cannabisnews.com: Growing Outrage










  Growing Outrage

Posted by CN Staff on July 23, 2003 at 14:27:13 PT
By Jacob Sullum 
Source: Reason Magazine  

Today the House of Representatives rejected an amendment aimed at stopping federal raids on patients who use marijuana and people who provide it to them in states that recognize the drug as a medicine. Sponsored by Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Calif.), the amendment would have forbidden the Justice Department (which includes the Drug Enforcement Administration) from spending money to tear up plants, close down clubs, or arrest patients or providers.
The amendment was defeated by a vote of 273 to 152, which is closer than might have been expected. The vote in favor of a 1998 House resolution condemning state medical marijuana laws was 310 to 93. It looks like supporters of the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment were right in thinking that five years of watching the DEA's cruel and senseless campaign against medical marijuana had changed some minds on Capitol Hill. "Given the growing outrage over the DEA's raids on patients and caregivers in California," Steve Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project said before the vote, "we expect it to be much closer this time." There is another way to look at this amendment: not as an endorsement of medical marijuana or an expression of sympathy for patients who use it to make their lives more bearable, but as a modest step toward enforcing the Constitution. Strictly speaking, the amendment was redundant, since the Constitution does not authorize the DEA's raids on medical marijuana users and growers. Consider Ed Rosenthal, who grew marijuana in Oakland for patients in the Bay Area who were permitted to use it under state law. The pot never left California, so it's hard to see why it's the federal government's business. Yet Rosenthal was arrested by the DEA and tried in federal court. Convicted on marijuana cultivation charges, he could have gotten five years or more in federal prison but was sentenced to time served (one day) by U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer, who turned out to be more sympathetic than he initially seemed. The Justice Department is appealing the sentence, arguing that Breyer impermissibly departed from what should have been the mandatory minimum. Rosenthal, for his part, is appealing the conviction. One of his arguments is that the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the authority to "regulate Commerce...among the several States," cannot be stretched to cover his purely local activities. The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which ran a pot farm 15 miles north of Santa Cruz that the DEA raided in September, makes a similar argument in a federal lawsuit filed last April. The suit, which has been joined by the city and county of Santa Cruz, seeks a court order that would keep the DEA away from patients' plants. The Commerce Clause argument is not a plea for mercy: Have pity on the poor patients! It's a demand: Mind your own business! Under the federal system created by the Constitution, a state can make marijuana legal for medical purposes, or for any purpose at all, and the national government has no authority to negate that decision. Even for opponents of the war on drugs who have their doubts about the medical marijuana movement, this is a principle worth fighting for. Substantial changes in the drug laws are most likely to come at the state level, but only if the federal government decides to step back and respect the Constitution. This argument looks like a winner—but only if you don't realize how elastic the Commerce Clause has become in the Supreme Court's hands since the New Deal. In a notorious 1942 case, for instance, the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause allowed the federal government to stop a farmer from growing wheat on his own land even if he never sold it. By growing what he otherwise would have purchased, the Court reasoned, he affected the demand for wheat, thereby implicating interstate commerce, since wheat is bought and sold between states. If the Commerce Clause covers wheat grown for home consumption, surely it covers weed grown for local consumption. Then again, in recent years the Court has rediscovered limits to the Commerce Clause. If the clause does not authorize Congress to ban gun possession near a school, can it possibly authorize Congress to ban marijuana possession everywhere? Whatever the Supreme Court might decide, members of Congress have a duty to stop the federal government from overstepping its proper bounds. Today's vote was an opportunity to do that. You can judge your representative's respect for the Constitution by how he responded. Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason, is the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, forthcoming in May from Tarcher/Putnam. Note: The DEA's medical marijuana raids show contempt for the Constitution. Source: Reason Magazine (US)Author: Jacob SullumPublished: July 23, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Reason FoundationContact: letters reason.comWebsite: http://www.reason.com/ Related Articles & Web Sites:WAMMhttp://www.wamm.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Ed Rosenthal's Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmPutting a Face on Feds' War on Medicinal Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16886.shtmlStates' Rights Tested in Marijuana Court Battles http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16850.shtml

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Comment #15 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 22:16:52 PT
The Debate: Hinchey - Rohrabacher MMJ Amendment
I didn't think I would be able to get this done until tomorrow but luckily the weather held and I was able to get them up.Parts 1 & 2: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16934.shtmlParts 3 & 4: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16933.shtml
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 21:39:17 PT
The Debate: Hinchey/Rohrabacher MMJ Amendment
Hi Everyone,Here are the transcripts from the Debate yesterday. I've tried to get them posted but had another power outage and lost the post. I'll will archive the transcripts tomorrow when the weather settles down. I had 3 outages today! My poor computer!Part: 1 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03.n1110.a09.html 
Part: 2 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1111/a01.html Part: 3 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1111/a02.html Part: 4 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1111/a03.html
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Comment #13 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on July 23, 2003 at 21:11:47 PT
Voting
Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert voted for it! Isn't he ultra-right-wing?
