Update: Congress passed a one-week continuing resolution to maintain the current federal spending levels with the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment included, meaning state medical marijuana patients and businesses will remain protected from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice until May 5.
Today is the final day that Congress has to pass a short-term budget to fund the federal government and it’s up to us to make sure that lawmakers reauthorize the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment. This critical amendment stops Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice from targeting state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients, growers, caregivers, and providers.
Click here now to tell your member of Congress to Stop Sessions from going after marijuana.
94% of US voters support legal access to medical marijuana. Congress needs to understand that this is a mandate that is non-negotiable.
We cannot give one inch of our hard fought victories when we still have so far to go.
Take action today to protect our gains and to keep in place programs that millions of patients have come to rely upon. Tomorrow we continue our fight to legalize marijuana nationwide.
Click HERE now to make your voice heard!
Background:
Since 2014, members of Congress have passed annual spending bills that have included a provision protecting those who engage in the state-sanctioned use and dispensing of medical cannabis from undue prosecution by the Department of Justice. The amendment, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, maintains that federal funds can not be used to prevent states from “implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
In December, Congress re-authorized the amendment as part of a short term spending package, House Resolution 2028. This bill extends federal funding through April 28, 2017, at which time the measure — and the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment — will expire.
According to recently released nationwide survey data, the majority of Americans are on our side. A whopping 93 percent support the medical use of marijuana. Perhaps most importantly, 71 percent of voters — including strong majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — say that they “oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana.”
I see no reason that marijuana should be illegal.
I am 57 years old and have smoked marijuana since I was 14.
I certainly do not endorse minors consuming any form of any drug. I could very well be an exception as opposed to the rule, but I have no indication of having reduced mental capacity nor do I have any desire for any other drugs. Plus my alcohol consumption is reduced while under the influence of marijuana. Alcohol does not go well with Nutter Butter Sandwich Cookies and ice cream.
Any time I have had concerns that I may be subject to a drug test I simply quit until the concern is over. This indicates to me that the addictive nature of marijuana is minimal at best.
I know many people who benefit from marijuana as a medicine, reducing the need for pain medication or depression meds.
Americans need to take responsibility for their votes. You can’t vote in Trump and expect an incense and peppermints marijuana policy.That’s just not happening. Because America is stupid enough to vote for Trump and extend the drug war, because are addicted to drug wars, then they get what they deserve. Canadians know where their bread is buttered and many believe in cannabis reform, they vote consistently and get a cannabis advocate like Trudeau. Stupid America, you can wait until 2025 for any cannabis reform. Until then, enjoy the extended drug war that you voted for.
Yeah, people should have voted Libertarian. They had their chance to keep all their liberties (and not lose them with a crazy Clinton in office) and have marijuana too.
Bullshit on that. There was only one sane alternative to a vote for Trump, and that was a vote for Hillary. Way to fuck things up, Libertarian Trump-enablers!
duma$$ clinton supporters. most likely idiot baby boomers. blame yourselves.
Stop drooling on yourself and make a coherent statement. Or Fuck Off.
Crooked Hillary Felony Clinton was a Prohibitionist. She said it would never be legal because there is to much money in it by keeping it illegal. You have a better shot at ending prohibition with Trump.
That’s a fucking lie.
Look, no one on this blog is stereotyping all Canadians for lying about Ham being Bacon, or apologizing too much, so let’s not say “America” is at fault for “trump” shall we?
I am hoping for Trump’s early exit from office, along with Pence, Sessions and everybody else who was supposed to have read Flynn’s vetting report and either didn’t read the report or hired him anyway, and shit. Trump, you have to actually read a ton of shit and process it and consider it. So you believed Ryan about health care and he gave you a shit bill, and the keep giving you shit legislation, yet you campaigned on affordable health care for all Americans, you might as well jus ask the Democrats to come up with legislation that will patch up the problems with it AND expand it to more Americans, not fewer. Americans want cannabis legalized, too.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-team-did-vet-flynn-hired-him-anyway-nbc-news-932519491657
Goodbye, Donald. Farewell. Adieu. You can just stay in your resort in Florida. Start packing up your things in the White House for the moving van.
