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Good Drug Policy Bills to Be Introduced in Congress This Week

Last April we reported that US Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) was planning to introduce a bill to fully legalize marijuana. That is happening this week -- tomorrow, according to Mike Riggs at Reason -- though Barney Frank (D-MA) is taking the lead, with Polis as a cosponsor. Ron Paul (R-TX) is the sole Republican cosponsor.

Possibly this week, and soon in any case, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is reintroducing the "Major Drug Traffickers Prosecution Act." From her remarks at DPA's press conference last week:

This bill is similar to previous legislation that I have introduced since 1999, and it would begin to implement one of the suggested criminal justice reforms recommended by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.  The Major Drug Traffickers Prosecution Act of 2011 will: curb federal prosecutions of low-level and non-violent drug offenders; re-focus scarce federal resources to prosecute major drug kingpins, and give courts and judges greater discretion to place drug users on probation or suspend the sentence entirely.  Under this bill, judges will be able to make individualized determinations and take into account a defendant’s individual and unique circumstances rather than being held to a stringent sentencing requirement prescribed by Congress.

Check back for updates and action alerts supporting these two important bills.

Permission to Reprint: This article is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Yay!

Hooray!

Rock on, Ron Paul!

What about Jared Polish

What about Jared Polish

sweeeeet

DAE BAK!!!! (Korean for awesome) yeah i don't know though, congress is just a bunch of old alcoholic men so im not sure if many would go for it. I just hope the presentation goes well.

Free the people

   Allowing farmers to grow Hemp, would sincerely help the economy and the planet. Logical thing to do.

   Allowing farmers to grow Cannabis, would also help the economy and the planet. Ditto!!!!!!

   Anyone who knows the benefits of Hemp and Cannabis can truly speak on the subject.

   Anyone who does not know the benefits of Hemp and Cannabis does not speak truly.

   Free the people so that we may once again bring Peace an Prosperity to this Nation and the World. TRULY

  

Pot laws.

 

I live in a rural area of the Sierra Nevada mountains. There has always been a lot of pot growing going on up here for as long as I can remember. It has always been a cat and mouse game between the feds and the heads. In the last two years things have changed drastically. In stead of 100 plant gardens, there's 100,000 plant gardens. The crop is measured in 10s of tones, not pounds. Now there not even trying to hide it. It's is absolutely blatant, and totally out in the open. For all practical purposes it is essentially legal already. You can drive down the mountain roads, and smell it every other mile or so. You don't need a drug sniffing dog here. He11 I can smell it everywhere. This year is already shaping up to be far larger than last year. It's like a green gold rush. Now just about every yard sports a few plants. It's starting to get in to the eco system, and is starting to grow wild around many lakes and rivers. The Sacramento river has 450 miles of pot growing along its banks from all those boaters throwing their seeds overboard. They might as well legalize it; nobody is obeying the law here.

Pot Laws Redux

I suppose the key difference here is that the general attitude towards cannabis in the Sierra Nevada region is radically different than in most other places within the United States. Great read nonetheless.

Maxine Water's bill sounds

Maxine Water's bill sounds absolutely astounding. How can you still advocate destroying peoples's lives and caging them for life for selling much desired recreational drugs? Plant based drugs in all likelihood. The people of USA want recreational drugs- they want cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin, so how can you advocate putting people in jail for life? Despicable shame as always on the disgusting Democrat and Republican war parties. They support and made these murderous imperialist and drug wars which are both highly linked! Decline to ever vote for either wing of the war party based on principles of not voting for your oppressor and murderer!

END CORRUPTION AND THE ABUSE OF OUR RIGHTS

Marijuana prohibition is a direct violation of our inalienable rights Thomas Jefferson claimed in the declaration of independence that are ours by birthright. This is what the declaration of independence says about an oppressive government and jackasses like Adolf Smith: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. The only question that remains is how long will we allow them to spit on us, stomp on our rights, and make a joke out of the declaration of independence and constitution and throw them out at gun point as is our fucking right?

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