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D.C. Mayor Ratchets Down Marijuana Fight 
Posted by CN Staff on February 27, 2015 at 15:12:57 PT
By Aaron C. Davis
Source: Washington Post
Washington, D.C. -- D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) began to ratchet down her confrontation with conservatives in Congress in her first nationally televised interview after she rebuffed warnings from House Republicans and legalized marijuana.Bowser had said on Wednesday that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the head of the powerful House Oversight Committee, should stop “bullying” the District over a voter-approved ballot measure. She suggested instead that Chaffetz should focus on “his job,” including passing a budget deal to keep the Department of Homeland Security from shutting down.
But in an appearance late Thursday on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, Bowser never once mentioned Chaffetz by name and turned attention away from House Republican leadership, who could make her life difficult as mayor. Instead, the mayor returned the discussion over D.C. autonomy to a more familiar congressional bogeyman: Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris.“We have been especially antagonized by Representative Andy Harris,” Bowser said, beginning to explain the District’s now tortured legalization law. The drug is legal to possess, grow, share, carry, and in private, smoke, but selling and purchasing remain illegal – largely because of Harris.Harris was the one who convinced colleagues on the House Appropriations committee last year to seek a spending prohibition against letting D.C. loosen its marijuana laws. Most of Harris’s so called spending “rider” found its way into a massive budget bill passed and signed by the president in December.Harris and other conservatives contended that the measure legally prevented D.C. from enacting Initiative 71, the ballot measure approved a month earlier by seven in 10 D.C. voters. Bowser and other D.C. politicians took a different interpretation and said it only prevented the District from moving forward and passing additional legislation to sell and tax the drug.“It was complicated by Andy Harris,” Bowser said, repeating his name.An e-mail to Harris’s spokeswoman after the 9 p.m. airing of the Maddow show was not immediately returned.As she had a day earlier in a news conference, Bowser also left open room to rebuild a dialogue with House Republicans, saying the legal debate about the scope of the rider was one where “reasonable people” could disagree.“This is an issue where some people feel very strongly at the Congress, and they are speaking loudly, but our residents also spoke loud and clear last November,” Bowser said. “I’m the mayor. I was elected, and my job was to implement the people’s law. The people changed the law.”Maddow introduced Bowser, 42, as the “spunky new mayor” of the District. Compared to Colorado, Washington state, Alaska and Oregon that have also legalized marijuana, and have or plan to allow legal sales, Maddow said congressional restrictions made the city, by comparison, a “tiny, beleaguered non-state.”In the absence of a legal way to buy pot in D.C., but with home cultivation now allowed, Maddow mused that gardeners could ascend to new social orbits in the nation’s capital, which, on a screen behind her, was illuminated in green.“People who can garden . . . grow things out of dirt, those people are about to be more socially in demand than anybody else,” Maddow said.Bowser said the District's plight could be changed if allowed to become the 51st state.— a prospect that still has virtually no chance in Congress.“The answer for us, of course, is statehood so that Americans who live and pay taxes in the District of Columbia can have a voting member of Congress,” she said.Aaron Davis covers D.C. government and politics for The Post and wants to hear your story about how D.C. works — or how it doesn’t.Source: Washington Post (DC) Author:  Aaron DavisPublished: February 27, 2015Copyright: 2015 Washington Post CompanyContact: letters washpost.com Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ URL: http://drugsense.org/url/2mnhCKVoCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #8 posted by Hope on March 01, 2015 at 10:05:11 PT
Comment 7
That's funny.Maybe he can go visit someone that doesn't live on Federal land.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on February 28, 2015 at 06:57:11 PT
D.C. Legalizes Marijuana Today — a Cartoon Parody
Sketchbook: D.C. Legalizes Marijuana Today — a Cartoon Parodyhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/02/26/sketchbook-d-c-legalizes-marijuana-today-a-cartoon-parody/
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on February 27, 2015 at 23:39:17 PT
Interesting
Can Eric Holder change the federal drug classification of marijuana?http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/26/can-eric-holder-change-the-federal-drug-classification-of-marijuana/?tid=hybrid_linearcol_3_na
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Comment #5 posted by Hope on February 27, 2015 at 22:48:21 PT
Winning.... We always knew we would.
Ultimately, we had to. We knew it. We knew we would. Because it was right and we were and are right. The injustice and destruction of so much good and so many people, destroyed and harmed, so unrighteously, just could not continue. It could not stand forever. The viciousness had to be stopped. It had to be.Yes. We are. We are winning. Technically, we always have been winning. It just didn't look like it so much.Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.We Will! We will! Rock You!Stomp! Stomp!
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on February 27, 2015 at 20:38:02 PT
Sam
You are right!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by FoM on February 27, 2015 at 20:37:23 PT
John Tyler
We are winning!
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Comment #2 posted by John Tyler on February 27, 2015 at 18:16:36 PT
Legal in D.C.
Well, after all is said and done by Congress, growing your own (six plants) and using in private in D.C. is legal. It’s legal. It’s legal. It’s legal. That is an accomplishment. We should all be happy with it and move on to the next goal of full relegalization. It’s a rush to do good. Way to go everybody for all your hard work. Keep it up. We have the momentum and are winning this.
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Comment #1 posted by Sam Adams on February 27, 2015 at 17:17:02 PT
we're living in a banana republic
Cannabis law is such a fascinating subject because it's so revealing - it pulls back the curtain to expose that we're not living a free country with rational laws. not even close! it's a corrupt police state with fancy window dressings, that's all it is. Look at these people joke around about ascending social orbits when the reality is that they've sent stormtroopers to beat down and imprison thousands of poor black men in DC for decades.  And now the people have directly voted by 70 to 30 - over 2 to 1 - to stop this cruel attack, and look at the response.  We are living in a Spanish Inquisition!
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