From Westword: House of Representatives Approves Marijuana Legalization

23 thoughts on “From Westword: House of Representatives Approves Marijuana Legalization”

1. Congressman Doug Lamborn (Empty Suit Old School Drug Warrior, Colorado 5th), does not approve:

   In Colorado, we have seen the devastating effects of marijuana. Dispensaries sit on the corners that once held churches, often down the street from schools, and our homeless population is growing by the day. Even worse, our country is in the midst of a serious drug use crisis. We cannot pass extreme and unwise legislation that will only exacerbate this problem as well as infringe upon states’ rights. The MORE Act opens the floodgates to marijuana cultivation, distribution, and sale across America.

   “Furthermore, this bill would retroactively expunge federal marijuana convictions, potentially leading to the early release of convicted drug traffickers. We cannot continue to allow bad actors and criminal organizations to exploit our nation’s addiction crisis or endanger our youth. Even worse, the expanded use of marijuana amongst kids leads to extreme addiction rates and potentially long-term effects on the brain and mental health.

   For my part, I’m toying with the idea of calling my company’s security officer and asking him if I can consume edibles when marijuana comes off of schedule 1.Report

   1. Doug, gotta say: The homeless population is growing by the day because of the covid and evictions still going on despite the global pandemic.

      You know, the more I read that, the more I honestly wonder if we teach about Prohibition in schools. Or, noticing that he’s 20 years my elder, wondering if they taught about it in the 60’s.Report

      1. I know I learned about it, but I had a surprisingly good string of history teachers for a small farming community.Report

         1. “If we make it legal to drink beer, we’ll have to let the bootleggers out of jail!!!”

            I miss Joel Hefley.Report

            1. ::double thumbs up::Report

      2. Doug’s only six months younger than me, so he undoubtedly heard about Prohibition first hand from his grandparents.Report

         1. “Worked like a charm, Dougie! We just needed to crack a few more heads is all.”Report

            1. The story I remember the best was told by my grandmother about my great-grandmother, who was a staunch prohibitionist. Great-grandpa was having trouble getting to sleep. The local small-town doc had my great-grandma in and explained, “If you would like, I can prescribe a sleeping medication at $X per month. It’s basically ethanol with some flavoring. Or for a tenth of that, you can buy a jug of the wine that Tony down on Third Street makes and give Bill a glass of that an hour before he goes to bed.” Great-grandma was also noted for pinching pennies until they screamed, and opted for Tony’s.Report

               1. My mom has stories from her grandparents during Prohibition. Stuff like Mama finding out that one of the cousins got a bottle of whiskey and asking for some for the medicine cabinet and pouring half the bottle into her own container, maintaining eye contact, and daring the cousin to say something.

                  The cousin did not.Report

   2. We cannot continue to allow bad actors […] to exploit our nation’s addiction crisis or endanger our youth.

      And here I’d always though of Keanu Reeves as a pretty good guy.Report

   3. “Dispensaries sit on the corners that once held churches]…”

      I’d love to see one address that used to hold a church and now holds a dispensary. I own’t even ask that it be a corner or down the street from a school. Just show me the church-turned-dispensary. One will do.Report

      1. I *MIGHT* give him a pass on this one. Colorado Springs has a large number of strip malls that have fallen into disuse over the last couple of decades. One of the things that pops up in empty strip mall spaces are churches. Another is dispensaries.

         So I can easily imagine a strip mall church that gets replaced by a strip mall dispensary a few months later.

         If you’re imagining a Methodist Church that was built to obviously be a Methodist Church and having that building replaced with a dispensary like that happened with that one KFC, I don’t think that there have been any of those…

         But the strip mall temporary businesses bubble up and then back down with a huge amount of churn.Report

2. I should note that this vote was along party lines with the Democratic Party voting for decriminalization and the Republican Party very much against it.Report

   1. I don’t know about you but when I read a line that says “oh, we’re going to tax it at 5%”, that says “legalization” rather than “decriminalization”.

      Even if it’s “officially” decrim.Report

      1. I think you would rather drugs be taxed than be illegal.Report

         1. And on this the government and I would agree.

            But it’s going for “decrim” instead.

            And taxing anyway.Report

            1. Legalization would break international treaties the US is a signatory too; Making it officially “decrim” avoids having to renegotiate the treaties first.

               Or Congress could ignore the legalities and just do what they feel like, because that’s worked so well over the past four years,Report

               1. I find it hilarious that you think that breaking a treaty would dissuade the US government from doing anything.Report

                  1. Both Canada and Mexico have legalized, and neither took the supposedly required action of withdrawing from the treaty. The UN seems inclined to simply ignore it.Report

                  2. A lot of noise was made about that in Canada at the time. Turns out nobody cared. Heck, even the US government didn’t kick up a fuss on the subject.Report

               2. This week the UN reclassified marijuana and derivatives from their Schedule IV (the most restrictive) to Schedule I. (Their classification scheme is quite different from the one used in the US Controlled Substances Act.) Not a huge step, but a significant one. The vote was close, 27-25. Speaking broadly, North America and Europe voted in favor, the rest of the world voted against.Report

               3. “over the past four years”

                  Mmmmmm.Report

   2. Not at all surprising.Report

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