Hoyer vs. Murtha on drug policy

After reading that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is supporting Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader (Frank is one of the best members of Congress as far as our issue is concerned -- he has spoken at several of our events), I decided to take a look at how their records look on drug policy. According to Cannabis Culture magazine's "USA 2006 Stoner Voters Guide [9]," John Murtha scored a "failure" grade, opposing medical marijuana by voting against the Hinchey amendment, supporting aerial coca eradication in Colombia (spraying of poisons) and other evils. He did vote against increasing funds for the Byrne grant program to the task forces. Hoyer, by contrast, scored an A -- the only Hoyer vote Cannabis Culture didn't like was for authorizing continuation of the drug czar's office. According to the Drug Policy Alliance voter guide [10], Hoyer, while not leading any drug policy reform efforts, nevertheless scored 100% correct on issues of recent concern, compared with a 33% showing by Murtha. If I'm not mistaken, Murtha did vote in favor of the Hinchey medical marijuana amendment two years ago, but switched to anti- last year and again this year. Perhaps then there is hope for him. But in the meanwhile, as far as drug policy reform is concerned, Hoyer has a far better record. (This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)