Before you go though, Donald, please legalize marijuana. Command Sessions to compose a memorandum that keeps the feds the fuck out of ALL things the cannabis community wants the feds to stop fucking with. Same thing for Mnuchin, issues a memo that gets the IRS the fuck off the backs of the cannabis community. That’s the subtext to the Congress and the public that they should pass Rohrabacher-Fahr and other legislation designed by the lobbyists for the cannabis community.
Why is it that the vast majority stopped throwing temper tantrums and falling to the ground kicking and crying because they didn’t get their way when they were about 6-8 years old, but you grown people can’t seem to handle a loss of any kind? Grow up! If we can deal with a worthless terrorist supporter like Nobama for 8 years you can deal with Trump the same way!
Trump is a terrorist, you are right about that. Stop crying because your guy Trump is a racist asshole and we will never respect him or accept him. So fuck off.
You wanted Trump you got him and all that comes with him; now live with it.
Speak for yourself. Nobody wants Trump around here, just the Russian propagandists.
It’s been hours since the temporary Congressional legislation passed, did lawmakers reauthorize the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment? Norml should post the result immediately, despite this being a Friday.
I did not vote for Trump. The US had to pick between a douche and a shit sandwich and the shittier of the two won.
Most of the US (that are paying attention) are horrified and fear he and his collection of creeps will incite war.
Trust me, we’re TRYING to live with it.
And trying to not let him fuck up health insurance AND send women’s rights back a century.
Isn’t the real issue that Cannabis is illegally being kept illegal because it was illegally made illegal ?
Bad billionaires like the Kochs, Mercers, Paulsens and Trumps look to make their illegal activity legal by creating bad laws. The real “issue” is why so few of us have contacted, called or met with our representatives to reform marijuana law. It’s just a click on the green Act tab. Takes less time than it takes to post this post. What choice do we have? Do we think a few billionaires with apparent desires to legalize marijuana are going to do it all for us?
Correction: Trump owes more to the Russian mob than that bad boy makes, and therefore is not a billionaire.
It’s not the Trumpster necessarily because he said he’d leave States alone – it’s some of the Republicans and some Dems too that are bought off by Big Pharma, Alcohol and Tobacco who don’t want to affect their pocketbooks – Like someone who really knows told me (because he’s a lobbyist) when The Cannabis people start throwing money around then they will get more attention. Unfortunately $$$ is what makes the world go round folks.
Oh for Fuck’s Sake, who do you think you’re fooling here? Denial is a very ugly, ugly, toupee of finasteride-ridden delusions of grandeur waiting to be deposed.
I think there is good reason to bring up why Trump might want to keep things illegal. Does nobody know that Trump & his buddies are heavily invested in the private prison industry?
We are going to lose so many rights and liberties over the next 2 terms. I expect triple the number of people that we have today to be filling to walls of correctional facilities, freshly built on the tax payer’s dime and benefiting the top tiers of our monetary society.
When its your spouse child or yourself that needs weed to aid in living with terrible chonic pain then you can tell me something my husband died he begged for some pot he died in terrible pain its personal now ask yourself what if you were me he’s beyound help now he was only 58 I’m begging make pot legal I couldn’t help my man such a nice guy forty years together some pot would have helped his pain how can this be right it isnt
What mean spirited people you are. Obama didn’t fix it either
Fuck that racist asshole Trump and all his supporters. It’s the racism that is “mean-spirited.” Are you crazy? Or just racist?
Soooooooo, what’s the word? Did it get extended? What gives?
I just caught the update above after posting “we still don’t know” too.
Yes, the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was extended, if only for one week. I know, only one week to fund the government? Our creditors in China must be thinking “fuckit, just let North Korea throw their nukes.” The GOP reaaaally needs to get their $#!+ together.
I disagree. By August of this year, Attorney Jeff Sessions and his fully-funded DEA Marijuana TASK FORCE will FULLY and TOTALLY begin the process of FIRST, abusing and, over a short period of time, DESTROYING all the progress legalization has made. I am pulling back in my efforts, and my stance is now THIS:
Do nothing. Allow Sessions to raid and destroy shops, businesses, whatever the hell he wants to do. I feel it should be obvious at this point he is only making us stronger. But that is not really the main issue.
