cannabisnews.com: States Legalizing MJ Will Violate Federal Law
function share_this(num) {
 tit=encodeURIComponent('States Legalizing MJ Will Violate Federal Law');
 url=encodeURIComponent('http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/27/thread27129.shtml');
 site = new Array(5);
 site[0]='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[1]='http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit.php?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[2]='http://digg.com/submit?topic=political_opinion&media=video&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[3]='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[4]='http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 window.open(site[num],'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=620,height=500');
 return false;
}






States Legalizing MJ Will Violate Federal Law
Posted by CN Staff on October 15, 2012 at 13:44:33 PT
By Matt Ferner
Source: Huffington Post
Washington, D.C. -- On a Monday teleconference call, former Drug Enforcement Agency administrators and directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy voiced a strong reminder to the U.S. Department of Justice that even if voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington pass ballot measures to legalize marijuana use for adults and tax its sale, the legalization of marijuana still violates federal law and the passage of these measures could trigger a "Constitutional showdown."The goal of the call was clearly to put more pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to make a public statement in opposition to these measures. With less than 30 days before Election Day, the DOJ has yet to announce its enforcement intentions regarding the ballot measures that, if passed, could end marijuana prohibition in each state.
"Next month in Colorado, Oregon and Washington states, voters will vote on legalizing marijuana," Peter Bensinger, the moderater of the call and former administrator of the DEA during President Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations, began the call. "Federal law, the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions say that this cannot be done because federal law preempts state law."Bensinger added: "And there is a bigger danger that touches every one of us -- legalizing marijuana threatens public health and safety. In states that have legalized medical marijuana, drug driving arrests, accidents, and drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed. Drug treatment admissions are up and the number of teens using this gateway drug is up dramatically."Bensinger was joined by a host of speakers including Bill Bennet and John Walters, former directors of the While House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Chief Richard Beary of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP); Dr. Robert L. DuPont, founding director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and who was also representing the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and several others. In response to the drug warriors calling out Holder again to take a strong public stance against these marijuana legalization measures, Mason Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group behind Colorado's Amendment 64 said to The Huffington Post:We believe anything claimed by participants on the call today needs to be taken with many grains of salt. These people have made a living off marijuana prohibition and the laws that keep this relatively benign substance illegal. The nation wastes billions of taxpayer dollars annually on the failed policy of marijuana prohibition and people like Bill Bennett and John Walters are among the biggest cheerleaders for wasting billions more. The call today should be taken as seriously as an event by former coal industry CEOs opposing legislation curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. They are stuck in a certain mindset and no level of evidence demonstrating the weakness of their position will change their views. This is an election about Colorado law and whether the people of Colorado believe that we should continue wasting law enforcement resources to maintain the failed policy of marijuana prohibition. Our nation was founded upon the idea that states would be free to determine their own policies on matters not delegated to the federal government. The Controlled Substance Act itself acknowledges that Congress never intended to have the federal government fully 'occupy the field' of marijuana policy. We hope the Obama administration respects these state-based policy debates. If Amendment 64 is adopted by the people of Colorado, there will be sufficient time before any new businesses are established for state and federal officials to discuss the implications.Today's call elaborated on a September letter that nine former DEA heads sent to Holder strongly urging him to oppose Amendment 64 in Colorado, Initiative 502 in Washington and Measure 80 in Oregon. "To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives," the nine said in the letter to holder obtained by Reuters.A month before the 2010 election in California, Holder vowed to "vigorously enforce" federal marijuana laws and warned that the government would not look the other way and allow a state marijuana market to emerge. California's Proposition 19 was narrowly defeated in 2010 and the pressure is on Holder again to voice opposition to these 2012 measures.When pressed by a reporter during a Q & A following the call if the group was at all surprised that Holder had not yet made a statement about the measures, former drug czar John Walters replied, "I think it's shocking. All you have to do is say things that this administration has already said. It would help enormously and I think it would defeat these measures."Both Colorado and Washington's pot ballot measures are quite popular with voters, according to recent polling and have been backed by an increasingly diverse group across a range of ideological perspectives.In Colorado, if marijuana is legalized it would be taxed and regulated similar to alcohol and tobacco. It would give state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana to adults age 21 and older. According to the Associated Press, analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state. An economist whose study was funded by a pro-pot group projects as much as a $60 million boost by 2017.Amendment 64 has received support from both Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, the NAACP, former cops and other members of the law enforcement community as well as more than 300 Colorado physicians andmore than 100 professors from around the nation. The measure appears to be popular among Colorado voters with several recent state polls showing wide support.In Washington, a 25 percent excise tax would be in place if the state passes Initiative 502, which state revenue experts say could generate as much as $1.9 billion over the next five years, The Seattle Times reported. If passed, the initiative would allow adults 21 and older to buy up limited amounts of marijuana or marijuana-infused food products and would create state-licensed growers and retailers.The Associated Press reports that if Washington's I-502 passes:• Public use or display of marijuana would be barred.• No marijuana facilities could be located near schools, day cares, parks or libraries.• Employers would still be able to fire workers who test positive for pot.• It would remain illegal to privately grow marijuana for recreational use, though medical patients could still grow their own or designate someone to grow it for them.• It would be illegal to drive with more than 5 nanograms of THC, the active ingredient of cannabis, per milliliter of blood, if the driver is over 21; for those under 21, there would be a zero tolerance policy.This is the second time that Colorado voters will decide on pot legislation -- state voters considered and rejected a similar recreational pot legalization initiative in 2006.Source: Huffington Post (NY)Author:  Matt FernerPublished: October 15, 2012Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC Contact: scoop huffingtonpost.comWebsite: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/Q0g1mdaRCannabisNews  -- Cannabis  Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help 
     
     
     
     




Comment #4 posted by John Tyler on October 15, 2012 at 20:00:51 PT
vote to legalize
The states should legalize it. The politicians have to be forced to do the right thing. That is what elections are for. The sky will not fall. The sun will still come up in the morning. The states will actually make quite a bit of money from it too. It will rock the prohibitionist though, but after a short while things will settle down and I’m sure the politicians can find something to spend the tax revenue on. That name… Hempstead. Sounds like homestead. The home farm. Could it be that this was a place where there were a lot of hemp farms? Maybe the people were proud of their farming and wanted to identify their area by their agricultural product.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by ekim on October 15, 2012 at 18:14:44 PT
Huffington Post -tell the story of Hempstead NY
the place where the President debate will be held tomorrow.What was it named after.How many towns in the USA have the same name.Why has our nations history of Hemp been removed from 
the schools.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by FoM on October 15, 2012 at 14:29:12 PT
It's Time
Let's get it done.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by Sam Adams on October 15, 2012 at 14:15:16 PT
progress
Nearly everyone can see that the Emperor's clothes are off now! It's about time
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment