Rep. Frank Brings the Skank
Well, as he promised on Real Time with Bill Maher, Congressman Frank has introduced a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. If you support the cause, head over to the Marijuana Policy Project and use their handy system to let your representatives know!
“The Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008,” introduced by Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), would eliminate the threat of arrest and prison for the possession of up to 3.5 ounces of marijuana and/or the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of marijuana. It would not affect federal laws prohibiting selling marijuana for profit, importing and exporting marijuana, or cultivating marijuana. It also would not affect any state or local laws and regulations.
2 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Subscribe to RSS Feed
My question here is this, who actually gets in trouble for smoking some marijuana anymore. I really don’t think that anyone who is over the age of 16 does. It has become something that they get you on if you’re doing a something else wrong…like a seatbelt ticket. I like the idea of our laws catching up to societal behavior but it seems like this law isn’t going to accomplish much. “making more room for real criminals” is a nice tagline but is it even true anymore?
It’s a question of federalization. The law would accomplish 2 things:
First, it would be one more step in allowing the states to enforce their laws allowing medical marijuana. California allows citizens who have a prescription to own marijuana and the federal government should let the states decide that issue.
Second, the drug war is led by the US government. It pressures foreign governments as well as the states to follow in lockstep. Make marijuana legal at the federal level and I predict other states and foreign governments would follow as well.
You’re right that Frank misstates the purpose of the bill but that bill itself remains a good idea. (In my opinion a better idea would be to legalize the whole process, not just consumption. Leaving the production and distribution illegal while legalizing consumption means that demand can only increase while the supply process doesn’t get any less violent or dangerous)