What are we supposed to do? I say, let Sessions and his DEA goons come in and wreck everything, even declare us terror groups or threats to national security, in typical Nazi-Facist perspective. Whatever. I support a more conservative, strategic approach to legalization, while I am USUALLY a progressive activist who favors action NOW. I say we let Sessions do his little war, like ISIS on us. Go ahead. Let him pass permanent laws that restrict cannabis, let him raid and destroy our shops, businesses, let him outlaw our activist groups, say marijuana is such a bad, bad thing.
One approach, friends, and comrades, we have not considered. Why not let Sessions and his idiots at the DEA get away with it all….and see how the country reacts?
Please understand, this is ONLY a suggestion, and I FULLY support total and full resistance to Sessions and his goons, but we need a RADICAL new approach to counter him. I think AG Sessions set a review deadline for July….er…somewhere in the 20’s…..can we get those House bills passed? Can we get other NE states onboard and WHY is it taking so long? Even Rhode Island, COME ON! More, later.
But, friends……..please
Sessions is coming….those horrible, horrible pictures of DEA agents carrying those plants out of those stores is COMING…..tear gas, pepper spray on the protesters……crackdown is coming…we must stand strong….
the crackdown is coming!
Don’t forget to dig another exit in your rabbit hole. Don’t keep all your bud in one place. And make sure your delivery service names their buds the same as actual products like “Lemon diesel” could also be a delivery of yellow-dyed bio-diesel. It’s time to get creative. The DOJ can’t shut us all down even if they had the funds from an expired Rorhabacher-Farr amendment. Why am I so confident in the resistance? Because After 3 years I just learned how to spell “Rohrabacher!” Nothing can stop us now!
Julian, I totally agree with you, he CANNOT stop us completely, even if he shuts down every store. The movement will survive, and he cannot arrest us all. You made the point I was too tired to type out. He CANNOT stop legalization completely, we will march on to national, and, largely international being soon enough. I appreciate your insightful and knowledgable posts, Julian, they are quite awesome. I do have faith in our movement, I am just very, very angry that we are even having to revisit this anti-marijuana insanity when we would have had to. This should not be about politics or morality, this should be about the FUTURE,and common SENSE. Thank you, Julian, you filled in the gaps that I left. 🙂 Matt
Maybe the old man from Alabama is just too confused to know what to do. He know the country will HATE a crackdown, and seeing it on their television screens, computers and tablets, whatever. Sessions HAS to know people are going to DESPISE him if he does this. My bigger fear, is that he doesen’t care. He will crackdown anyway. Our new AG HATES marijuana, and he HATES activists like us, I could be wrong, I don’t like to judge, but think about it.
Sessions met with Governor Hickenlooper, and the Governor doesn’t think a crackdown is imminent. Can I have that in writing? Sessions needs to issue memos, and Mnuchin too needs to issue memos that they will stay out of the way of the cannabis community.
http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/04/27/marijuana-meeting-ag-jeff-sessions-colorado-governor-john-hickenlooper/78541/
Southern border security is going to eat up finite federal dollars while protecting the U.S. cannabis market from cheap-and often-low quality Mexican cartel weed. Sessions, you can’t arrest your way out of legalizing. Trump, you don’t have the jobs or the tax base to arrest everyone in the cannabis sector, medical or adult recreational, and put them out of work and pay for their prison housing, putting parents in prison, breaking up families. Great for prison industries, but where is the money coming from to sustain it after you devastate the economies where it’s legal?
Too bad high profile members of the cannabis industry can’t form a delegation to meet with President Trump as polite company to tell him what the cannabusiness community wants him to do. I’d like to see Trump meet with members of the cannabusiness community who are not only Big Weed but also, you know, little gals and guys. I guess no one is signaling he’d be receptive to meeting with legalizers.
