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Big change proposed for federal marijuana law.....

little maggie

Well-Known Member
Another from Forbes- not about mj but: But psychedelics—a class of long-vilified substances—are not only much safer than we believed (i.e. they don’t appear to make you crazy) and also shows significant long term mental health benefits across multiple categories: anti-depressant, anti-anxiety and performance-enhancement (for creativity). What’s more, to receive these benefits, you only need to take these substances a few times (not every day like other mental health medications).
 

tiukauleh

Well-Known Member
This was in my Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinal (as I sat down to vape & breakfast). I laughed. So marijuana is schedule 1 (no medical benefit) while newspapers blandly debate how medical marijuana gets shipped interstate? And check out the juxtaposition of the announcement for the MS seminar (turns out the main guy, Dr. Khatri, used to be my neurologist). Does anyone get the feeling that we're living inside one MASSIVE contradiction? Like, everyone knows it's ok, but nobody is supposed to know it's ok? As for why the piece on the efficacy of using chickens to reduce your backyard tick count, I'll leave that up to someone else to interpret.
reminds me of the time i had a neighbour who raised chickens, and he told me they ate ticks & kept his dog tick free.
 
tiukauleh,

sz1a

Member
Retailer
With or without the feds behind MJ there is little they can do to stop the states from legalizing recreational use at an ever increasing rate. So, feds approving or disapproving weak strains does little for the fact that states completely legalized pot even when it was totally banned on federal level. The monetary incentive for states to legalize MJ is too big for them to pass on and the states who have already legalized are reporting mostly positive outcomes. I'm sure we will have another 10 states where it is legal in the next few years to come with Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska leading the way with D.C. sort of. Maybe Hawaii and Florida are next up, lots of tokers there too. Then it covers both sides of the continent as well as the pacific.
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Do we, as a group, lose credibility if we fight such a bill because of the roadblocks it may put up to full out legalization?

The last thing I would want to give any of the naysayers is the opportunity to say...'See, we are trying to make MJ available to the people who righteously need it and now the majority are showing us that medical legalization is merely a ploy to get to legal recreational use.
 
His_Highness,
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sz1a

Member
Retailer
Do we, as a group, lose credibility if we fight such a bill because of the roadblocks it may put up to full out legalization?

The last thing I would want to give any of the naysayers is the opportunity to say...'See, we are trying to make MJ available to the people who righteously need it and now the majority are showing us that medical legalization is merely a ploy to get to legal recreational use.

I think legal recreational use is always the desired outcome. The point is that a large amount of people smoke weed recreationally while simultaneously contributing to society as tax payers, workers, artists etc. Jailing them (us) and treating us as criminals has not lowered the amount of recreational weed use so the only logical step is full on recreational legalization. Personally I don't think the argument anymore has to do with medical since that should be a different area entirely. Portugal is a cool example where all drug use is decriminalized and use has dropped significantly. Saw a study about this and rats in a cage with coke-infused water... But that's for another time :)
 
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CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
Compassionate Access Research Expansion, Respect States-CARERS
Barbara Boxer of California is backing the change to cannabis regulations Federally. She is a supporter of California's Medical Marijuana Laws. But it has a long way to go yet.

CARERS still needs a lot of help to get anywhere. To even be heard in committee, a more die-hard Republican would have to schedule it. And a well-intentioned bill dies before it can be born because of an obstructionist committee chairman. And true to form, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is unlikely to schedule it, a spokeswoman told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Remember Senator Chuck Grassley's name. Vote him out of office. Dianne Feinstein hasn't backed it either yet. I hope she changes her mind.
CK
 
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Kief

Medicated
House Version of Federal Medical Marijuana Bill Introduced

By Drug Policy Alliance
March 24, 2015 8:24 PM

Support for Letting States Set Their Own Marijuana Policies without Federal Interference Growing Rapidly in Congress

WASHINGTON, DC—Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) have introduced the House companion to a groundbreaking bill legalizing marijuana for medical use that was introduced in the Senate two weeks ago by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) co-sponsored the bill soon after.

“Reforming our nation’s failed drug policies is one of the few issues Democrats and Republicans can agree on,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “The tide is quickly turning against marijuana prohibition and the war on drugs in general. ”

The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States – CARERS – Act is the most comprehensive medical marijuana bill ever introduced in Congress. The CARERS Act will do the following:

  • Allow states to legalize marijuana for medical use without federal interference
  • Permit interstate commerce in cannabidiol (CBD) oils
  • Reschedule marijuana to schedule II
  • Allow banks to provide checking accounts and other financial services to marijuana dispensaries
  • Allow Veterans Administration physicians to recommend medical marijuana to veterans
  • Eliminate barriers to medical marijuana research.
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws that legalize and regulate marijuana for medicinal purposes. Twelve states have laws on the books or are about to be signed into law by their governors regulating cannabidiol (CBD) oils, a non-psychotropic component of medical marijuana which some parents are utilizing to treat their children’s seizures. Four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for non-medical use.

