Congress To Undermine Legal Marijuana In Washington DC

gangababa

Well-Known Member

MinnBobber

Well-Known Member
In the occupied territory of the District of Washington, with it's citizens who do not have representation in congress, the local democratic decision by the voters to legalize marijuana is to be null and void.

Dems May Have 'Struck A Deal' To Block Legal Marijuana In D.C.

Members of Congress are reportedly poised erect a significant barrier to Washington, D.C.’s blueprint for legalizing recreational pot, tucking a provision into the federal budget

That is terrible. The voters have spoken so the Dems use trickery to stop the new law....
 
MinnBobber,
  • Like
Reactions: CarolKing

olivianewtonjohn

Well-Known Member
It's not 'Dems use trickery to stop the new law', but Dems cave to Republican demands to stop new law.
I think at the end of the day, trying to figure out what is in their minds isnt the best thing to do. Whether they "cave" or use trickery the end result is the same, people getting screwed. If they are caving then whats the point to vote for them?
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
There is actually a huge difference. The Dems are being forced to make concessions in a trillion dollar budget game. The repubs are the ones blackmailing them into it. Odious as the concession is to me and you, it is important to get your priorities straight and understand which party opposes legalization and which one by and large approves, but lacks the power to implement it.

Today's Washington Post:
For 11 years, congressional Republicans also used a similar spending “rider” to prevent the District from implementing a voter-backed measure to allow sales of medical marijuana.
 
Last edited:

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Washington (CNN) -- The congressional spending bill agreed to on Tuesday night blocks Washington, DC lawmakers from using federal or local funds to implement November's popularly passed referendum to legalize marijuana in the district.

The legislation, according to a release from Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, "prohibits both federal and local funds from being used to implement a referendum legalizing recreational marijuana use in the district."

The language in the bill -- found on page 660 of the 1,603 page document -- is word-for-word what Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland proposed earlier in the year.

"None of the funds contained in this act may be used to enact or carry out any law, rule or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act or any tetrhydrocannabinols derivative for recreational purposes," reads the bill.

DC marijuana activists' worst fears were realized on Tuesday night with the agreed upon language. Earlier in the day, activists worried that Congress would thwart November's popular vote to legalize pot in the district.

"This House language sucks," Adam Eidinger, chair of the DC Cannabis Campaign, said after the language was released. "Only the Senate can step up and do something or presidential veto. Otherwise our election has just been overturned and we will take it to the streets."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/dc-marijuana-house-blocked/index.html
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
This sucks. So Republican Rep. Andy Harris' big idea is: keep on busting people for cannabis in the District and sending them to jail. Never mind that DC just voted to stop doing that.

One wonders what will happen when the repubs get control of the Senate too. Bills over-ruling Colorado and Washington?
 
Gunky,

Gunky

Well-Known Member
Here's how the House Republicans explain themselves:

Many have asked why Republican legislators who profess respect for self-government and democracy would step in to overrule D.C. residents who voted to legalize recreational marijuana use in the city. We would like to answer that question head-on. Simply put, we believe that Congress must defend the federal government and the U.S. Constitution by preventing marijuana legalization from moving forward in the District
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...bd7178-8184-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html

Stop voting for these guys! As an extra added bonus they gutted the section of Dodd-Frank that prohibited banks from using taxpayer insured units to gamble on the derivatives market. So we are now cued up to bailout the banks again.
 
Last edited:

Newcastle

Stoned!
Dodd-Frank is a pile of political crap that hurts the home buying american people! You heard me! There are parts that make sense. Very few parts. It does make me mad that this is the part that they overturn. Here is where I am coming from before you start typing. :peace: My wife has been in the mortgage business for the last 25 years. The Act makes her job very difficult. :worms:
 
Newcastle,
  • Like
Reactions: grokit

gangababa

Well-Known Member
Nothing like free flowing risk free, tax-payer subsidized capitol to juice the housing mortgage market.
The new bubble has already begun. Where I live, there has been massive over building of high-end university student housing. This is part of a nation wide turn in recent years from residential mortgage to commercial mortgage investments. Small wonder the free-hand magic of market capitol seeks protection from market risk as evidenced in the writing of Dodd-Frank legislation relief for and by small special interest capitalists.
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
This is a very wrong way to make policy: without debate, shoved into a huge bill secretly in the middle of the night. Passed because otherwise the government shuts down. This is how the repubs show us they are capable of governing - by yet another round of gaming the system and hostage taking.
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
There are many ways we can affect change. My favorites are casting my vote at the ballot box and casting my vote with my hard earned dollars.

In Florida we did not succeed in passing the medical BUT we did have 58% of the vote. The fact that the majority voted in favor, even though it failed to to reach the 60% needed, should have sent a message to those in office and those planning to run. That message should read - "The majority want legalization. You need the majority to hold office. Any questions?" All we need to do is remain consistent with that message one more time, vote accordingly, and the third time will be the charm when those opposing get shown the door....that is if the second time doesn't succeed first.