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 18:17:05 PT
Press Release from The Marijuana Policy Project
 
U.S. House Votes 152-273 to End DEA's War on Medical Marijuana Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:24:30 -0400 (EDT) Dear Friend:Today, July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives surprised the nation by voting 152-273 on an amendment that would have prevented the DEA and the U.S. Justice Department from spending any more money to raid and prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers. This is the first time in the history of the country that the full House or Senate has voted on legislation to end the federal government's war on medical marijuana.Today's vote was closer than anyone had expected, in large part because of the letters that members and allies of the Marijuana Policy Project have been faxing to their U.S. representatives. MPP -- in conjunction with the American Liberty Foundation, Americans for Safe Access, Change the Climate, Drug Policy Alliance, Drug Reform Coordination Network, and the Libertarian Party -- generated tens of thousands of faxes, e-mails, and phone calls to Capitol Hill in the past few days, showing U.S. House members for the first time the collective strength of the medical marijuana grassroots movement.I want to publicly thank U.S. Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Sam Farr (D-CA) for sponsoring the amendment and giving strong speeches on the House floor yesterday in support of today's vote.Would you please do two things right now to help MPP follow up on today's vote?* Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA/donate.html to donate to MPP's congressional lobbying efforts, which are severely underfunded.* Please visit http://www.mpp.org/DefundDEA to fax a pre-written letter of praise or "punishment" to your U.S. House member.======================================================================Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA/donate.html to donate to MPP's congressional lobbying efforts.For months leading up to today's vote, the MPP staff has spent hundreds of hours (1) lobbying on Capitol Hill, (2) working with numerous U.S. representatives to send letters of support to their colleagues, (3) lining up congressional sponsors and news coverage on H.R. 1717, the "Truth in Trials Act," currently pending in the U.S. House, (4) generating votes and publicity on medical marijuana amendments in committee that built momentum for today's vote in the full House, and (5) keeping you informed of all these congressional developments through MPP's e-mail alerts.In addition, MPP worked with the Drug Policy Alliance and the American Civil Liberties Union to take out a full-page ad in today's issue of "Roll Call," which all members of Congress and their staff read. Please see http://www.mpp.org/DefundDEA/ad for the ad.Of the 32,000 subscribers on this e-mail list, approximately 6,000 are current dues-paying members, 3,000 are people who have let their memberships in MPP expire, and 1,000 are people whose memberships will be expiring within the next month. To determine your membership expiration date, please check your membership card that we mailed you a couple weeks ago, which was included with our annual report. If you did not receive that mailing, then you are one of the 22,000 people on this e-mail list who have never donated to MPP.We need to continue turning up the heat on Congress to ensure that our next vote is even stronger than today's vote, which will take more time and money. Unfortunately, MPP's members are donating less money to our work this year than they did last year, despite the fact that MPP has more victories to speak of, including the enactment of our medical marijuana bill in Maryland on May 22 -- the first time a Republican governor has signed such medical marijuana legislation.Would you please consider using this opportunity to visit http://www.mpp.org/USA/donate.html to renew your membership, make a special donation, or join MPP for the first time?======================================================================Please visit http://www.mpp.org/DefundDEA to fax a letter of praise or "punishment" to your U.S. House member.As I mentioned above, faxes from individuals across the country had a significant impact on this vote. I am now hoping that you will continue to make Congress aware of the widespread support for medical marijuana by responding to your U.S. representative's vote. If we hope to have greater success in the future, it is critically important that members of Congress receive feedback from their constituents after casting votes on marijuana policy reform.Visit http://www.mpp.org/house2003 to see how your U.S. representative voted. You will then be able to select the appropriate Take Action item, depending on whether your U.S. representative voted "yes" or "no" on the amendment.In either case, you will simply need to enter your address, click to choose a sample letter, and then hit send when the letter appears. The entire process will take only two minutes. Of course, you should feel free to edit the letter as you like.