Democratic Party - States Should Be "Laboratories Of Democracy" For Pot

[Katelyn Baker]

Democrats have adopted a platform that their members are trumpeting as the "most progressive platform in party history" - and when it comes to marijuana, Dems aren't just blowing smoke. The Party of the Donkey has taken a position on marijuana that no major political party in the United States has taken before.

The preliminary draft of the platform, released on July 1 by the Democratic National Convention Committee, asserts that states should be "laboratories of democracy on the issue of marijuana."

It goes on to say states that wish to decriminalize marijuana should be allowed to do so.

"We support policies that will allow more research on marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty. And we recognize our current marijuana laws
have had an unacceptable disparate impact, with arrest rates for marijuana possession among African Americans far outstripping arrest rates among whites, despite similar usage rates," the draft reads.

The closest that an American party has come to language like this was back in 1980, when Jimmy Carter initially voiced support for decriminalization, but backed off after a feverish backlash from Republicans.

The section about reforming laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty would require that the feds take weed off of the Schedule I narcotics list, a change that marijuana activists have made a priority for years and the Drug Enforcement Administration said it would consider this year.

Activists see this plank in the Democratic platform as a major victory. On July 13, the National Cannabis Industry Association testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that "it's long past time for our government to bring marijuana policy into alignment with the science and allow states to regulate cannabis properly without federal interference."

During the 2016 Democratic primary, candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders took divergent tones on how to treat marijuana on the federal level.

Sanders's position tracked with the language adopted in the Democratic platform. He has a history of supporting legalization, and last year told Katie Couric: "Let me just say this: The State of Vermont voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, and I support that."

Hillary Clinton has taken a more cautious approach. "I do support the use of medical marijuana," she said in the first Democratic presidential debate back in November 2015. "And I think even there we need to do a lot more research, so that we know exactly how we're going to help people for whom medical marijuana provides relief."

Sanders, who endorsed and campaigned with Clinton last week after a long and combative primary, has had a heavy imprint on the document. Policy planks such as a public option in Obamacare and free college tuition for families making less than $125,000 a year were adopted right before Sanders delivered his long-withheld endorsement.

The drafting process featured passionate testimony from Sanders delegates, who won over party regulars on many policy positions. The sustained effort provided the Sanders cohort with victories to satisfy their supporters at home and produced a written statement to hold the Clinton wing of the party accountable.

While a party platform is not binding, per se, and many platform planks have been ignored in recent decades, the 2016 Democratic platform could well be a tool used to leverage Clinton's potential presidency - and this particular position shows a rapid and significant softening of attitudes toward marijuana.

The Republicans will release their party platform draft on Tuesday.

News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Democratic Party - States Should Be "Laboratories Of Democracy" For Pot
Author: Zack Burley
Contact: Westword
Photo Credit: Lindsey Bartlett
Website: Westword

 

[mk1903a3]

Democrats have adopted a platform that their members are trumpeting as the "most progressive platform in party history" - and when it comes to marijuana, Dems aren't just blowing smoke. The Party of the Donkey has taken a position on marijuana that no major political party in the United States has taken before.
I would not vote for the democrats if hillary and bernie were promising to deliver pot to my front door " FREE"

 

[BrokrnEyes]

I'm sorry, but when I hear " The states should be the Laborit Tori's of democracy ", I hear "we the federal government made this mess, but we're going with the states should clean it up". They did the same thing with the prohibition of alcohol, and they're trying to do the same thing with the prohibition of cannabis and like the end of the prohibition of alcohol, we're going have a patchwork of states and you and counties that are going to have different almost absurd Lee arbitrary rules regarding cannabis. I can see states in the Bible belt saying that it's illegal to sell cannabis on Sundays, others it's going to be illegal to smoke pot outside your house, or it's going to be illegal to smoke pot if you're single parent with a child… Oh wait, that's already the case! Yep, The federal government, making a mess, and expecting it citizens to clean up after them since 1776!

I really can't trust Hillary Clinton either. Out of all the candidates, be at Democratic or Republican, she was the only candidate that gave a waffling answer regarding legalization. Given her connections to big Pharma it's not hard to see why. I truly will not be surprised if we see a Clinton Administration, that we're going to see a stall out on cannabis issues.

If the Democrats choose Hillary as their nominee, I really recommend everyone buy up a ton of seeds And stash em and maybe buy up some LED equipment to keep those electric bills low, after all this is the same woman who during her husbands administration called troubled black youth animals for engaging in things like pot.

