12-05-2020, 11:24 PM
House votes to decriminalize marijuana
as GOP resists national shift
![[Image: 6FBRGSW4VAI6NEMMTHW6HSGK7I.jpg&w=691]](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/6FBRGSW4VAI6NEMMTHW6HSGK7I.jpg&w=691)
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), whose state has
legalized marijuana, says “Congress has failed to deal with a
disastrous war on drugs and do its part for the over 50 million
regular marijuana users” in the United States.
(Pete Marovich for The Washington Post)
By
Mike DeBonis
Dec. 4, 2020 at 2:34 p.m. EST
The House endorsed a landmark retreat in the nation’s decades-long
war on drugs Friday, voting to remove marijuana from the federal
schedule of controlled substances and provide for the regulation
and taxation of legal cannabis sales.
The vote was 228 to 164 and was the first time either chamber
of Congress has voted on the issue of federally decriminalizing cannabis.
The measure is not expected to pass into law, and, because of
political skittishness, it was voted on only after the November
election and more than a year after it emerged from committee.
But the House took a stand at a moment of increasing momentum,
with voters last month opting to liberalize marijuana laws in
five states — including three that President Trump won handily.
Friday’s vote, however, was largely along party lines, with
Democrats voting overwhelmingly to support the federal
decriminalization bill and all but five Republicans opposing it.
“We are not rushing to legalize marijuana — the American
people have already done that. We are here because Congress
has failed to deal with a disastrous war on drugs and do its
part for the over 50 million regular marijuana users in every
one of your districts,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.),
a longtime liberalization advocate. “We need to catch up
with the rest of the American people.”
Top Republicans — including House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (Ky.) — made derisive public comments about
the bill this week, painting the measure as a frivolous
diversion from the task of funding the federal government
and delivering a new round of emergency coronavirus aid
to Americans.
One headline from McConnell: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) decides to “puff, puff, pass” on emergency
coronavirus relief.
Momentum builds for bipartisan $908 billion stimulus package
as more GOP senators express support
“It’s just unbelievable how tone-deaf they are to these small
businesses and the jobs, the families that are tied to them,”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a Fox News
Channel interview Thursday, slamming Democratic leaders
for holding the vote.
But some are warning that Republicans risk finding themselves
out of step with their own voters, who are increasingly embracing
the loosening of marijuana restrictions — including outright
legalization.
On Election Day in South Dakota, for instance, 54 percent of
voters opted to legalize marijuana, while only 36 percent of
voters chose the Democratic presidential ticket. In Montana,
the 57 percent who voted to legalize marijuana nearly matched
the number who voted to reelect Trump. And Mississippi became
the first state in the Deep South to legalize marijuana for
medical use, with 62 percent of voters approving a ballot measure
in a state where Trump won 58 percent of the vote.
Fifteen states have legalized recreational cannabis to some degree,
and 36 states have approved medical marijuana programs, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level would not end
the vast majority of cannabis-use prosecutions, which occur
in state courts. But it would end troublesome conflicts between
state and federal law for those states that have loosened
pot restrictions and would greatly ease commerce for the
multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.
Public opinion appears to be in line with the state-level
electoral trend. In October, Gallup found that 68 percent
of Americans said the use of marijuana should be legal,
the highest support for marijuana legalization since the
polling organization first asked in 1969.
Only 8 percent of Americans say marijuana should be
completely illegal
While overwhelming proportions of Democrats and
independents supported legalization, Republicans were
split: 52 percent for legalization and 48 percent against —
figures that have changed only slightly in recent years.
But that near 50-50 split among Republican voters is
not even close to being mirrored in the GOP lawmaker
ranks. Only two of 17 House Republicans, Reps. Matt
Gaetz (Fla.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.), supported
the bill in the Judiciary Committee.
The prospects of winning Republican support for the
House bill were complicated by some of its provisions —
such as the establishment of a 5 percent federal excise
tax that would in part fund programs for “individuals
most adversely impacted by the War on Drugs,” job
training, legal aid in seeking to expunge marijuana
convictions, and mentoring programs.
The bill also provides for the expungement of federal
marijuana convictions dating to 1971 and bars the
denial of federal public benefits or security clearances
on the basis of marijuana offenses.
