Which, after all, is how we've been handling alcohol for decades.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Originally Posted by vistalad

The War on Drugs is a delusion.

The only policy which will work long term is Legalization, regulation, taxation, and education. Which, after all, is how we've been handling alcohol for decades.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Exactly.

Why Legalizing Pot Is a Bad Idea

Cully Stimson / @cullystimson / November 30, 2014 / 489 comments

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Photo: Getty Images

COMMENTARY BY

Cully Stimson@cullystimson
Charles "Cully" D. Stimson is a leading expert in criminal law, military law, military commissions and detention policy at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research.


At first blush, it may appear that the fight to thwart marijuana legalization is a lost cause. Pot pushers want you to believe that legalization is inevitable. They point to legalization successes this November in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia.
But Big Pot lost in Florida, and five cities in pot-crazy Colorado outlawed the sale of marijuana, including Lakewood, Canon City, Palisade, Palmer Lake and Ramah. And now comes the latest Gallup poll from Nov. 6, which shows that support for marijuana legalization is down seven points from last year, from 58 percent to 51 percent. Even liberal support for legalization dropped four points from last year.

So why did the pot pushers lose a large state like Florida, and why is support for legalization falling?
That’s a tough question. But perhaps the public is starting to pay attention to scientific data and the actual dangers of marijuana as well as the negative stories coming out of Colorado and Washington State since those states legalized marijuana.

The science is clear and unambiguous – pot is a dangerous substance. It is not like alcohol at all. There is a reason it is classified as a Schedule I controlled dangerous substance, right along with heroin, LSD and ecstasy. The American Medical Association, the American Lung Association and other reputable doctors and scientists all reject legalization.

As Dr. Kevin Sabet, former senior advisor to President Obama’s drug policy office, states in his book “Reefer Sanity ‘Seven Great Myths About Marijuana,” the average strength of today’s marijuana is five to six times what it was in the 1960s and 1970s, and upwards of 10 to 20 times stronger than in the past.

Even the liberal editorial pages of The Washington Post urged voters not to legalize pot in the ballot initiative this past Nov. 4. The Post noted that “the rush to legalize marijuana gives us – and we hope voters – serious pause.”
The data coming out of Colorado is exhibit A on why voters should reject legalization efforts. Even the Democratic governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, said that legalizing marijuana in Colorado was “reckless.” As I have written at Heritage, pot-positive traffic fatalities have gone up 100 percent since voters legalized pot in Colorado. This is true despite the fact that overall traffic fatalities in Colorado have gone down since 2007.

A report by a federal grant-funded agency in Colorado found seven specific negative side effects that pot legalization has caused in Colorado:

1) the majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana;
2) youth consumption of marijuana has increased;
3) drug-related suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent over a 5-year period and a majority was for marijuana;
4) an increase in college users;
5) almost 50 percent of Denver arrestees tested positive for marijuana;
6) marijuana-related emergency-room visits increased 57 percent from 2011-2013; and
7) marijuana-related hospitalizations has increased 82 percent since 2008.

Perhaps people are also aware of new scientific studies pointing to the inherent dangers of marijuana. For example, the British health research journal The Lancet Psychiatry recently concluded that teens who smoke marijuana are “also 60 percent less likely to graduate college and seven times more likely to attempt suicide.”

Others have picked up on the recent findings by the Journal of Addiction from Kings College London that found that marijuana is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and is a gateway drug to other illegal and dangerous drugs. That report found that regular adolescent marijuana users have lower educational attainment than non-using peers, that they were more likely to use other illegal drugs, the use produced intellectual impairment, that use doubled the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and increased the risk of heart attacks in middle-aged adults.

Add to that the recent study where 9.7 percent of respondents reported that they had smoked marijuana before coming to work, and you can see why responsible citizens, including employers and parents, are starting to question the pro-pot canard that smoking marijuana is no big deal and actually good for you.
Originally published at CNSNews.com.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/11/30/why-legalizing-pot-is-a-bad-idea/

From MW's article:

A report by a federal grant-funded agency in Colorado found seven specific negative side effects that pot legalization has caused in Colorado:

1) the majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana;
2) youth consumption of marijuana has increased;
3) drug-related suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent over a 5-year period and a majority was for marijuana;
4) an increase in college users;
5) almost 50 percent of Denver arrestees tested positive for marijuana;
6) marijuana-related emergency-room visits increased 57 percent from 2011-2013; and
7) marijuana-related hospitalizations has increased 82 percent since 2008.

From the actual article in the "report" link:

According to the new report by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area entitled “The Legalization of Marijuana in Colorado: The Impact,” the impact of legalized marijuana in Colorado has resulted in:

1. The majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana and 25 to 40 percent were marijuana alone.


2. In 2012, 10.47 percent of Colorado youth ages 12 to 17 were considered current marijuana users compared to 7.55 percent nationally. Colorado ranked fourth in the nation, and was 39 percent higher than the national average.