( and no, not endorsement of Trump.)

 

[TheG3System]

Don't let an idle statement throw your vote. Trump was the only candidate that said he is actually interested in possibly making cannabis federally legal but he'll look out for the tobacco and pharma industries over the little guy, but it wouldn't be done in the next 4 years anyways federally. That's not a Trump endorsement either... I lean more to the anti-Hillary movement because she is the only candidate that I am personally convinced will not touch the cannabis topic at all for a 4 year term and I personally think the cannabis industry is the only thing that could stop a US Dollar Crash. Let's face the facts... $6B in Colorado alone it's first year, shows employment, real estate, tax basis, and social development within local communities benefits everyone, the only downside is environmental impact and government control, and there are solutions for the environmental impact, just look at Cali where everyone is at least knowledgeable on HPA and LED.

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

This article about sums it up for me when it comes to who would be best for our beloved plant. Hillary is bought and paid for and I am done with politics as usual. Trump all the way.


Want Marijuana Legalized? Then Donald Trump is your Best Option



I’m just as frightened about the thought of President Trump as any other global citizen that has a pulse and can read above a 5th grade comprehension level. In fact I’ve publically claimed if Donald Trump does become president, I would effectively move to a different country, much like I did at the start of George W. Bush’s second term.
Regardless of my inner struggle with accepting the impending reality of Trump as the 45th POTUS and The Running Man neo-cyberpunk society that will emerge, there’s one existential fact that remains. If you want marijuana legalized, Donald Trump is your best option this November.
Before your head ignites from sheer confusion, let’s look at the stance on marijuana within the current field of presidential candidates.

Hillary Clinton
Hillary’s effective stance on marijuana is to ‘wait and see,’ which is the political equivalent of trying to get a passing grade on a final exam by spelling ‘BAD’ on your Scantron as many times as possible. In a July 2014 CNN town hall hosted by Christiane Amanpour, Senator Clinton claimed she was ‘committing radical candor’ by addressing her stance on marijuana, which is to look at what transpires inside newly-legalized Colorado and Washington before developing an opinion.
Clinton believes that medical marijuana should be available, but only in ‘extreme conditions,’ which would rule out the current pseudo-medicinal use in states with existing legislation like California.
As far as her ‘wait and see’ approach to recreational marijuana, she was asked to clarify her stance at the 2015 CNN Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas and Clinton explicitly stated she was not ready to take a position. That #WaitAndSee life.