Casting another vote with your dollars also works when it comes to supporting a candidate or a cause. People who complain that we're losing jobs to other countries and then buy that cheap T.V. made in China or patronize the firm that moved its support to India should shut the fuck up just like those who want legalization but still financially support a candidate because they represent 'your party' but don't support legalization.

If you don't vote using the means at your disposal... don't complain.
 

Kief

Medicated
Big Pharma Buys Republican Congressman, Denies D.C. Weed Legalization

By Jack Daniel in Follow that story, Legalize It, Legislation
Monday, December 15, 2014 at 8:20 am

In a move that political pundits and cable news carnival barkers are calling a "bi-partisan victory" the U.S. Senate narrowly avoided another damaging government shutdown by passing a last-minute multilayered spending bill over the weekend to keep the gears turning in Washington D.C. until at least September of next year.

To see just how convoluted and counterproductive our political process has become, you need look no further than this spending bill, and buried deep within in it, one Republican's response to the weed legalization movement that he sees surging through state politics, including the nation's capital.

Rep. Harris will be glad to tell you that marijuana is harmful to kids. So when over 70% of the voters in Washington D.C. democratically passed their new cannabis legalization law in last month's mid-term elections, Harris leapt into action to grind things to a halt.

He argued that D.C. is not technically a state, and technically he is correct. In an emergency situation, Congress has 60 days to overturn any local legislation passed within the District of Columbia.

Considering he does not represent the voters of D.C., the Maryland Republican failed to derail their new weed law with nowhere near the support he would have needed from his colleagues.

So, like the parasite he is, Republican Congressman Andy Harris just burrowed it into the massive new $1.1 Trillion national spending bill, gambling (correctly) that his pet peeve wouldn't be noticed in time to stop the "cromnibus" bill.

In a prepared statement released after the bill made it through both the Congress and Senate, Harris said, "I am glad Congress is going to, in a bipartisan way, uphold federal law to protect our youth by preventing legalization in Washington, D.C." He continued, "Numerous studies show the negative impact regular recreational marijuana use has on the developing brain and on future economic opportunities for those who use this illegal drug."

Obviously, Initiative 71 (D.C.'s pot legalization law) is specifically written for adult use only. The voters knew that when they overwhelmingly approved it, and even a weasel like Republican Congressman Andy Harris knows it when he is preparing his only defense for his lone-wolf actions against weed.

Harris cannot tell America the real reason why he is so opposed to cannabis, but an intrepid reporter named Matthew Segal over at the Attn.com blog did a bit of digging and it didn't take long to turn up dirt on the dude.

A quick peek at Andy Harris's top financial donors shows a huge imbalance in where his campaign funding comes from. In the past year alone, Republican Congressman Andy Harris has raked in over $319,000 from health care lobbyists, many of them deeply invested in the business of pharmaceutical pain relief.

That is more than the next 9 top contributors combined.

Deep pocket lobbies like defense contractors, real estate moguls, Wall Street tycoons, oil and gas hucksters, all outspent by pill-pushing big pharma lobbyists who absolutely expect a return on their investment in the Republican Congressman from Maryland.

Spending their way to #3 on Rep . Andy Harris's list of medical donors is a company called Emergent BioSolutions, from his home state of Maryland.

Segal kept digging and as it turns out, Emergent is the maker of a chemotherapy related drug called Epsil®.

Epsil® is commonly given to cancer patients to help combat the effects of oral mucositis, a nasty side-effect from the chemo that can leave the patient with painful sores inside their mouth making it even more difficult to eat or drink.

Obviously, the CEO, board members, and shareholders of Emergent cannot have a proven cancer killer like cannabis let loose in the public...why, what would it do to their bottom line?

So, for pennies on the dollar, they bought a Republican Congressman. And by way of a corrupted, broken political system, they managed to curb the flow of legal weed, at least in the nation's capital, at least for now.

From: http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2014/12/big_pharma_buys_republican_congressman_denies_dc_w.php
 

Toastface_Killah

Well-Known Member
Correct me if I am wrong, but many are not certain the rider actually fully halts/bans Initiative 71, as the wording is very vague and does not indicate whether no federal funds can be used for implementing a recreational sales system, or if no funds can be used to put the Initiative before the senate to review it. If the former is the case, then it would still entirely be legal for someone to have pot and grow it too.