3. Drug-related student suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent from school years 2008-09 through 2012-13, the vast majority were for marijuana violations.


4. In 2012, 26.81 percent of college age students were considered current marijuana users compared to 18.89 percent nationally, which ranks Colorado third in the nation and 42 percent above the national average.


5. In 2013, 48.4 percent of Denver adult arrestees tested positive for marijuana, which is a 16 percent increase from 2008.


6. From 2011 through 2013 there was a 57 percent increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits.


7. Hospitalizations related to marijuana has increased 82 percent since 2008.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/20/7-...used-colorado/

Colorado Amendment 64 was a popular initiative ballot measure to amend Colorado's constitution, outlining a statewide drug policy for cannabis. The measure passed on November 6, 2012, and along with a similar Washington measure, both marked "an electoral first not only for America but for the world," ^[2] though Colorado began to put the amendment into practice several months sooner than Washington. Now enacted as Article 18, section 16 of the state constitution, the law addresses "personal use and regulation of marijuana" for adults 21 and over, as well as commercial cultivation, manufacture, and sale, effectively regulating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol.^[3] The first stores officially opened on January 1, 2014.^[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_64

To determine the impact of pot legalization in Colorado or any other state, one would need to compare the rates of various incidents before the legalization to the period AFTER legalization. What the author of MW's article has done as has the study paid for with federal money is distort research, history and statistics, because the Amendment that legalized marijuana in Colorado didn't even occur until November of 2012, and pot was not available in stores until January of 2014, so statistics that range back to 2008, 2011-2013 and 2012, have absolutely NOTHING to do with pot legalization in Colorado. Also of note is the fact that pot legalization in Colorado is for adults age 21 and older and has absolutely NOTHING to do with any impacts related to "youth consumption" or even most "college users".

Additionally, as in "alcohol-related" accident reports where "alcohol-related" does not mean because of alcohol, "marijuana-related" does not mean because of marijuana. Generally speaking, when non-scientific reports and studies try to make a scientific case against something, like freedom, one usually needs to hold their nose and turn the page.

Judy, attacking the messenger doesn't dilute the actual facts.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/10/fo...e-not-support/

Excerpt:

"Colorado was supposed to eliminate the marijuana black market, but it did not.”

Originally Posted by MW

Judy, attacking the messenger doesn't dilute the actual facts.

LOL! I didn't attack the messenger, MW, I pointed out that the authors before and after comparisons are wrong. Did you not see that? They claim "scientific" evidence, yet don't even use before data compared to after data. That's not science, that's a dishonest, unscientific report that was paid for with federal money to run a scam against pot legalization so they can keep locking up blacks for in poor neighborhoods and fill up the private prisons under mandatory sentencing laws.

Really, MW, you need to catch up on the whole issue and why drug laws, at least most of them, are as wrong as can be, both on the science and the law.

Originally Posted by MW

http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/10/fo...e-not-support/

Excerpt:

"Colorado was supposed to eliminate the marijuana black market, but it did not.”

Oh please! STOP!

Your source of the "excerpt":

Citing findings from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2013 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, White said the numbers are even more stark in Colorado. There, 10.2 percent of 12-17 years olds have used the drug.

“In the 18-25 range, which are critical years for brain development, nationally, 18.78 percent of the age group have used in the past month, while in Colorado it stands at 27.26 percent,” White added.
>>> Rocky Mountain High: 30% of Homeless in Denver Shelter Came to State for Marijuana
When asked by the an audience member if marijuana is worse than alcohol, Bennett and White admitted that America still has a problem with underage drinking and use of prescription pills.
“It’s not worse than alcohol,” said Bennett. “We know we have a problem, and we have not managed to keep those things from kids. Colorado was supposed to eliminate the marijuana black market, but it did not.”
White concluded, “Why add a third problem?”

How can a pot legalization program eliminate the black market BEFORE it's even available in stores? Pot wasn't available in stores in Colorado until January 2014, a year AFTER, the poll the federal government is using and you're citing.

If you're against pot legalization for some reason, just state the real reason, MW. Hanging your hat on bad biased government and government funded "studies" and "polls" isn't going to convince anyone you're right when their basis for their statements is a complete scam using data, studies and polls that are based on activities BEFORE the respective elements of Colorado's pot legalization amendment.

William Bennett is a monster who used his Drug Czar role to encourage drug law legislation, mandatory sentencing, private prisons and unconstitutional targeting of black neighborhoods to fill them that have caused far more harm to our citizens and nation than drug use.