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Don't Let Sessions Turn Back Clock on Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on October 14, 2017 at 08:00:51 PT
Editorial
Source: Baltimore Sun 
Maryland -- How ironic is it that conservatives who routinely criticize the federal government’s allegedly heavy-handed intrusions into state and local affairs seem to have no problem with such interventions when the overreach happens to advance policies dear to their own hearts?This year we’ve seen a lot of this kind of back-and-forth, including the Trump administration’s insistence on punishing so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to go out of their way to assist in the White House’s harsh immigration policies. Another example surfaced last week with reports that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is urging Congress to make medical marijuana programs illegal in Maryland and the 30 other jurisdictions that have approved legislation shielding use of the drug for medicinal purposes from criminal prosecution.
To anyone not blinded by Mr. Sessions’ ideological obsession with turning back the clock in the war on drugs, this is clearly a fool’s errand. That train has already left the station, and there’s no turning back. For at least a decade there’s been a widespread public consensus that state and local jurisdictions can serve as laboratories where models for legalizing medical marijuana are developed and tested. That effort had reached a critical stage in Maryland when Mr. Sessions abruptly intervened by urging Congress not to renew a provision of federal law that holds patients, physicians and growers harmless for using, prescribing or selling the drug.Mr. Sessions’ impulse to revive discredited policies of the past is part of a more general backward-looking understanding of his office, which he sees as an instrument for rolling back the progressive reforms of his predecessors, former Obama administration attorneys general Eric H. Holder Jr. and Loretta Lynch, no matter how harmful the effect in light of present day realities. We now know, for example, that the policies of “zero tolerance” and mass incarceration that characterized crime-fighting from the 1980s until recently were actually counterproductive because they left millions of people with criminal records that rendered them virtually unemployable, and that harsher sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug offenses doubled and redoubled the U.S. prison population without making America’s streets any safer.Moreover the draconian enforcement of laws prohibiting marijuana use not only stripped millions of people of their voting privileges but also strained relations between police departments and the communities they served nearly to the breaking point and tore at the fabric of society in ways that made it more rather than less difficult to bring violent criminals to justice. The civil unrest and violence engendered by those failures were on full display in the bloody aftermath of Freddie Gray’s 2015 death in police custody.Mr. Sessions evidently would rather re-establish the status quo against marijuana that existed 40 years ago than look ahead to any possible benefits the appropriately regulated use of the drug might confer on society in general and on people suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses in particular. We urge Congress to avoid adopting the attorney general’s myopic view of the issue. Throughout the years-long debate over medical marijuana we have consistently urged caution on the part of state lawmakers charged with drafting legislation governing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes. The result has been a variety of approaches to the issue that seek to maximize the potential benefits of medical marijuana while protecting the public from potentially deleterious effects. The process here hasn’t always been handled well, but it has been far from careless where public safety is concerned.If Mr. Sessions has persuasive scientific evidence showing that the costs of legalizing medical marijuana significantly outweigh the benefits, he should present it to Maryland lawmakers and the public so the issue can be debated in an open and fair manner that gives both proponents and opponents of the idea a chance to defend their views. We rather doubt it, though. Mr. Sessions’ views about marijuana may be rooted in the Reefer Madness era, but the majority of voters in Maryland and dozens of other states see things differently. Congress should side with them.Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)Published: October 13, 2017Copyright: 2017 The Baltimore SunContact: letters baltsun.comWebsite: http://www.baltimoresun.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/DGQVknNsCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #7 posted by Had Enough on October 18, 2017 at 16:32:58 PT
Bill Bennett Puke Fest...
Puke Fest...Bill Bennett is on Fox News stating that when he was drug czar...illegal drug use was down 50 %...He thought gambling using the back doors of casinos was cool though...Moral Compass (name of a book he wrote) my ass...liar...gambler...And I could care less about gambling...It's the lies and using the back doors that make him uncredible...Didn't spend the milk money...what an ass...I though we would never hear from this dolt again...
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on October 16, 2017 at 16:55:14 PT
Six percent in two years.
That's why Sessions and prohibitionists don't and won't give a tinker's damn. They don't see those numbers as lives. They might pay attention if the number was like seventy percent. But not six percent. It's insignificant to them. They would not turn the plague of the herb loose on the people for such a paltry statistic as that.
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on October 16, 2017 at 12:32:44 PT
Just 1 aspect... LOWER OPIOID DEATHS.
Recreational marijuana is saving lives in Colorado, study findsOpioid deaths fall following the legalization of recreational marijuana sales in the stateBy Christopher Ingraham, The Washington PostMarijuana legalization in Colorado led to a “reversal” of opiate overdose deaths in that state, according to new research published in the American Journal of Public Health.“After Colorado’s legalization of recreational cannabis sale and use, opioid-related deaths decreased more than 6% in the following 2 years,” write authors Melvin D. Livingston, Tracey E. Barnett, Chris Delcher and Alexander C. Wagenaar.http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/10/16/colorado-opioid-deaths-marijuana-legalization/90145/-0-My thoughts:There's many reasons people in general are increasingly supporting the RE-legalization of cannabis, making it virtually imposable for ignoids to go backwards.1 reason is becoming more exposed and relevant as informed above. America is experiencing a problem related to opioids. People and families without bounds are effected.More and more, studies, statistics and citizens experience are pointing toward cannabis helping lower the use of opioids.Less people die where cannabis has been RE-legalized. Less still once cannabis is RE-legalized on a nation level and on a continental level and finally a planetary level.DON'T LET AN IGNORANT SESSIONS INCREASE OPIOID DEATHS. Let's be real though; opioids are a very important pain remedy that must always be available for extreme pain.
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Comment #4 posted by HempWorld on October 14, 2017 at 16:49:48 PT
Don't let Sessions Clean Your Clock On Marijuana!
This is what is so wrong with this (American) system or as Peter Tosh (Oh Master, praise thy) calls it the ShitStem:How can some white lone nut bag from the South have so much power and so much ignorance?Meanwhile, USA, God Bless the people, legalizes slowly but surely (don't call me Shirley... ) and "Disjointed" becomes the new "Weeds" if you are old enough to remember that one...On and on, insanity in full display!
Disjointed, so funny!
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on October 14, 2017 at 11:29:06 PT
As the article states,
The direction We are headed in leads toward ending cannabis prohibition.-one of America's worst policy failures in history.They can hardly even slow it down at this point.Onward.
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Comment #2 posted by Soupherb on October 14, 2017 at 09:33:48 PT:
NOT FOR THE PEOPLE
but purely for corporate profits...governments aren't accountable for their failures just like white collar crime.
Governments have learned to work for money instead of the voters and taxpayers by hook and by crook and they get away with it, a lot...wow.
The complete stupidity of it all is just astounding.
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Comment #1 posted by John Tyler on October 14, 2017 at 08:16:17 PT
shameless hypocrites
The conservatives are such shameless hypocrites. I wish they could look in a mirror and see how hateful they actually are.
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