House Lifts DC Ban on Medical Marijuana

[420]

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A controversial move by the U.S. House of Representatives has given the green light on some hot-button issues, including lifting a ban on the District's medical marijuana law.

It was an historic move in the House, and a victory for Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Congress voted Thursday to allow the District to use city money to pay for abortions for low income women, to implement a medical marijuana law, and continue a needle exchange program.

In 1998, D.C. voters approved medical marijuana, but it was blocked when Congress voted to stop D.C. from setting its own drug policies. As for the needle exchange program, a ban on it was removed last year, but Republicans sough to reattach it to the bill.

Delegate Norton says Thursday's vote marks the first time in her memory that no conditions were attached to the spending bill, and she released this statement:

"We will never make up for the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has besieged this city because needle exchange was banned for a decade, or make up for the resulting loss of lives. There is no way to make poor women, forced to carry pregnancies to term, believe that their reproductive choice was guaranteed in the decades during the longest of the bans, on using local funds for abortions for poor women. But, today we start a new chapter in democracy in the District of Columbia with the first D.C. appropriations in memory free of all un-democratic, anti-home rule riders."

There is a federal ban on medical marijuana, leaving the decision to implement programs up to each state. Fifteen states currently allow medical marijuana.

The budget still needs Senate approval, and because the city is under federal control, it requires congressional approval. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

House Lifts DC Ban on Medical Marijuana

 

[Pythaglio]

Passed the Senate today, 57-35.

 

[KiwiKing]

Holy shit

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

Yessss!!!!

 

[lofryhash]

Yessss!!!!
Yessss!!!!
We can!!!!

 

[Retired Three]

Slowly but surely the nation is decriminalizing cannabis. I love it! I wish they would hurry up with my state!

 

[lofryhash]

Slowly but surely the nation is decriminalizing cannabis. I love it! I wish they would hurry up with my state!

=8) Ah yeaaaas, a little chicken in every pot and in every chicken a little POT! YIPPIE!

 

[mikeee]

Great, now our brilliant leaders can get medical marijuana, but the rest of us suffer along or get busted. Can you say "Double Standard" ? I hope the government has a urinalysis program like the rest of us have to tolerate to keep a job. Why is medical marijuana not a national issue yet?

 

[Jim Finnel]

......Why is medical marijuana not a national issue yet?

my personal opinion is fear/paranoia and ignorance. both on the part of the american people. we could blame the propgandists/media/corporations but i still think its us. the truth is out there for anybody to find, just like we found it. we still have some freedom, example.... this website and soon a print magazine. so either the people know but most do nothing or they are ignorant and choose to stay that way. so its up to us to start getting in the face of the ignorant so that they learn the truth and as our numbers grow the paranoia will diminish. its happening now.

 

[lofryhash]

my personal opinion is fear/paranoia and ignorance. - etc.

It is the ignorance part that gets me... just think about what this country has been witnessing in it's society over the past 5 decades (well really back to 1934,..). Beauty is skin deep, ugly goes to the bone,.. but ignorance is IN the soul... How do we change that..? That is the dilemma I have worked on for years. It is a real matter of philisophical and epistimalogical debate...

All I seem to come up with is in the meanwhile we do what we can to better the situation for each other and for the world we know...

 

[iTz 703]

wowwww this is great news!!!!!

 

[Oddnonsmoker]

Yaaaay! Another one down!

Fear and taboo are mostly what fuel the lack of awareness. People don't think when there is an element of fear behind a subject. The easiest way to get a person to agree with you is not to appeal to their sense of logic, but to appeal to emotion, and fear is the easiest emotion to control. Make something scary and people will buy into it. It's what Hearst did back in 1934. Some people believe what they are told the first time they hear it, especially if there is an element of fear. It takes an analytical person to question what they are told and find the truth for themselves. Most people are not like that.

The taboo on the subject has been inhibiting a lot of discussion. The first thing that comes to mind when a person hears the word marijuana is "No! Bad! Evil! It makes you crazy, don't do it, it makes you worthless, don't talk about it." Much of it also has to do with this historical perception that feeling good is bad somehow.

 

[Vanilla Kush]

my personal opinion is fear/paranoia and ignorance. both on the part of the american people. we could blame the propgandists/media/corporations but i still think its us. the truth is out there for anybody to find, just like we found it.

This is just the first step towards realization that we the people have the strongest voice. This is just what this country needs to unite it and use that voice to speak out on issues more pressing then just one aspect of healthcare. It is our duty to make sure the system of checks and balances within the national government is taking place. Marijuana will be legalized in the united states, there is no doubt about that (its a political move to get real elected, so the current administration has time to fix what's going on with the $2.3 trillion deficit). Things that directly remove fundamental rights from the constitution when congress doesn't read, or debate bills, such as the patriot act, are direct results of ignorance. One Person Read it. One Person Voted against it. i hope the passion people have for the right to medicate safely, will continue to be used to protect ourselves from the tryanny Hamilton feared. This is just what we needed to set precedent for generations to come. "The Constitution, which was the result of Deliberation[by people with hope like us], Is the wisest yet presented to man". We face that Tryanny, but it is camoflauged and the facts forgotten. Its hard to keep our heads up, but we do to keep moving forward. When other's get over being distracted by Tiger's adultery, we have to be there to sum up what they missed. The only thing stopping us, is us. A Voice, E Pluribus Unum (from many to one), is the staple of this country everyone has heard, but not taken into action. Its on the money..and its a capitalistic economic country... hmmm they might have wanted people to remember and see that everyday.


Im done though, I agree with you =)

 

[Pythaglio]

You guys gotta be kidding. This action elevates MMJ to a national stage, and is going to help get pending bills through state legislatures. This was Congress saying an MMJ law is ok.