Last year, the Republican-controlled House passed an amendment to a spending bill prohibiting the Department of Justice from undermining state medical marijuana laws. This amendment was backed by Sens. Rand Paul and Cory Booker and made it into the final “cromnibus” bill that was signed by President Obama in December. Unfortunately the amendment expires at the end of this fiscal year, making legislation like the CARERS Act essential.

The House also passed three other amendments last year letting states set their own marijuana policies, but those amendments never made it into law. Polls show roughly three-quarters of Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use. A little more than half of voters support legalizing marijuana for non-medical use, in the same way alcohol is legal, taxed, and regulated.

Source: http://www.thedailychronic.net/2015/41835/house-version-federal-medical-marijuana-bill-introduced/
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
This should probably be in the FUCK YOU thread!!!

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/senates-old-guard-just-says-no-to-pot-overhaul-116336.html
Senate's old guard just says 'no' to pot overhaul
A generational split in the Senate spells trouble for the movement to change marijuana laws.

By Burgess Everett

3/24/15 5:37 AM EDT

465793530_1160x629.jpg

Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Rand Paul believe the winning path forward is rooted in the science of the drug. | Getty

When it comes to overhauling pot policy in the U.S. Senate, the young pols are running headfirst into the old guard.

A high-wattage trio of junior senators — Democrats Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand plus GOP presidential contender Rand Paul — is mounting an ambitious effort to have the federal government bless the use of marijuana in the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) that have voted to legalize the drug for medical purposes. Their legislation would also allow banks to handle transactions involving marijuana and force the federal government to recognize that marijuana has a medical use, rather than lumping it in with heroin and LSD.


The bill comes at a moment of swift change in public opinion about marijuana laws and movement in many states to legalize the drug for medicinal and, in some cases, recreational purposes.

But the Senate Judiciary Committee is emerging as a serious buzz kill for the pro-reform set.

The powerful panel is stacked with some of the most senior lawmakers in Congress, many of whom came to power during a tough-on-crime era of the drug wars that saw stiffer penalties for drug possession. Several of them openly gripe about what they call the Obama administration’s lack of enforcement of existing federal drug laws — and they certainly aren’t willing to send a signal that Congress is OK with the movement to liberalize pot.

“I’m probably against it,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the most senior Senate Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said of the cannabis bill.

“I don’t think we need to go there,” added Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican and former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court justice. “This is a more dangerous topic than what a lot of the advocates acknowledge.”

Republicans most recently made news on the marijuana front in December, adding language to a spending bill that effectively blocked sales of pot in the District of Columbia — where, a month earlier, voters overwhelmingly approved a legalization measure.

But all was not lost for reform advocates. Tucked into that same bill was a provision barring the Justice Department from spending money on raiding medical marijuana facilities. It was a signal that Booker, Gillibrand and Paul might break through — eventually.

“The Senate is going to move. This to me is one of those catalytic points in our country,” Booker said in an interview. “We’re going to win. It’s not a question of if, the question is when.”

But barring a floor vote on an amendment to another bill, it may take significant turnover atop the Senate for the advance that Booker and his drug-reform cohorts are seeking. Not a single Republican on the Judiciary Committee has co-sponsored the medical marijuana legislation, and senior members of the committee are not eager to take it up.

Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in an interview he hadn’t read the bill and that it would be months before it comes for a hearing — if ever.

Still, there is evidence in the committee’s membership of a generational change in the Republican Party that could portend where drug laws are headed.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) panned GOP leaders’ opposition to the District’s new drug laws and has voted repeatedly in the past for the Hinchey Amendment, which prohibits the Justice Department from going after states’ medical marijuana programs. And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who launched his presidential campaign on Monday, has expressed support for letting states manage their own drug laws — though he admitted in a brief interview he hadn’t read Paul’s bill. Cruz and Flake were elected to the Senate in 2012 and serve on the Judiciary Committee.

Still, the GOP is rooted in parts of the country where decriminalization and medical marijuana have lagged behind other regions. Grassley’s home state of Iowa hasn’t legalized medical marijuana, nor has Cornyn’s Texas — or much of the South, for that matter.

“I’m really uneasy about any kind of signal that might increase” drug use, said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a former state attorney general who during an interview boasted of his longtime efforts to discourage marijuana use. “I’m not sure it … has any medical justification whatsoever.”

That’s where Gillibrand hopes to step in. The New York Democrat last year persuaded dozens of fellow senators from both parties to back her bill to reform how sexual assaults in the military are investigated — and she’s looking to pull off a similar feat on the marijuana measure.