======================================================================What is MPP's analysis of today's vote and our plan for the future?Although we lost today, the vote was an impressive showing when one considers that (1) fully 67% of House Democrats voted for the amendment, which is about the same percentage of the American people who support medical marijuana, and (2) a surprising 15 House Republicans bucked their hostile congressional leaders and the White House to vote "yes" for our amendment.Of the 10 House members who weren't present for today's vote, four verifiably would have voted for our amendment, which means we now have 156 of the 218 votes that are needed to achieve the ultimate victory on the House floor. Or, to look at it another way, of the 279 House members who either voted "no" or weren't present today, we need to persuade only 62 to come to our side in order to attain a 218-vote majority.The medical marijuana movement has come a long way since 1998, when we lost a House floor vote on a non-binding medical marijuana resolution by a substantial 311-94 margin. (The 1998 vote was the only other roll-call vote on any kind of medical marijuana legislation on the House or Senate floor in history.) Today's vote was much closer, and it was on a binding, strong piece of legislation that would have ended the federal government's war on medical marijuana.We are now within striking distance of victory, and we expect another vote on the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment on next year's U.S. Justice Department spending bill, which would take place in the summer of 2004. Between now and then, MPP will be organizing supportive constituents in the congressional districts of the 62 or more House members who did not vote "yes" today -- but whom we have identified as the most persuadable on our issue.To achieve this majority support in the House, we need you to (1) donate to MPP today, and (2) use our on-line fax system to praise or punish your House member for how he or she voted today.Thank you in advance if you are willing to take action in these two ways.Sincerely,Rob Kampia Executive Director Marijuana Policy Project Washington, D.C.P.S. In the meantime, we have been working with supportive U.S. senators to introduce a medical marijuana bill in the Senate later this year. We'll update you on our progress on the Senate side this fall.P.P.S. Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA/donate.html or write to MPP, P.O. Box 77492, Washington, D.C. 20013 to donate to our lobbying work on Capitol Hill.http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=420Text of Yesterday's House Vote on MMJ: http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/dofcomm.htm 
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Comment #11 posted by SoberStoner on July 23, 2003 at 17:46:26 PT
I am Ashamed..
The members opposing it were Rep. Frank Wolf 
(R-VA),This guy is MY representative...this is MY letter to him since I didnt want to just send a form letter.I plan on letting everyone I can find in your district (where I live) know how you favor putting sick people in cages and possibly subjecting them to brutal prison rapes because of a plant, due to your opposition to the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment to the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill, which would have prohibited the Justice Department from spending funds to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. For 70 years people have been lied to about cannabis, it's uses and it's effects. In over 5000 years of recorded use, not ONE person has died from a cannabis overdose. How many thousands die from prescription and over the counter drugs every year?Numerous studies have shown little to no harmful effect from long term use of cannabis. I highly suggest you research the recent University of California San Diego study. Published in the July issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, the study involved a quantitative synthesis of 15 previously published research studies on the non-acute (residual) effects of cannabis on the neurocognitive performance of adult human subjects. How much of an effect does arresting, prosecuting, and caging a person for this plant cost, in both monetary and personal costs? Our policy concerning cannabis is shameful, corrupt and just plain WRONG. I fully advise you to change your position now, or at least research it, because I will see you on the campaign trail in the upcoming year, and cannabis prohibition will be a topic you have to deal with. I'll see you soon.
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Comment #10 posted by SoberStoner on July 23, 2003 at 17:30:12 PT
For those not on the NORML newslist...
