Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
The new face of the marijuana movement is a Bible-quoting, ObamaCare-loathing, pro-life and pro-gun Republican who campaigned on a promise to protect "East Texas family values."
God, state Rep. David Simpson says, didn't create cannabis for government to come around and ban it.
Surprising his Tea Party backers and everybody else, Simpson introduced a marijuana legalization bill in early March. His stand will cost him votes in law-and-order Longview. He says he doesn't much care: he is sticking up for the bedrock conservative principles of "limited government, personal responsibility and individual liberty."
"I thought long and hard about marijuana before I got into state politics, so I haven't changed my position," Simpson, a 53-year-old timber businessman, said in an interview. "It's just: I'm from a very conservative district, and it wasn't something I was prepared to advocate on their behalf."
He said it was his constituents themselves who compelled him to act. Since he won his first state election in 2010, he said, he has heard pleas from several people whose medical problems can't be treated with traditional medication. He started writing a medical marijuana bill, and then decided wholesale legalization was the only solution.
"I think we're at a tipping point," he said. "I think it's clear the war on drugs has failed, that the war mentality has eroded individual rights, the sanctity of one's home, the ability to travel freely with dignity. And at the root of all this is prohibition."
Presidential Campaign Issue
Simpson is far from alone in his sudden outspokenness. Emboldened by a significant shift in public attitudes over the last five years, red-state Republicans around the country have taken marijuana positions that would have been unthinkable as recently as the George W. Bush presidency.
The most powerful is Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Paul, a likely presidential candidate with libertarian instincts, has seized on marijuana as part of his effort to win over young and non-white voters outside the traditional Republican coalition.
Paul joined two Democrats last week in co-sponsoring the U.S. Senate's first bill to end the federal ban on medical marijuana. He previously proposed measures to shield states that have approved medical marijuana from federal interference. In an article in USA Today in 2013, he lamented the racial disparity in marijuana arrests.
"I think it is significant not so much because he is a Republican but more so because he is an aspiring 2016 presidential candidate," said Paul Armentano, deputy director of the marijuana advocacy group NORML. "Clearly, as a candidate, he believes that taking on the marijuana-law reform issue is not a political liability, but rather that it is a political opportunity."
Another probable Republican candidate, former Texas governor Rick Perry, expressed support for marijuana decriminalization early last year. Two others took noteworthy baby steps last month.
Both Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favourite, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the leading establishment candidate, have aggressively opposed drug liberalization in the past. But both told a conservative conference in Maryland that individual states have the right to legalize marijuana if they want to.
Their mixed messages may be a reflection of mixed polling. The Republican electorate remains, for now, solidly anti-marijuana: in a 2013 Gallup poll, only 35 per cent of Republicans favoured legalization, versus 65 per cent of Democrats. Other polls, though, suggest there are conservative votes to be gained with a liberal stance on weed. In a Pew poll this year, Republicans under the age of 35 favoured legalization by a margin of 65-35.
"Young people see it better than anybody. Young people really see the hypocrisy in the laws. But I've had people my age that I grew up with in Louisiana support my issue," said Ann Lee, an 85-year-old Houston Republican who founded the advocacy group Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition in 2012.
There is the distinct whiff of change even in the conservative House of Representatives. Forty-nine Republicans joined 170 Democrats last year to approve a proposal to forbid the Drug Enforcement Administration from spending money to raid medical marijuana facilities. The same item earned only 28 Republican votes two years prior.
Adam Eidinger, the activist who led the campaign to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C., via referendum, said the recent silence of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will cost her support even if she eventually comes out as marijuana-friendly. Clinton opposed decriminalization in 2008, and she was noncommittal on medical marijuana last year.
"She won't be trusted on marijuana policy even if she does change her position," Eidinger said. "I think we're getting to a point now where it's not just, 'Who is pro-medical-marijuana?' It's 'Who is best for medical marijuana?' We have a choice."
Traditional Holdouts
Not everywhere. The overwhelming majority of elected Republicans are holding firm to the party's traditional anti-marijuana line. The daybefore the D.C. legalization went into effect in February, the Utah congressman whose committee oversees D.C., Jason Chaffetz, threatened the mayor with jail time if she didn't call the whole thing off.
Eidinger now wields a threat of his own. If Chaffetz, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris or other hard-liners do anything to undermine the legalization initiative, Eidinger said, people in the D.C. marijuana movement are prepared to move to their congressional districts and "organize against them."
"We won't forget," he said. "There will be a consequence."