Interesting how Hickenlooper alludes to the Trump administration having “bigger problems” without going into much detail. But do we really need to at this point? I was already posting links that Trump was spinning too far out of control to crackdown on state marijuana legalization before the office was stolen for him through voter caging. Now he’s an actual mad-man bluffing us with insanity only to back down from every hollow threat he’s ever made. He’s praising every dictator including Duterte’s mass killings in the name of a drug war making Kim Jung Il look rational. The GOP is in “control” of our entire government and they cant even repeal Obamacare, cant agree on a tax code and basically cant function. Billionaire prohibitionists (Adelson, Mercer, Kochs) put Stupid in power just to manipulate the government but with no stupid agenda on how to keep the GOP there much less govern the nation or teach basic civics to the $hitstorm they put into power. Democrats are already having to wipe @$$, but whats more Progressives are finally organizing against voter supression. And if were honest about it, that was the whole agenda behind prohibition in the first place; if prohibitionists are going to take away our rights they damn sure want to take our votes away. Thats never been more obvious now that opposing marijuana legalization has finally become the third rail in politics.
I take “having bigger fish to fry” as a racist, dog-whistle, wink at white stoners, which really means Trump is rounding up non-whites of all kinds. We need to vehemently reject this racist and misleading pacifier.
I watched the Chuck Todd ininterview with Hickenlooper, and the actual quote from Hickenlooper is Jeff Sessions said “they’ve got a lot of priorities,” and “hands full with things” which Hickenlooper took to mean “heroin, meth, and cocaine.” Plenty of drug war to go around for Hickenlooper and Sessions, and a pacifier for white stoners who have drug-war class privilege.
Immigration? That was the next line of questioning. Hickenlooper, who says “I oppose legalization” at the beginning of the interview but “I’m kinda locked in” to uphold the Constitution by oath, speaks of both immigration laws and marijuana laws as being widely flouted, and boldly pledges to crackdown on “illegal” activity against marijuana grows, in his own state! He denies being a sanctuary city.
There’s your racist dog- whistle.
As with many issues in life, Mark, especially those concerning marijuana policy reform, the answers are not “either or” but “both and more.”
Does Trump have racist ties to private prisons for profit?
Yes.
Does Trump come from a 1950’s gangster movie where criminal ties to the Gambino crime family proudly require a predisposition for disproportionate incarceration? (Meaning make someone else pay for your crimes)?
Of course.
But what I was really alluding to in “fish to fry” is that Drumph’s loyalties stopped at his nominations to self-govern while he plunders all he can of our wealth for the big players like John Paulsen, Sheldon Adelson and the rest of the evil billionaire Batman villains:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/greg-palast-americas-greedy-billionaires-have-staged-political-coup?akid=15517.2366751.DcvuHr&rd=1&src=newsletter1076428&t=4
Wanna know where Trump’s agenda is? Ask these guys. Theyre after more than profits from prohibition through voter caging; Theyre after ALL of our money and ALL of our freedoms.
When we include Drumph’s director of the FDA gifting all authority to the likes of Insys Therapuetics and opiateville Pharma, thats targeting WHITE neighborhoods in Kentucky, West Virginia and Arizona for opiate suicide.
As one father said in the mmj hearing here in Texas the other night, “the cat’s out of the bag.” Opiate addiction is tied to marijuana prohibition. And now even white people ON opiates know it.
From the new budget proposal: On page 35, under Title V, General Provisions,
(rescissions) Section 537 prohibits the Department o f Justice from preventing certain States from implementing State laws regarding the use ofmedical marijuana. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment will expire if this budget proposal is approved.
Page 35 from the new budget proposal extension through Sept 2017:
TITLE V GENERAL PROVISIONS
(INCLUDING RESCISSIONS)
Section 537 prohibits the Department o f Justice from preventing certain States from implementing State laws regarding the use ofmedical marijuana.
Rohrabacher-Farr amendment will expire and not renewed.
It saddens me that when we should be united in our mutual efforts, we polarize and turn our concerns into political clap trap. It’s not up to Trump or any other government employee to cater to our needs. We the people/governed need to make it clear to our legislature that marijuana has come of age and it’s time to let us deal with any repercussions. Each time you take a prescription, you take the risk of suffering from any adverse effects. Marijuana is no different in that regard but as we all know, marijuana is as safe as drinking water. All prohibitive marijuana laws are based on falsehoods created to drive a narrative that used racism to point out how bad it was for you. No research, no studies, just hyperbole about how you could become a degenerate if you so much as smoked it once. The laws are based on falsehoods and we should not be governed by that kind of fascism.