That has turned off some libertarian-minded Republicans
who might otherwise support eliminating marijuana
restrictions. “Tax and spend,” said Rep. Thomas
Massie (Ky.), who said he would have considered
voting for the bill had Democratic leaders allowed a
vote on an amendment to eliminate the tax component.
Gaetz said Friday that he was voting for the bill despite
the flaws. “The federal government has lied to the people
of this country about marijuana,” he said. “My Republican
colleagues today will make a number of arguments against
this bill, but those arguments are overwhelmingly losing
with the American people.”
Gaetz is among a small group of Republicans who say
publicly that it is a matter of political malpractice that
the party has not taken a softer line on federal
marijuana laws.
“The leadership is sort of stuck,” said Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.),
who went on to allude to the infamous 1936 prohibitionist
film “Reefer Madness.” “I always jokingly say … they were
all in the theater watching. And they’re still sort of of this
belief that marijuana is going to destroy the world somehow.”
Pro-pot activists are facing another major setback in winning
support in the Republican ranks: the Nov. 3 loss of Sen. Cory
Gardner (R-Colo.), who emerged as an especially fervent
advocate for the cannabis industry in the Republican ranks.
It is unclear who — beyond Paul, a libertarian often estranged
from his party’s leadership — might take up the mantle.
Still, advocates of marijuana legalization say the passage of
the bill in the House is a watershed moment in the long struggle
to roll back marijuana prohibition, and many see it as only
a matter of time before it becomes an issue of bipartisan concern.
Maritza Perez of Drug Policy Alliance said the partisan nature
of the marijuana debate on Capitol Hill reflects the deeply
divided nature of Congress rather than an intractable difference
on policy.
“The tide is really turning on this issue, and I think it’s just
something the government can’t ignore anymore,” said Perez,
her organization’s director of national affairs. “Congress is
going to have to come to the table and address this.”
The imperatives go beyond the political shift, according to
Randal John Meyer, the executive director of the Global
Alliance for Cannabis Commerce, who said businesses in
states that have legalized marijuana are facing an
increasingly incoherent legal and regulatory framework.
“It’s reached a critical tipping point where the basics of
letting someone work and do their job consistent with
state law and state licenses runs against the federal
prohibitionist stance of Republicans,” said Meyer, a former
aide to Paul. “That tension can’t hold; it’s reaching past
the breaking point.”
Republicans, he added, will find their anti-pot stance to
be increasingly at odds with their more fundamental
pro-business, anti-regulation tenets. Referring to the
descheduling effort, he said, “The Democratic Party is
trying to actually generate new business and new industry
with this and to help recover the economy.”
But interviews with several Republican lawmakers revealed
a fundamental reluctance to loosen pot restrictions — even
in states where voters have endorsed legalization measures.
In Arizona last month, 60 percent of voters chose to pursue
legalization, but Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said she was
not inclined to loosen federal laws, given her concerns about
addiction after speaking to teens in addiction recovery programs.
“Every one of them — they said they started by using marijuana,”
she said. ‘I am not saying that every person that smokes
marijuana is going to be addicted to harder drugs, but I am
concerned that we have so much costs associated with addiction
in our country.”
“With all that’s going on in our world, I just don’t necessarily
think this is the time,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who
represents a state where two-thirds of voters chose last month
to legalize marijuana. “There are certain points to be made.
But the bottom line is my concern for urban areas, concern
for kids.”
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who represents a state where
cannabis use has been legal for nearly seven years, said he
backed easing some of the commercial restrictions on the
pot industry. But, he said, “going as far as this bill goes is
going to make sense someday. I’m not sure it makes sense
right now.”
Advocates say they plan to redouble their efforts in the new
Congress, but a much tighter Democratic majority could
mean the bill that was passed Friday — the Marijuana
Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act — might
not come up again in the House, let alone in the Senate,
where McConnell has expressed firm opposition to legalizing
pot. But Democratic wins in the Jan. 5 Georgia runoff
elections for the U.S. Senate would sideline McConnell
and could open a narrow window for compromise action.
Perez said that the trend is clear and that more Republicans
are bound to change their views: “I really do believe that
November’s elections can help really start to shift some
of these members, realizing that this is going to happen
and they need to get on board.”
Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
*****
SOURCE
Washington Post
>https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-marijuana-republicans-election/2020/12/04/db2b00a8-35b0-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html
as GOP resists national shift
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), whose state has
legalized marijuana, says “Congress has failed to deal with a
disastrous war on drugs and do its part for the over 50 million
regular marijuana users” in the United States.
(Pete Marovich for The Washington Post)
By
Mike DeBonis
Dec. 4, 2020 at 2:34 p.m. EST
The House endorsed a landmark retreat in the nation’s decades-long
war on drugs Friday, voting to remove marijuana from the federal
schedule of controlled substances and provide for the regulation
and taxation of legal cannabis sales.
The vote was 228 to 164 and was the first time either chamber
of Congress has voted on the issue of federally decriminalizing cannabis.
The measure is not expected to pass into law, and, because of
political skittishness, it was voted on only after the November
election and more than a year after it emerged from committee.
But the House took a stand at a moment of increasing momentum,
with voters last month opting to liberalize marijuana laws in
five states — including three that President Trump won handily.
Friday’s vote, however, was largely along party lines, with
Democrats voting overwhelmingly to support the federal
decriminalization bill and all but five Republicans opposing it.
“We are not rushing to legalize marijuana — the American
people have already done that. We are here because Congress
has failed to deal with a disastrous war on drugs and do its
part for the over 50 million regular marijuana users in every
one of your districts,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.),
a longtime liberalization advocate. “We need to catch up
with the rest of the American people.”
Top Republicans — including House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (Ky.) — made derisive public comments about
the bill this week, painting the measure as a frivolous
diversion from the task of funding the federal government
and delivering a new round of emergency coronavirus aid
to Americans.
One headline from McConnell: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) decides to “puff, puff, pass” on emergency
coronavirus relief.
Momentum builds for bipartisan $908 billion stimulus package
as more GOP senators express support
“It’s just unbelievable how tone-deaf they are to these small
businesses and the jobs, the families that are tied to them,”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a Fox News
Channel interview Thursday, slamming Democratic leaders
for holding the vote.
But some are warning that Republicans risk finding themselves
out of step with their own voters, who are increasingly embracing
the loosening of marijuana restrictions — including outright
legalization.
On Election Day in South Dakota, for instance, 54 percent of
voters opted to legalize marijuana, while only 36 percent of
voters chose the Democratic presidential ticket. In Montana,
the 57 percent who voted to legalize marijuana nearly matched
the number who voted to reelect Trump. And Mississippi became
the first state in the Deep South to legalize marijuana for
medical use, with 62 percent of voters approving a ballot measure
in a state where Trump won 58 percent of the vote.
Fifteen states have legalized recreational cannabis to some degree,
and 36 states have approved medical marijuana programs, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level would not end
the vast majority of cannabis-use prosecutions, which occur
in state courts. But it would end troublesome conflicts between
state and federal law for those states that have loosened
pot restrictions and would greatly ease commerce for the
multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.
Public opinion appears to be in line with the state-level
electoral trend. In October, Gallup found that 68 percent
of Americans said the use of marijuana should be legal,
the highest support for marijuana legalization since the
polling organization first asked in 1969.
Only 8 percent of Americans say marijuana should be
completely illegal
While overwhelming proportions of Democrats and
independents supported legalization, Republicans were
split: 52 percent for legalization and 48 percent against —
figures that have changed only slightly in recent years.
But that near 50-50 split among Republican voters is
not even close to being mirrored in the GOP lawmaker
ranks. Only two of 17 House Republicans, Reps. Matt
Gaetz (Fla.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.), supported
the bill in the Judiciary Committee.
The prospects of winning Republican support for the
House bill were complicated by some of its provisions —
such as the establishment of a 5 percent federal excise
tax that would in part fund programs for “individuals
most adversely impacted by the War on Drugs,” job
training, legal aid in seeking to expunge marijuana
convictions, and mentoring programs.
The bill also provides for the expungement of federal
marijuana convictions dating to 1971 and bars the
denial of federal public benefits or security clearances
on the basis of marijuana offenses.
That has turned off some libertarian-minded Republicans
who might otherwise support eliminating marijuana
restrictions. “Tax and spend,” said Rep. Thomas
Massie (Ky.), who said he would have considered
voting for the bill had Democratic leaders allowed a
vote on an amendment to eliminate the tax component.