These days, even a Republican from Utah would be foolish to laugh him off.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Some U.S. Republicans soften stance on marijuana
Author: Daniel Dale
Contact: ddale@thestar.ca
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: mississauga.com | Mississauga?s online newspaper | Today?s stories
God, state Rep. David Simpson says, didn't create cannabis for government to come around and ban it.
Surprising his Tea Party backers and everybody else, Simpson introduced a marijuana legalization bill in early March. His stand will cost him votes in law-and-order Longview. He says he doesn't much care: he is sticking up for the bedrock conservative principles of "limited government, personal responsibility and individual liberty."
"I thought long and hard about marijuana before I got into state politics, so I haven't changed my position," Simpson, a 53-year-old timber businessman, said in an interview. "It's just: I'm from a very conservative district, and it wasn't something I was prepared to advocate on their behalf."
He said it was his constituents themselves who compelled him to act. Since he won his first state election in 2010, he said, he has heard pleas from several people whose medical problems can't be treated with traditional medication. He started writing a medical marijuana bill, and then decided wholesale legalization was the only solution.
"I think we're at a tipping point," he said. "I think it's clear the war on drugs has failed, that the war mentality has eroded individual rights, the sanctity of one's home, the ability to travel freely with dignity. And at the root of all this is prohibition."
Presidential Campaign Issue
Simpson is far from alone in his sudden outspokenness. Emboldened by a significant shift in public attitudes over the last five years, red-state Republicans around the country have taken marijuana positions that would have been unthinkable as recently as the George W. Bush presidency.
The most powerful is Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Paul, a likely presidential candidate with libertarian instincts, has seized on marijuana as part of his effort to win over young and non-white voters outside the traditional Republican coalition.
Paul joined two Democrats last week in co-sponsoring the U.S. Senate's first bill to end the federal ban on medical marijuana. He previously proposed measures to shield states that have approved medical marijuana from federal interference. In an article in USA Today in 2013, he lamented the racial disparity in marijuana arrests.
"I think it is significant not so much because he is a Republican but more so because he is an aspiring 2016 presidential candidate," said Paul Armentano, deputy director of the marijuana advocacy group NORML. "Clearly, as a candidate, he believes that taking on the marijuana-law reform issue is not a political liability, but rather that it is a political opportunity."
Another probable Republican candidate, former Texas governor Rick Perry, expressed support for marijuana decriminalization early last year. Two others took noteworthy baby steps last month.
Both Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favourite, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the leading establishment candidate, have aggressively opposed drug liberalization in the past. But both told a conservative conference in Maryland that individual states have the right to legalize marijuana if they want to.
Their mixed messages may be a reflection of mixed polling. The Republican electorate remains, for now, solidly anti-marijuana: in a 2013 Gallup poll, only 35 per cent of Republicans favoured legalization, versus 65 per cent of Democrats. Other polls, though, suggest there are conservative votes to be gained with a liberal stance on weed. In a Pew poll this year, Republicans under the age of 35 favoured legalization by a margin of 65-35.
"Young people see it better than anybody. Young people really see the hypocrisy in the laws. But I've had people my age that I grew up with in Louisiana support my issue," said Ann Lee, an 85-year-old Houston Republican who founded the advocacy group Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition in 2012.
There is the distinct whiff of change even in the conservative House of Representatives. Forty-nine Republicans joined 170 Democrats last year to approve a proposal to forbid the Drug Enforcement Administration from spending money to raid medical marijuana facilities. The same item earned only 28 Republican votes two years prior.
Adam Eidinger, the activist who led the campaign to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C., via referendum, said the recent silence of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will cost her support even if she eventually comes out as marijuana-friendly. Clinton opposed decriminalization in 2008, and she was noncommittal on medical marijuana last year.
"She won't be trusted on marijuana policy even if she does change her position," Eidinger said. "I think we're getting to a point now where it's not just, 'Who is pro-medical-marijuana?' It's 'Who is best for medical marijuana?' We have a choice."
Traditional Holdouts
Not everywhere. The overwhelming majority of elected Republicans are holding firm to the party's traditional anti-marijuana line. The daybefore the D.C. legalization went into effect in February, the Utah congressman whose committee oversees D.C., Jason Chaffetz, threatened the mayor with jail time if she didn't call the whole thing off.
Eidinger now wields a threat of his own. If Chaffetz, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris or other hard-liners do anything to undermine the legalization initiative, Eidinger said, people in the D.C. marijuana movement are prepared to move to their congressional districts and "organize against them."
"We won't forget," he said. "There will be a consequence."
These days, even a Republican from Utah would be foolish to laugh him off.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Some U.S. Republicans soften stance on marijuana
Author: Daniel Dale
Contact: ddale@thestar.ca
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: mississauga.com | Mississauga?s online newspaper | Today?s stories