Baby steps man, baby steps. The entire drug war is falling apart before our eyes. Christ on a cross, who'd a thunk this possible even 6 months ago?

Swift action sought on medical marijuana
D.C. Council chairman ready to begin crafting policy with lifting of ban

By Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said Monday that he wants to move swiftly to establish regulations for distributing medical marijuana now that Congress has voted to lift restrictions on city drug policy.

Gray said the council will use Initiative 59, which voters overwhelmingly approved in 1998, to begin crafting a policy that allows doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients with serious illnesses.

"We've waited 10 years. . . . I think the opportunity to send it is now," Gray said. "There is no reason to sit on it."

But one day after Congress voted to lift the Barr amendment, there was widespread confusion across city government about how the policy might be implemented.

Attorney General Peter Nickles said Monday that he has instructed his staff to review whether the council can use Initiative 59 to legalize medical marijuana or whether it is too dated to withstand legal scrutiny.

Even if it is valid, Nickles said, under home rule the initiative would still have to survive a 30-day congressional review period because the original proposal was never sent to Capitol Hill.

But Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who played a key role in having the amendment removed in the spending bill, said she doesn't think the measure needs to go back before Congress.

In making its decision to remove the Barr amendment, Norton said Congress was under the assumption that the city would use administrative regulations to implement its medical-marijuana policy.
ad_icon

"Congress thought they were simply taking the ban off and the District would simply proceed or not proceed," Norton said. "After all we have gone through, I can tell you, the Congress is not anxious to see this issue here again. It's taken me 10 years."

Norton said she cannot guarantee that Congress would not try to block medical marijuana if the issue appeared before it without being entangled in a massive government spending bill.

But Gray said he doubts the House and Senate would intervene if the issue lands before them. He noted that Congress has passed only three disapproval resolutions on council bills since home rule began in 1973.

During the congressional review period, Gray said that city health and public safety officials would begin establishing regulations on how the marijuana should be prescribed and distributed.

The biggest question facing city leaders is whether the city or another organization should get into the business of growing and distributing marijuana.

Thirteen states allow for medical marijuana. But Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said many of those state laws call for patients to grow their own marijuana, or to designate someone to legally grow it for them, to avoid government involvement in the cultivation of an illegal substance.

But Mirken noted that California, New Mexico and, beginning next year, Rhode Island and Maine have embraced policies that allow for the creation of government-sanctioned distribution centers.

Mirken says that strategy -- made easier by the Obama administration's pledge not to use federal law to arrest medical marijuana distributors -- makes more sense for the District.

"The grow-your-own provisions simply don't work for everybody, particularly in urban areas," Mirken said. "We think a regulated system of dispensaries is ideal, but there needs to be rules. It shouldn't just be a free-for-all."

On Monday, the medical community was also scrambling to examine the ramifications of legalizing medical marijuana in the District.

The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which specializes in treating and preventing HIV/AIDS, was a key sponsor of putting Initiative 59 on the ballot.

But clinic spokesman Chip Lewis said Whitman-Walker would still have to undertake an extensive study of medical marijuana before it could recommend that any of its patients use the drug.

"Whitman-Walker believes people living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic medical conditions should have access to any legal medication under physician treatment," Lewis said. "But we would have to do some careful planning and thought . . . around the issues of care before we could implement anything."

Marijuana growers are also following events at city hall closely.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he has received more than two dozen e-mails or phone calls since late last week from marijuana growers or distributors who want to do business in the nation's capital.

"There are probably at least 20 of these cannabis shop owners on the West Coast that have a dead-eye target on the District," St. Pierre said. "Over the weekend, we must have gotten 20 to 30 e-mails or phone messages from people I would say are entrepreneurs."

washingtonpost.com

 

[r0ck43v3r]

Slowly my dreams are becoming a reality. Lets go Texas. Lets ride the train already.

 

[Retired Three]

Slowly my dreams are becoming a reality. Lets go Texas. Lets ride the train already.

If I have my information correct the state of Texas has the most overcrowded prison system in the United States. Legalization of Marijuana would have a HUGE impact on the state of Texas in revenues and with a reduction in the prison population.... Texas has the most to gain of ANY state in the union if cannabis was legalized...

all imo

 

[r0ck43v3r]

I totally agree with you Joe Coffee. Especially since I know so many ppl who are good ppl but get locked up for stupid reasons...and knowing those who should totally be behind bars. Texas could be using their system so much better.

 

[lofryhash]

You guys gotta be kidding. This action elevates MMJ to a national stage, and is going to help get pending bills through state legislatures. This was Congress saying an MMJ law is ok.

Baby steps man, baby steps. The entire drug war is falling apart before our eyes. Christ on a cross, who'd a thunk this possible even 6 months ago?

We have to remember, this is a new generational administration in power, someone who knows about the communities involved AND we are in a national state of economic crisis... remember weed was untouched BEFORE the depression in the past... then came the laws of 1934 and 1937... which brought us to where we are now. SO let us hope that the stupidity that existed PRIOR to the depression (present) will slap the 'stupid' out of the ignorant and give them clear-seeing for a moment enough at least to realize we can build a whole darn industry on a 'grass-roots' scale in this country and do it in an 'earth-friendly' 'green' way!!! LITERALLY!!!

 

[Retired Three]

Food for Thought:

Prohibition was abolished after the last depression and it provided a cash windfall to the government via liquor taxes. Consider that the current economic climate is comparable to the depression of 1929 this will only increase the probability of cannabis being decriminalized.

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

For all of the frustration voiced about Obama, and some of it legitimate, you've got to admit this is the best we've had it in a long, long time.

I'm actually amazed at how fast things are happening, considering the usual sloth like pace of federal government. It's a hell of a big ship to turn around, and there's still plenty of opposition to moving the wheel.