Donald Trump
If you want the candidate with the highest probability of ensuring marijuana will be legal across the country, Donald Trump is your best option.
I know for many of you this news might be rather hard to digest. Granted Trump has never held political office, however his pro-marijuana stance surpasses that of any other candidate in the field.
In 1990, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has Donald Trump on record claiming US drug enforcement is ‘a joke’ and all drugs should be legalized to ‘take the profit away from these drug czars.’ According to Trump, tax revenues from a legalized drug trade will be used to educate the public on the dangers of drugs.
It’s no surprise that Trump’s isolationist tactics of building a wall that divides Mexico and the US along with banning all Muslims from entering the country has spilled over to international drug trade. While Trump may not be the most detailed oriented candidate, he redundantly insists that our jobs are being taken away by China and Mexico -- including the esteemed title of ‘drug czar’.
Under President Trump, if drug lords are to be created, they better be made in the USA -- and how can you blame him? Our drug dealers have been outsourced to other countries for far too long. If America hopes to create the next Walter White, we must locally foster and create drug lords and keep them within our borders.
Trump also stated we're losing badly the war on drugs, and you have to legalize drugs to win that war. For a candidate that bases his entire brand on ‘winning,’ losing a war on drugs would severely chip away from the superhuman aura he’s manifested since he announced his run for president on June 16, 2015.
According to Trump, getting a ‘win’ against the war on drugs starts with complete legalization of all drugs.
Now that Trump has shifted from business man to a political Frankenstein created by the GOP and the media, his stance on marijuana has slightly shifted. In a November interview with GQ last year, Trump states ‘[marijuana for] medical purposes for medicinal purposes it’s absolutely fine.’
While his stance on marijuana may seem to change, his belief that the ‘war on drugs’ is a joke has not. On ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Trump told host Martha Raddatz that the country is doing a ‘poor job’ policing drugs; specifically, "We don't want to do anything. And if you're not going to want to do the policing, you're going to have to start thinking about other alternatives."
But it's not something that I would want to do. Don’t worry, I speak double-talk Trump -- let me translate. Donald Trump simply restated his 1990 position on the War on Drugs however the semantics have shifted to him exploring ‘other alternatives’ to alleviate this problem.
In that same statement, Trump insists that we (he) doesn’t want to do anything about the ‘war on drugs’ solely because he believes the enforcement isn’t working. Of course the only remaining ‘other alternative’ to his proposal is something that he’s reiterated in the past, complete drug legalization.
Presidential candidates tend to swing far right/left early on to appeal to their party’s core demographic in order to be their respective party’s nominee. Once the country is left with two candidates, both shift towards the middle to appeal to voters in the opposing field.
That’s just the way the political game has been operating for as long as any CNN talking head can remember.
Could Trump’s recent shift in his stance on marijuana be an objective attempt to garner key votes in his party? Of course it is.
In 2004, Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he identifies ‘more as a democrat’ and that it "seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans."
Therefore Trump dipping to a more liberal center if/when he becomes the Republican nominee doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
That tilt towards the center would also reflect his previously held stance on drug legalization. Compared to current field of presidential candidates, Trump has held the most radical stance against the enforcement of marijuana and other drugs for for the longest duration.
According to a 2012 RAND report commissioned by the White House, the organization found that $100 billion dollars a year is being generated by illegal drug trade in America, with $40 billion coming from marijuana.
As far as the failed drug enforcement that Trump has repeatedly talked about for decades, in 2010 the federal government spent $15 billion on the ‘war on drugs’ with states and local governments spending an additional $25 billion.
When it comes to the superfluous government spending that Trump denounces at his rallies and debates, $40 billion could be saved just from doing what he said he would do: stop the war on drugs. In fact, Trump would save 400% more from cutting federal and state level enforcement on drugs than he would from ending Common Core.
The real question is if elected, will Trump come through on the multitude of platforms he’s been promising the American people. That’s yet to be determined.
However, if Donald Trump’s words are to be believed as truth, then it’s clear that Donald Trump will be the biggest proponent for the legalization of marijuana in our country’s history.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

I'll say this, I'm not entirely counting Bernie Sanders out. Yes he endorsed Hillary Clinton, but as my father pointed out that he had to in order to take part in the Democratic convention. Given Hillary Clinton's plummeting popularity, especially after the Justice Department stated that they would not press charges for the whole thing with Ben Ghazi in the email scandal, a decision that is highly unpopular with many Americans ( including myself ), couple that with the fact that many of Sandra supporters have openly stated that they will absolutely refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton and would rather vote for Trump, the democrats may decide at their own convention that choosing Sandra's over Clinton may be their only option. It's not without precedent either, FDR was not the first choice of the Democratic Party and yet he carried into his third term. I am not saying that last comment as a comparison nor as a suggestion that Bernie Sanders would be the next FDR, merely pointing out the fact that it does have precedent and it does show that in a time of extreme hardship for the nation, that the man that was not the first choice turned out to be so hugely popular, that they made an amendment to prevent all future presidents from having more than two terms. I think given between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, if the Democrats are smarts they'll put Bernie Sanders up as their candidate which may be the only sane move left for the Democratic Party and the nation in general.

 

[tkm953]

Sanity,in an insane world ?"What ?You must be smoking pot ! Just kidding ya buddy.An excellent point,and if this was the America of the 30's I could see that happening.But the current climate is more like the Vietnam Era.A Country tearing itself apart.I see no unity for America with the Election of either party.But a tiny pin hole does emerge from our curtain of darkness,a phrase which we as Americans. have forgotten,We The People !We the People of these United States of America must start to stand up for what we really want and stop letting the Federal Government tells us what we want.I am not a fan of Ted Cruz but his words ring true this election,"Vote Your Conscience "I personally would love to see Sanders pull off the impossible but that would take a miracle and the Feds have outlawed miracles.I want to see cannabis legal here for all who want it,the same as alcohol,having been a member of the War On Drugs causalities ( busted with 4 ounces) not pretty.But I still keep smoking cause that what I love as we here all do.But let's not sacrifice our entire future or be hoodwinked with the promise of freeing the weed.I endorse no candidate so I am telling no one how to vote.And remember their is a House and a Senate to vote for too.Very important Races as well.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Was born in the mid 80s so unfortunately I don't know what life was like during the Vietnam era firsthand but from what I've studied, both in school and on my own I definitely have to agree to an extent. I mean thankfully we don't have the spitting lines but we definitely have that sense of fear that our neighbor next-door could be a communist, or in this case terrorists which thinks to the likes of the lone wolf attackers that swear allegiance to Isys right before they go on attack, unfortunately justifies that paranoia and instead of addressing it like a leaders of the nation, our leaders would much rather use it to blame the other parties in action and so we have this epic mess in the Republican Party Andy slightly smaller but nonetheless very concerning a big mess in the Democratic Party with them bull rushing Hillary Clinton through.