Gaetz said Friday that he was voting for the bill despite
the flaws. “The federal government has lied to the people
of this country about marijuana,” he said. “My Republican
colleagues today will make a number of arguments against
this bill, but those arguments are overwhelmingly losing
with the American people.”
Gaetz is among a small group of Republicans who say
publicly that it is a matter of political malpractice that
the party has not taken a softer line on federal
marijuana laws.
“The leadership is sort of stuck,” said Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.),
who went on to allude to the infamous 1936 prohibitionist
film “Reefer Madness.” “I always jokingly say … they were
all in the theater watching. And they’re still sort of of this
belief that marijuana is going to destroy the world somehow.”
Pro-pot activists are facing another major setback in winning
support in the Republican ranks: the Nov. 3 loss of Sen. Cory
Gardner (R-Colo.), who emerged as an especially fervent
advocate for the cannabis industry in the Republican ranks.
It is unclear who — beyond Paul, a libertarian often estranged
from his party’s leadership — might take up the mantle.
Still, advocates of marijuana legalization say the passage of
the bill in the House is a watershed moment in the long struggle
to roll back marijuana prohibition, and many see it as only
a matter of time before it becomes an issue of bipartisan concern.
Maritza Perez of Drug Policy Alliance said the partisan nature
of the marijuana debate on Capitol Hill reflects the deeply
divided nature of Congress rather than an intractable difference
on policy.
“The tide is really turning on this issue, and I think it’s just
something the government can’t ignore anymore,” said Perez,
her organization’s director of national affairs. “Congress is
going to have to come to the table and address this.”
The imperatives go beyond the political shift, according to
Randal John Meyer, the executive director of the Global
Alliance for Cannabis Commerce, who said businesses in
states that have legalized marijuana are facing an
increasingly incoherent legal and regulatory framework.
“It’s reached a critical tipping point where the basics of
letting someone work and do their job consistent with
state law and state licenses runs against the federal
prohibitionist stance of Republicans,” said Meyer, a former
aide to Paul. “That tension can’t hold; it’s reaching past
the breaking point.”
Republicans, he added, will find their anti-pot stance to
be increasingly at odds with their more fundamental
pro-business, anti-regulation tenets. Referring to the
descheduling effort, he said, “The Democratic Party is
trying to actually generate new business and new industry
with this and to help recover the economy.”
But interviews with several Republican lawmakers revealed
a fundamental reluctance to loosen pot restrictions — even
in states where voters have endorsed legalization measures.
In Arizona last month, 60 percent of voters chose to pursue
legalization, but Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said she was
not inclined to loosen federal laws, given her concerns about
addiction after speaking to teens in addiction recovery programs.
“Every one of them — they said they started by using marijuana,”
she said. ‘I am not saying that every person that smokes
marijuana is going to be addicted to harder drugs, but I am
concerned that we have so much costs associated with addiction
in our country.”
“With all that’s going on in our world, I just don’t necessarily
think this is the time,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who
represents a state where two-thirds of voters chose last month
to legalize marijuana. “There are certain points to be made.
But the bottom line is my concern for urban areas, concern
for kids.”
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who represents a state where
cannabis use has been legal for nearly seven years, said he
backed easing some of the commercial restrictions on the
pot industry. But, he said, “going as far as this bill goes is
going to make sense someday. I’m not sure it makes sense
right now.”
Advocates say they plan to redouble their efforts in the new
Congress, but a much tighter Democratic majority could
mean the bill that was passed Friday — the Marijuana
Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act — might
not come up again in the House, let alone in the Senate,
where McConnell has expressed firm opposition to legalizing
pot. But Democratic wins in the Jan. 5 Georgia runoff
elections for the U.S. Senate would sideline McConnell
and could open a narrow window for compromise action.
Perez said that the trend is clear and that more Republicans
are bound to change their views: “I really do believe that
November’s elections can help really start to shift some
of these members, realizing that this is going to happen
and they need to get on board.”
Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
*****
SOURCE
Washington Post
>https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-marijuana-republicans-election/2020/12/04/db2b00a8-35b0-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html
Semper Fidelis
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Nemo me impune lacessit