Take Action Now!
http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=2948301&type=CODear NORML Supporter:NORML would like to thank those of you who took the time to write your
member of Congress in support of the Hinchey/Rohrabacher medical 
marijuana
amendment to the CJS Appropriations bill. This amendment, if passed,
would have prohibited the Justice Department from spending any money
interfering in states with active medical marijuana programs. It would
have essentially put an end to the DEA raids of patients and caregivers 
in
California.For those who missed it last night, there was a spirited debate on the
House floor with emotions running high on both sides. The members
speaking in support of the amendment were Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY),
Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Rep. Dennis Kucinich 
(D-OH),
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Rep. Sheila
Jackson-Lee (D-TX). The members opposing it were Rep. Frank Wolf 
(R-VA),
Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), Rep. John Mica 
(R-FL),
and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX).Although the amendment was ultimately voted down by a vote of 152-273, 
we
are pleased with the level of support that medical marijuana received 
in
the House of Representatives. This was the first time since 1998 that
members of Congress were forced to record a vote on this important 
issue,
and based on the outcome of the vote, it is clear that support in 
Congress
for medical marijuana continues to increase.Below you will find a list of Representatives who voted for the
Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment. If your Representative is on the list,
please take two minutes today to send them a letter thanking them for
their support of medical marijuana. These courageous legislators need 
to
know that they have the support of their constituents. If your member 
of
Congress did not support the Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment, they can 
make
up for it by adding their name as a co-sponsor to the States' Right to
Medical Marijuana Act.NORML has created pre-written letters for those members of Congress who
supported the amendment and those who voted against it. Please take 
two
minutes and send a pre-written letter to your member of Congress at:
http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=2948301&type=COThank you for your help and for taking the time to support NORML's 
medical
marijuana efforts.Regards,Kris Krane
Associate Director
NORML
Send a letter now, it only takes a few seconds!
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Comment #9 posted by mayan on July 23, 2003 at 17:20:57 PT
Roll Call "420"???
WOW!!! Is that just a coincidence? Notice how Gephardt didn't vote on it? He has his eyes on the White House & knows he won't get there if he opposes mmj! Remember those names & how they voted. Kick the "noes" out onto the street the next time they are up for re-election. By the way, Ron Paul voted for the amandment. I think someone said he voted against it on another thread. The "inner" RepubliCrat Party, since being owned by the corporations,will never recognize the will of the people. Until there is a viable third party things will remain the same in Amerika.Remember how they voted...
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=420The way out is the way in...Rap feds on 9/11 report clearing U.S.: 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/103057p-93282c.htmlStatement of Mindy Kleinberg to the 9/11 Commission:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing1/witness_kleinberg.htmWho's who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission:
http://onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/072103Chossudovsky/072103chossudovsky.htmlPoll shows many Germans see U.S. behind 9/11:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23109558.htmThe real culprits behind 9/11?
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11369/11 Prior Knowledge/Government Involvement Archive:
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/archiveprior_knowledgeFTW AD RUNS IN THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC!
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ad_updates.html
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Comment #8 posted by Petard on July 23, 2003 at 17:03:22 PT:
Commerce Clause?
I read the transcript of the debate preceding the vote. One of the idiots, I mean Congressmen, against it linked the Commerce Clause on the basis of essentially "workers making products for sale who smoke are less productive". He's apparently unaware of the studies showing smoking a little cannabis actually benefits assembly line workers as it provides mental stimulation in a mind numbing work environment. He's obviously unaware too of the prevalent use of cannabis by IT workers who make all this software and hardware that drives and makes more efficient industry nowadays.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 15:26:43 PT
CorvallisEric
Be kind my mind is delicate today! LOL! 420!!! 
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Comment #6 posted by TroutMask on July 23, 2003 at 15:25:47 PT
Clarification
It is illegal BECAUSE it is covered by commerce, not in spite of the fact.-TM
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Comment #5 posted by CorvallisEric on July 23, 2003 at 15:24:33 PT
Roll call #420 - did someone plan it?
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=420
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 15:12:33 PT
BigDawg
Good point! Laws confuse me so much! LOL!
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Comment #3 posted by BigDawg on July 23, 2003 at 14:46:37 PT
I mean...
it is Schedule 1 right? No recognized market at all. How does this have a bearing on business?
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Comment #2 posted by BigDawg on July 23, 2003 at 14:44:09 PT
I find this part funny
>If the Commerce Clause covers wheat grown for home consumption, surely it covers weed grown for local consumption.Umm, if it is ILLEGAL how can it be covered by commerce? LOL
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 23, 2003 at 14:34:10 PT
I Appreciate Jacob Sullum
Another good article.
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