NYT Editorial--> Congress and Obama Are Too Timid on Marijuana Reform

[Electric Monk]

(cross-posting from GD)

SundayReview | Editorial
Congress and Obama Are Too Timid on Marijuana Reform

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
AUG. 8, 2015

..............................

Instead of standing by as change sweeps the country, federal lawmakers should be more actively debating and changing the nation’s absurd marijuana policies, policies that have ruined millions of lives and wasted billions of dollars. Their inaction is putting businesses and individuals in states that have legalized medical and recreational marijuana in dubious legal territory — doing something that is legal in their state but is considered a federal crime. Many growers, retailers and dispensaries also have to operate using only cash because many banks will not serve them, citing the federal prohibition. Recently, the Federal Reserve denied a master account to a credit union in Colorado seeking to provide financial services to marijuana businesses.

Lawmakers who hope their colleagues in Congress will act face an uphill struggle. For example, a bill introduced in the Senate by Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats of New Jersey and New York, respectively, and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, would allow states to legalize marijuana for medical use. It would also allow banks and credit unions to provide financial services to cannabis-based businesses in states that have legalized the drug. The bill has 16 sponsors, including two Republicans, but the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has not scheduled it for a hearing or a vote. An identical bill in the House with 17 sponsors, eight of them Republican, is also languishing in committee.

Congress has taken a few positive steps, like approving a provision that would prevent the Justice Department from using federal funds to keep states from carrying out their own medical marijuana laws. And some senior Republicans, including Mr. Grassley and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, have expressed support for the medical use of a compound known as cannabidiol, which is found in the cannabis plant but is not psychoactive. The Obama administration recently made it easier for scientists to study marijuana by removing a requirement that studies not funded by the federal government go through an additional review process, beyond what is required for researchers working with other drugs.

But both Congress and the White House should be doing more. Specifically, marijuana should be removed from the Controlled Substances Act, where it is classified as a Schedule I drug like heroin and LSD, and considered to have no medical value. Removing marijuana from the act would not make it legal everywhere, but it would make it easier for states to decide how they want to regulate it................

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/congress-and-obama-have-been-too-timid-on-marijuana-reform.html

[Buzz cook]

1. Not surprising that Obama is timid, but inimical is how I'd describe congress.

Obama's administration could reclassify marihuana without needing congressional approval. I doubt that will happen.

Recently, the Federal Reserve denied a master account to a credit union in Colorado seeking to provide financial services to marijuana businesses.

I think the states that legalize should start their own state banks. They can use the State Bank of North Dakota as a model.
http://banknd.nd.gov/

Handling money is a huge problem without access to banks. Having a state bank would solve that problem and it should give more legitimacy to commercial marihuana industry on the national stage,

[Loge23]

2. Good ol' American exceptionalism

The fact that we're still calling for this action - removing Schedule I primarily - for a substance that is common as tobacco, maybe even more so, utterly says all you need know about this country in 2015.
For all the ballyhoo about freedom and liberty in this country, we remain one of the most backward, repressed, and downright stupid populations of any so-called industrial or developed country.
A significant amount of this repression is self-induced - we'd rather hang on to outdated mores and attitudes about real freedom issues such as gender, race, choice of partner, choice of self-determination for health (particularly among women), then to accept even a shred of forward thinking. I suppose accepting progress is counter to many American's nonsensical beliefs about evolution.
Legalize it already. How much pointless repression of this substance and the people who choose (there's that word again) to use it will it take to finally realize to that you have imprisoned a substantial percentage of your population thereby rendering them unable to contribute to society (or the GDP) in a meaningful manner? How much of an underground economy, complete with violent crime, will you tolerate?
American exceptionalism: We can hook you on a dozen legal poison drugs, you can drink yourselves into a pickle jar, you can smoke yourselves into the grave; you can do all these things except smoke pot. Utter nonsense.

[Scuba]

3. "... absurd marijuana policies, policies that have ruined millions of lives and wasted billions ..."

[msongs]

4. all those gov't employees living off prohibition would have to find real jobs doing something useful

for society is pot was legalized or even rescheduled and decriminalized. and the for profit prisons would sue

[Southern Belle Blue]

5. Disgraceful

No, I don't smoke myself, but most of my friends occasionally do, and putting people in PRISON for a harmless plant is disgusting!

[jomin41]

6. Over the last 50 years,

MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of people have at least tried pot, many of them enjoying a life-long pleasurable and helpful relationship with it. If there is something "harmful and dangerous" about it, where is the evidence? WHERE ARE THE BODIES??? The war on Cannabis has been a pure fraud from the beginning. Google "Shafer Commission" and Nixon for the evidence.