If anything, this just shows to me how much power the prohibitionists have lost if they need to rely on something as shoddy and underhand of a tactic as what the scumbag Harris is doing, since there are both democrats and even republicans in the senate (like Rand Paul, and the man who introduced the rider to the bill that prevents the feds from interfering with states medical marijuana actions) vocally opposed to wasting federal time and effort on Marijuana efforts of states and the kind of petty crap Harris whines and wastes tax dollars with - if the initiative still goes before Congress in January it doesn't appear like Harris has many supporters or backers that care about his prohibitionist bullshit as much as he does. It would need to be voted on and pass the Senates nullification, and if that succeeds it would then go to the White House/Obama where he could veto it or agree, and if he vetos the rider, it seems unlikely that Harris would be able to muster the support, time and funds from his partners in Congress needed to then go ahead and override the executive veto if he couldn't even get that support in the first place which required him to rely on such a cheap, underhand tactic as sneaking a rider into the spending bill so that issues that are currently more important to the Senate would shield his unpopular rider from being targeted. With amnesty and all this other polarization drama going on between the two parties, many do not care about whether or not DC voters legalized Marijuana, but for some reason horrible individuals like Harris still have these loopholes available to them to uphold tyrannic policies on citizens.

I know what politicians say and do are two entirely different things, but Chris Plante, a popular Libertarian radio host around the tri state/DC area was on the air a day or so after the November 4th elections talking about how the republican senate members he knows and has talked to did not seem interested at all in going against the will of DC voters, so the kind of pathetic stuff that Harris is pulling seems to be the death throes of a dying prohibitionist.
 
Last edited:

kimura

Well-Known Member
this is very depressing on a number of levels.

you have to blame both parties for using riders on the congressional budget to play the modern all-or-nothing version of political hardball that seems to be the norm these days. IMO our system of representative democracy has already failed. reasonable compromise is a thing of the past. however, it does seem that the republicans seem to field a great deal more prohibitionist candidates than the democrats. apparently the tea party guys are either totally ineffectual, or they just more bought-and-paid-for politicians, full of shit. federal cannabis prohibition goes against everything they supposedly stand for. but that's another thread.

I'm still not clear on how it is necessary to use any federal funds to stop enforcing certain prohibitionist laws. and if the congress cannot stop DC from ceasing to prosecute it's citizens, but they deny them any legal access to cannabis, how is that not OVERTLY protecting the black markets?
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
There is a silver lining. Also included in the same bill passed by Congress: A prohibition of the federal raids on medical marijuana clinics.
The passage is identical to a bill in the house co-sponsored by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). Way to go CA reps! Time to put a leash on these overzealous federal prosecutors. This could be huge for dispensaries in California. Federal attorneys have been harassing even places like Harborside Medical for years, though it is a model operation.
 
Last edited:

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
But no permission for banks to handle the money. Cash is a BIG problem, and needs to be dealt with at the Federal level immediately. One of these product/money armed delivery services is going to get robbed for a gazillion bucks or there is going to be a shootout in the street. THAT will not go over well, with anybody.
 
Last edited:

Gunky

Well-Known Member
At some point hopefully we can drop all this piecemeal stuff and take cannabis off the schedule. Suddenly the financing becomes just like anything else.
 

gangababa

Well-Known Member
Anti-Pot Congressmen Indirectly Admit Obama Has a Way to Let DC Legalize Marijuana

"Harris seems to claim in his op-ed that his main legal problem with marijuana legalization in D.C. is that it would conflict with the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a schedule I drug. This implies the use of the term “any schedule I substance” instead of “marijuana” wasn’t sloppy drafting, but purposeful.

The Controlled Substance Act explicitly gives the Obama administration the power to unilaterally move marijuana to a lower schedule. So if the Obama administration moves marijuana to schedule II, III, or IV this rider would no longer impede the D.C. Council from moving forward with legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana."
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Well, if that is correct than that is pretty cool, and quite manageable for this admin if they want to act. And this IS a President who responds to pressure, at least from his own...

Taking MJ off schedule 1 would resolve MOST of the problems facing MJ moving forward. Time for MOVEON to get it's act together.
 
cybrguy,

Gunky

Well-Known Member
And it would get Obama some needed public approval
You just know the moment Obama endorses the idea the repubs will explode over the latest Kenyan socialist, lawless desecration of the Constitution. Rises to the level of 'high crimes' they'll shout...

Anti-Pot Congressmen Indirectly Admit Obama Has a Way to Let DC Legalize Marijuana

"Harris seems to claim in his op-ed that his main legal problem with marijuana legalization in D.C. is that it would conflict with the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a schedule I drug. This implies the use of the term “any schedule I substance” instead of “marijuana” wasn’t sloppy drafting, but purposeful.

The Controlled Substance Act explicitly gives the Obama administration the power to unilaterally move marijuana to a lower schedule. So if the Obama administration moves marijuana to schedule II, III, or IV this rider would no longer impede the D.C. Council from moving forward with legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana."

It's stretching it a bit to suggest that they would approve DC legalization if Obama would just take it off the schedule. Their recent article in the Washington Post trots out all the old anti-cannabis propaganda. These guys stay bought.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top Bottom