With public support for reforming marijuana laws at an all time high, Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Don Young (R-AK) have formed the first-ever Congressional Cannabis Caucus to promote sensible cannabis policy reform and to ease the tension between federal and state cannabis laws.
The official establishment of a Congressional Cannabis Caucus represents yet another step forward toward ultimately reforming cannabis policy at the federal level. The creation of this caucus is yet another manifestation that our political power is growing — even inside the beltway.
NORML has been in this fight for over 47 years, representing the position that responsible adults who choose to consume marijuana should not be be persecuted or stigmatized. Throughout the country, our chapters are organizing to advocate for state level reforms. NORML represents a growing community of individuals who are coming together and working toward the mutual goals of building a more just and verdant society.
The end of marijuana prohibition will not come overnight. In fact, the forces of prohibition remain strong and the misinformation campaign that has spanned from Reefer Madness to D.A.R.E. is deeply entrenched in the psyches of lawmakers and voters alike. But just as we have for decades, we will not be deterred.
In order for our state and federal laws to be more reflective of the cold truths of reality and science rather than hysteria and racism, we must continue to educate our legislators and neighbors alike. Having a coalition of lawmakers in Washington, DC who will go on the record in support of advocating for cannabis freedom is something we haven’t had before, but it is an event that is long overdue.
So let’s keep building.
A historic development, and great to hear! Great work, Congressmen, esp. Congressman Rohrabacher. Bi-Partisan, too. It is long past due time for Congress to get more invovled. This is a great piece of news to hear, reenforces and concretes our struggle even further! Thanks NORML.
I have been noticing for YEARS how this has been viewed by society as both Positive+ and and negative. By many persons things were said by people who “claim to know” yet truthfully know very little or nothing at all.
This plant is spoken about in Bible too. There has always been more than enough time to do it. Many Tests have already been done now with proof of the Good+ from it. Fact is it was formerly Legal up until alcohol prohibition . Unfortunately after law against alcohol became reversed (legal) it was left out and remained againt law. There are many chemical drugs to copy what it can naturally do. On top of that also many unfortunate deaths too. Never has a death from it been occurred. My opinion is with history of it changing, it should at the least be rescheduled and Taxed=$.
Jails and Prisons are becoming overcrowded and lessening crime should relieve that.
Yoda? Is that you?
These guys make me want to run for office.
You got my vote. (I’m only kidding if you are!) Oh, please, please, please, nominate me for Drug Czar?
You can lead “The People’s Party”, comprised of Libertarians, Progressives, Reformed Democrats, Sane Republicans, and Betrayed Trump Supporters seeking new representation.
Seriously, I wonder how closely the Congressional Cannabis Caucus (Wow. Gotta get used to saying that with a straight face!) will reflect that set of political identities.
I have a feeling that more and more politicians are going to want that on their resume.
The beauty of the CCC, it seems to me, is that it will be difficult for any member of the CCC to deny and/or defend the roles of the various political powers and motives behind marijuana prohibition. Understanding the true nature of the problem should be a prerequisite for joining the CCC. No Prohibitionists in sheep’s clothing allowed!
These powers and motives are, generally speaking: corporate competition, asset forfeiture, voter caging and suppression, white supremacist fascism, the new Jim Crow laws, drug war profiteering, and so on. It’s a “connect-the-dots” puzzle that reveals a grotesque monster. Everybody needs to be able to see and acknowledge that gruesome picture openly.
Members of the CCC will be under great pressure and scrutiny to abandon their previous Corporate and Law Enforcement masters.
I like it.
Now: what about the so-called “MSimons” of the Congress? Naturally, they will want to join the CCC in order to promote their KKK white supremacist values. We cannot allow the marijuana legalization movement to be a vehicle for white supremacist operatives.
Thanks for your support Mark, but even if I wasn’t being mostly facetious (which at this current point in my life, a definite yes), you would never want to be Drug Czar …unless Congress unmuzzled you and descheduled marijuana. No worries, we all make this mistake almost consecutively. No, not run for office on a joke like our primary goal was just to wash our tax debt; (that’s for the really special people). The mistake we all make is constantly conflate the power of the executive as if Congress is just there to applaud the President during a State of the Union address. “Ok, the President is done speaking; we’re done for the year. How’s that exercise room Jeff?”
Maybe after my kids are old enough to research on their own I could see starting out in the local school board with the humble goal of getting civics back in the core curriculum, at least in the state of Texas. In some towns we still have to keep high schoolers from crying when they find out the Universe is not really 7,000 years old and one day the sun will explode.
But I’m optimistic. Because just as marijuana prohibition has resulted in unforseen organized evil, marijuana legalization is resulting in unforseen organized good. There exists a fascinating historical context in the way that human beings govern ourselves between prohibition and legalization of cannabis. Thanks to this epic and tragic climax in American marijuana policy we are on the verge of a paradigm shift in the way we function, innovate and communicate as a society, the way we diversify our agriculture, administrate our health care and even the way we relax on a Friday night.