I don't know, my bigger fear is that a lot of precursors of the French Revolution seem to be present in our country now. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, middle-class is disappearing and has been going on longer than Obama is the ministration. There are plenty of areas of the country, namely rule areas that were already starting to slip into the recession prior to owe eight (speaking from experience) in this anger and frustration is reflected in the voters that voted for Trump and Sanders, as I said before they were the first to independent candidates that have ever gotten this close to the " brass ring" with Trump actually answering the presidential campaign.

I wonder how long until some rich sob runs over A lower-class kid and toss is the grieving father a Sacajawea dollar... When that happens heads are going to start to roll in Washington DC.

 

[AdaLay]

I write this after having been until 3yrs ago so anti it was unbelievable but as the old saying says 'Education is a wonderful thing'. I was brought up believing it was the most wicked, evil thing known to man and never to be touched. I panicked when I first heard it might be coming to my state and was looking to move to another, during my research I came across states that had already legalized either for medical or recreational use or both, and it prompted me to read about it. Now, I have done a 180° u-turn on the subject.

I don't know why its so hard for politicians to work out, cannabis/marijuana whatever you want to call it has never gone away despite prohibition, fines, incarceration etc, and it never will. Even the potheads who have been incarcerated because of it haven't stopped using it, not even in jail !!!

There are decades of research, and any politician worth their salary should be capable of reading it, that support the benefits of medical use. Wait and See just means - not in my term!

Donald may well have a wall built between the US and Mexico, he may even get the Mexicans to pay for it, is he going to build one between the US and Canada, I very much doubt it and Canada would laugh hysterically at the idea of paying for it.

If it were legalized throughout the country and the taxes were used, after education, to fund a health service that did not require you to either have to use a hospital/doctor/specialist with far fewer facilities than most or have a credit card/check book available. Fewer people would risk losing their homes after having dealt with one traumatic situation. Yes there would be angst among the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies but lets face it as medical marijuana takes a hold, and its not going away, people who have chosen to use it are reporting less and less use of prescription drugs so they are going to lose out in the end anyway.

People who have now become accustomed to using it are not going to stop if a new government decides to change the rules and regulations, there are not and never will be enough prisons to house them all.

Its commonsense to legalize it, tax it and most importantly put the revenue to good use.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

I'm always glad to read of when someone looks into something for themselves rather than just trust the politician, that being said and please I mean no insult by this, you must understand that these politicians number one goal is to be reflected. To go about that they frequently appeal to lobbies ta and special interest groups, both of whom are able to give large sums of money and Côte respectively. It's why Republicans are such avid second amendment supporters to the point of madness, the NRA has such a huge following that goes to the voting booth that the republicans use that to their advantage.

Now frame that in the context of cannibis. The lobbies ta against legalization are big pharma, police and the prison systems. Be pharma because it takes money away from them, and for the police and prisons, it fills their quotas and gets bodies to into cells. The special interest groups are frequently religious right groups who vote for policiticans they see as being of their kind of moral fiber,,, ussually.,, the only reason that the politicians are moving forward with legalization is because of the growing group of voters that want it, in other words many police and are sending the change of wind and are adjusting where as others believe, and likely rightly so, that if they go with legalization, they'll lose their financial supporters in the lobbyists and their voting base in the religious right.
Clinton is bought and paid for by big pharma, as I said earlier, she likely will not do anything for legalization if she's elected, at least not in her first term.

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

To anyone interested. You can see a documentary called Clinton Cash for free this weekend only at Free Global Broadcast of ‘Clinton Cash’ Documentary Online at Breitbart.com - Breitbart before it comes out in theaters. If you want to know the truth about how the Bill and Hillary made hundreds of millions you need to check it out. You will be blown away!