Though their bill reclassifies the drug and rewrites banking laws to allow medical pot transactions, Gillibrand, Booker and Paul believe the winning path forward is rooted in the science of the drug. There’s little advantage to presenting the bill to reluctant lawmakers as a federal liberalization of drug policy. But there is potential upside in describing to undecided or resistant senators how injured or sick people have benefited from medical marijuana in the two dozen jurisdictions that permit its use.

“Sick people, frankly, are willing to go visit with folks to let them know: ‘This is the only thing that’s been helping me with PTSD, it’s the only thing that’s helping my child with tragic seizures that undermine their brain development, it’s the only thing helping me with chronic nausea,’” Booker said. “We’re going to get it done because of the incontrovertible science.”

The emotional connection between those who benefit from medical marijuana and senators on the fence could be powerful. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who had long opposed medical use of pot, was converted after learning that a child with kidney failure could recover his or her appetite after using marijuana.

“It’s really an issue of understanding the medical uses and the diseases that it actually treats,” Gillibrand said. “If you meet any of these patients, particularly the young kids who are suffering from 100 seizures a day, you want to give them whatever medicine their doctor prescribes.”

It’s not clear where the party leaders will end up in the debate. Aides would not say whether Reid will support the Senate’s first medical marijuana bill. An aide to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment.

Still, Booker said a number of other senators have been open-minded or even eager to engage.

Paul is also expected to press the issue on the presidential campaign trail and in the Capitol. At a news conference on Capitol Hill earlier this month, the likely White House hopeful introduced his political director’s father-in-law, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses medical marijuana to treat his condition.

“If one of these patients up here takes marijuana in the states where it’s illegal, they will go to jail,” Paul said, standing alongside Gillibrand and Booker and several medical marijuana users this month. “Ask people that question: ‘Are you in favor of that?’ I think you’ll find that, overwhelmingly, people are not in favor of that.”

But members like Sessions, Hatch and Cornyn show no signs of budging, presenting a daunting hurdle in the Senate given the difficulty of passing any bill with a whiff of controversy.

“They’re far behind the public on this issue,” said Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project, conceding the makeup of the Senate will have to change before much headway is made. “I do think some people need to leave the voting rolls, so to speak.”
 

CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
Some of our people in power need to retire, they're old and tired. Some of the views of our Senators and folks in the legislature are outdated and they need to move on and let others come into the fold. What we are seeing is a difference in what the people in our country want and what these old fossil are trying to decide for us. Many young people don't vote. The senior citizens vote that's why these old farts keep getting back into office. It pisses me off.:cuss:
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
The only thing you can do about that is to make it your mission to convince everyone you know, and everyone who your kids know, to vote. If folks don't vote their needs and desires are ignored. It doesn't have to be that way...
 

grokit

well-worn member
Old folks eventually die, but the rest homes' business plans demand that they live :o
:myday:Jk, we all get there sooner or later!

Younger folks will have a big problem with us as well, when we arrive in our golden voting years :tup:

I just hope they don't kill us for food :mental:

 
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I dig it keep the. 3 upfront if questions ask smoke the killa in the back.

6 out of 10 young republicans favor legalization, it's just a waiting game now (please merge sorry)
 
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drcumberbeetle,

howie105

Well-Known Member
....but not big enough. The bill states that the only strains that would be federally legal are those strains that have less than .3% THC. Not less than 3% but less than .3%, Great news for those that use MJ for seizure control, but for the rest of us, not good at all.
----http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/28/health/federal-marijuana-bill/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

The passage of this bill could very well slow down, in a very big way, the overall legalization of marijuana in general. On the other hand, the passage of this bill could be a very big thing to address those who suffer from illnesses where a high CBD content would offer relief.

Do you want it to pass, or not?

If it were as simple as helping folks with a medical need I would be glad to wait another five years for legalization because nothing would change for me. But as it has been pointed out there is all the political baggage that gets attached to the process and that needs to be addressed too. Bottom line as I see it, its all about the money, as long as legalization looks like a good money stream the powers that be will be coming around.
 
howie105,

Adobewan

Well-Known Member
Just signed, then blasted the link to all my 420 friendly contacts.
It's not going to be just we FC brethren, we need to reach into our networks and hopefully inspire them to reach into their's as well.
 
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max

Out to lunch
Hey!! I'm a senior citizen and I can assure you I always vote pro-cannabis! :-)
But I hear what you're saying, even though most of my fellow old fart friends are also pro-cannabis (with a couple exceptions :disgust:)
Yeah let's don't stereotype the seniors here in 2015. Marijuana was all over the place back in the early 70's and that was 45 years ago. Lots of people who don't even use it anymore (and some who never did) don't view it as a dangerous drug and aren't against legalization. The pro mj movement is further along than many thought it would be at this point, and as more and more people recognize the medical benefits, it's just gonna keep gaining steam.
 
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