You know I ain’t gonna be muzzled! That’s why I want the job of Drug Czar. I’m gonna tell ’em straight!
But seriously, I agree we’re on a paradigm shift here… but we don’t know how bad it will get, and I call bullshit on Trump supporters who say it was NECESSARY to make things worse in order to make things better. Bullshit! We COULD HAVE just made things better, by staying the course we were on; and that would have been much easier without Trump’s white ass in the White House.
But, the Trump suckers fell for it. So yes, a paradigm shift. Now, it’s Trump against all progressive causes, and all progressive causes against Trump. That will reorient things!
Mark,
While I have no doubt you and I while we can still type or speak will not be personally muzzled, even if this website were to crash, but I don’t think you understand the civics of the CSAct, the rules of the ONDCP, or the whole military-industrial complex from security and defense bureocracies that have until recently, quietly assumed power from our three branches of government. (Now? The rogue intelligence, security and defense domination of our government is not so quiet…)
http://www.alternet.org/american-democracy-now-confronting-abyss?akid=15223.2366751.ZSSv2D&rd=1&src=newsletter1072525&t=2
This is precisely why we need a Cannabis caucus; to educate basic civics to American voters and engage them to either run for school boards or at least citizen lobby and participate in what is left of our fragile Democratic Republic as the shadow powers are exposed.
The drug czar, under the CSAct, is required to use our tax dollars to deny the medical efficacy of marijuana. To do otherwise is against the law… meaning you would be forced to resign at best… until Congress amends the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
Ive written before how one of the shadow powers picking Trump’s cabinet is the “Prince of Darkness,” Eric Prince, who ran the infamous Blackwater now called Academi. These private defense contractors are hired gangsters; dressing as local police they harvest the drugs and weapons wirldwide, hired and contracted by the defense department to seek “threats to national security.” Thats why they need a war on drugs and a war on terror… to maintain baseless perpetual justification for their billion dollar contracts. Then they shake hands with our Congressman and other private firms like Booze-Hamilton or Haliburton that get the billion dollar state department contracts to clean up after the wars they made. Same people. Different hats.
@Julian,
Dude, I was kidding! Of course I’m not qualified to be in any political office of any kind.
This blog is not about me, but since you brought up the issue: I’m an inherently apolitical person. In education, I always gravitated toward the technical trades, because they were less subject to political bullshit — in the technical realm, truth is empirically verifiable, and if you’re right, you’re right, and if you’re wrong, you’re wrong. I could never tolerate wallowing around in political mud. Political communication is meant to obscure meaning and fudge facts — I can’t interact like that, I’ll lose my mind. I need clarity and accuracy.
I never understood civics, because it never made any sense to me: exhibit one: marijuana.
So I’ll just let you work that side of things, Julian; and you’re very good at it. I’m only here to speak to the the hearts and minds. I’m here to advocate for truth and justice as best I can — to cut through as much of the bullshit as possible. I’m fighting the liars.
I’ve been censored, silenced, and ignored my whole life regarding my views on marijuana and on my marijuana use. Now I’m gonna have my say — I ain’t going out quietly!
But I can’t put on a suit and represent the cause, like you do. It just doesn’t work, when I do that. It’s counter-productive. I have to put an a pot-leaf t-shirt, fire up my bowl, and represent the cause in my own way. We all have different functions in life.
So, I don’t need or want to be Drug Czar, because in truth, I’m already a self-appointed Drug Czar!
And Mark the Drug Czar says: “let’s burn one!”
Thank you for your candid response Mark. Too bad words dont convey sarcasm very well 😉
Im so used to people missing that point that the Drug Czar from the ONDCP is muzzled and required by law to use our tax dollars to lie to us for the last 45+ years and deny the medical efficacy of marijuana that I took your sarcasm seriously.
It amazes me how that even in human conference with opposing views the chemical nature of this coevolving plant, cannabis, influences and nourishes our socioeconomic and religious equality. Through a synergy of cannabinoids there is born the recognition that our human spiritual identity, indeed our very lives, are forever bound to our coexistence with all life in our universe. Its not about ME, its about WE. Getting stoned reminds me of this basic principle. For a plant to have adapted this complex chemical recipe; the ability to awaken our spiritual conscience; the ability to reveal our stewardship, responsibility for and conscious identity with every living thing… just so it can use our legs and hands to reproduce itself.. and still strive to sustain our coexistence is inspiring for humanity and remarkable…
…then of course you have Drumph’s first solo press conference.
Even when we’re high and feeling at peace with the universe, we just hear the radio or watch TV and we’re like “AAaaww! We’re all fucking DOOMED! There is NO hope for humanity. This fucknut is going to KILL us all like some angry chimp who just escaped from a hair-retaining expirimental laboratory and he just found the nuclear codes.”
What was one of his delirious, Propecia-induced mental tantrums? “Drugs are killing this nation.” He’s got THAT right, but it aint marijuana! It’s whatever he’s putting on his weak, shameless orange skull that’s sending him Twittering out of Little Dick’s Anonymous like… Heir Drumphfurer at a press conference. (Sigh).
