Eighteen members of Congress have asked President Obama, in unison, to please reclassify marijuana from its current status as one of the most tightly regulated drugs from the Controlled Substance Act. Congress members say that marijuana’s current classification ‘makes no sense’ especially since it is being legalized as ‘medical marijuana’ state by state, and Class I drugs are those with ‘no medicinal value.’
Eighteen members are making the request that marijuana be taken out of this class of drugs that include heroin and LSD. A letter signed by the group ‘instructs the Attorney General Holder to delist or classify marijuana in a more appropriate way.’ The letter goes on to say that:
“Classifying marijuana as Schedule I at the federal level perpetuates an unjust and irrational system. . .Schedule I recognizes no medical use, disregarding both medical evidence and the laws of nearly half of the states that have legalized medical marijuana.”
The preeminent author of the letter, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) asks that the government act rationally in creating federal policy that mirrors what states are doing.
Along with Representative Blumenauer’s signature, the Congressional letter sent Wednesday was co-signed by:
- Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN)
- Sam Farr (D-CA)
- Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
- Mike Honda (D-CA)
- Jared Huffman (D-CA)
- Barbara Lee (D-CA)
- Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
- Alan Lowenthal (D-CA)
- James McGovern (D-MA)
- James Moran (D-VA)
- Beto O’Rourke (D-TX)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Mike Quigley (D-IL)
- Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
- Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
- Eric Swalwell (D-CA)
- and Peter Welch (D-VT)
During President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, he mentioned that he would be willing to ‘act on the behalf of the American people,’ and push for descheduling since Congress and the DEA (who grants the executive branch authority to decriminalize marijuana or any drug) have been lame ducks.
Steph Sherer, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country’s largest medical marijuana advocacy group has said, “The president has the authority to reclassify marijuana and could exercise that authority at any time.”
Roughly 750,000 people are arrested every year currently (in states that don’t have recreational or medical marijuana use laws) and most marijuana users never use any other ‘illicit’ drug.
Cannabis L. sativa can treat cancer, and hemp is a great bio-fuel that can reduce our addiction to oil. Hemp also provides extremely strong textiles that don’t need as much water or pesticides to grow, as say, Bt cotton. The prison industry, and developing police states surely want to be able to harass us for marijuana use, and the oil companies still have the feds in a stranglehold, but there is absolutely no reason for marijuana to be a schedule one substance.
While my husband has his evening drink of whiskey and water, I think I ought to be able to have a marijuana brownie or a marijuana cigarette! Alcohol is much more dangerous and more likely to lead to aggressive actions than pot which only relaxes you.
They will legalize marijuana, (cannabis) very soon thank goodness.
And HEMP which has numerous uses but right now growing our precious food sources of corn and sugar cane for fuel is ridiculous when they can grow Hemp, a (weed) so easily to be used for fuel and to replace plastic bags with hemp bags free to consumers at grocery stores!
While I have always liked the idea of government doing what’s good and proper; the precedent has been set that they are incapable of such.
We must know too that the Gov’t contracts with a Louisiana college (can’t recall which one right now) to grow marijuana for distribution US patients. Other groups that study marijuana’s health benefits have been trying to loosen the grip of this contracted grower, to be able to grow their own plants for their own research. So far they have been unsuccessful (MAPS.org is one such group, I think). Also, please recall that cannabis was legal until the late 1930s. The social history of it is well-documented in “Smoke Signals” by Martin A. Lee.
The national law against marijuana is a wrong law. I don’t have to repeat the long list of beneficial effects and benign, if any, side effects. It all got started back with Wm Hearst competing with hemp farmers and his own forest . . . for paper. So Hearst put out killer stories to terrorize the public about the good green, said it would make people violent, barbaric, etc. Since then, the gossip has taken hold, and that poor little simple green plant in all its majesty is demonized as if it were heroin or morphine. What a joke! The benefits of marijuana are many that have been known and used for thousands of years. I heard a former cop on NPR with Terri Gross . . . he had worked on the drug enforcement team. He soon quit because “Every time I would arrest someone for marijuana, they were so friendly!” He now works as a marijuana advocate.
If marijuana was reclassified would those who went to prison for a class 1 drug get sentence reduction/time served? Would the private corporate prison system go broke? If we started making cloth would the cotton industry take a big hit? If we started to make hemp paper would the wood pulp industry go belly up? If we started to make hemp rope again would the plastic fiber industry shrink? And if it was to be reclassified would that action in itself legitimize medical marijuana and piss the heck off the pharmaceutical industry! Nope I can’t see it happening. Dang it.