We need to run this guy OUT of office. Divest and Depose Drumph. And that’s not kidding or being facetious. If there’s any reason for the 25th amendment, by God, it’s for whatever in the fuck this mentally incapable douche bag thinks he’s doing in the oval office.
See, I’ll never make it to the school board! 😉
It’s time for our congressmen to vote for Congressional Cannabis Caucus to promote sensible cannabis policy reform and to ease the tension between federal and state cannabis laws. If you can’t vote for what we want you will be voted OUT. I received a letter from you yesterday on how good it is to have gas & oil in Texas & today another big leak in Texas that’s enough for me to vote you OUT. Start done what’s right for the USA!
Any of our guys from Louisiana in that caucus?
OR, CA, CO, AK. All states with laws permitting both medical and recreational cannabis. Skin in the game!
Doesn’t Nevada now have both medical and recreational? I wonder why the no-show from Nevada?
This is great news! I just love Jared Polis. I was very privileged to work a catering gig that kicked off his political career. But I have since moved from CO; I could not take the colder, humid climate that exacerbated my pain.
I have contacted my representative and hope for the best. Thanks NORML for pushing for marijuana freedom. This is a very important cause for health and humanity.
I like seeing both D’s and R’s behind the name.
Praise God. This is long,long overdo. I’ve used cannabis for several weeks, and during this period of time, I’ve been able to taper down by 30mg out of a 90mg a day pain medication for injuries received in a mva.
Cannabis is great for pain. I left my home state of TX and relocated to Colorado so I could use cannabis without legal potholes.
Not everyone in Colorado uses it, but I do and many others, and we aren’t losing our minds or killing people.
Farout!
Politicians in Pennsylvania lean prohibitionist but they’re also money grubbers. Money is the motivation for many of those who don’t consume cannabis yet are for legalization. I like the idea that if cannabis tax revenues on commercial cannabis (not personal and private cannabis clubs) exceeds a certain amount every adult resident gets a cut in the form of a check or tax credit or something.
https://www.theweedblog.com/marijuana-tax-rebate-expected-in-colorado/
The state needs revenues something bad. It has mammoth financial problems, and the Republican-controlled legislature needs to change from its prohibitionist stance as old as the bones from that woolly mammoth and come around to full legalization. It’s happened in Maine and Massachusetts.
It’s jobs. It’s money you didn’t have before, and you prohibitionists don’t have any alternatives to drum up that much money and create that many jobs. How much good is reducing federal corporate taxes going to do for Pennsylvania’s economy, and why not add cannabis jobs, too?
Come on, Donald. Legalize cannabis. It come up with Trudeau? Legalize it. It’ll help folks cope with 4 years of Be Careful What You Wish For and everybody else who didn’t vote for Trump cope with having to I Told You So suffer along with them.
What will the DEA do if pot is federally legalized? The DEA spends a lot of time and resources chasing down pot people. If pot is legalized the DEA won’t have any “importers” to bust.
Well, you asked the aulghtimate question, eh? Boils down to what anyone thinks “drug enforcement” means. What drugs are they supposed or authorized to enforce? Nicotine combustion monoxide $igarettes?
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Meanwhile another 30,000 deaths each year from opiates, many of them prescribed by doctors who received beautiful wall calendars and desk ornaments from Big pHARMa companies? Start the DEA working on that?
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Oops don’t get me started on that other cacanomic melanoma, I mean metonymy (?)– “Criminal justice” as in prosecuting (what’s pro- about that) someone who possessed dried handfist budflower.
Nobody from Washington state?? Patty Murray, Maria-What’s-Her-Name and even Dave Reichart are pathetic and are weak not only in the cannabis issues but being left wing DemocRATs (Reichart is a Republican though he’s an anti-Trumper too) that continue to drag their feet on everything they don’t happen to agree with. Patty and Maria are pathetic left wing Socialist political hacks that are the poster children for term limits, not only in this state but nationally too. Anyway, this is no surprise to those of us that support cannabis freedom unlike Patty Murray and Maria-What’s-Her-Name of Washington state.
Since you brought up Trump, I’d only like to add: fuck that numb-nut, racist piece of shit. That goes for his supporters, too.
Here is some really good coverage on the Cannabis Caucus from Leafly;
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/cannabis-now-congressional-caucus?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=B2C%20Newsletter%202.19.17%20-%20Eng&utm_term=Master%20-%20Engaged%2C%20Active%2C%20Passive%2C%20or%20New
Near-mid term good news.. in 4 years time, a collection of some of the nation’s most ardent prohibishionists will be flushed out of office like the giant bowl of diarrhea that they really are.
Just wanted to thank you NORML. Keep on fighting!
So I tried to share this on FB but seemed to lock up with a blank white page. Any idea why?
Because “FB” stands for “Fake Bull$#!+”?
Having worked for Dana back when he first took office, I have great regard for his position, which is probably not popular with the Republican establishment. Still and always a maverick, other representatives should come to their senses on this issue.
My only concern is how do test for driving under the influence, it’s not as easy as alcohol.
Good luck,
Alan