Shortly after the conclusion of this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano posted a blog highlighting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) comments exhorting the public to take the lead on communicating with their elected policymakers regarding any desired major marijuana law reforms in the upcoming 111th Congress.

With that call to action in the minds of many, American voters elected Democrats into workable majorities in both chambers and elected Barack ‘Change’ Obama—while voters in both Massachusetts and Michigan voted in strong favor for ‘change’ regarding their states’ antiquated marijuana laws—when given the chance and medium to express their viewpoint regarding what other ‘changes’ are on the American peoples’ minds, since the mid 1990s and despite strong, bias media opposition, marijuana law reform has emerged as a major policy change sought by the American public.

House Speaker Pelosi supports medical access to marijuana. That is not in question. However, it is not known whether she publicly endorses decriminalizing marijuana, but, as a longtime representative in the House from San Francisco, she likely supports California laws regarding marijuana, notably the state’s long time decriminalization laws for personal, adult use.

Does she have the power to move medical marijuana through the Congress? Yes, likely she does. Is she going to expend the kind of political capital needed so early in the 111th Congress and this ‘New Dealish’ presidency to accomplish this? I don’t believe so.

Well now, to make matters worse, we have the Republican Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH), appearing last Friday afternoon on CNN’s Newsticker, in a Digg-sponsored ‘Question and Answer’, not surprisingly, the #1 question put forward by CNN/Diggers was of course about…marijuana!

Mr. Boehner’s reply on the marijuana prohibition question (which appears at the 3:15 mark of the 22 minute video) is tortured on two levels:

-Boehner’s deference to law enforcement and medical trade associations rather than to his constituents’ views, the Constitution, science, free market values and personal responsibility is, in a word, unfortunate:

-While rattling off DEA-like talking points against marijuana, Rep. Boehner seems to remember mid-rant against marijuana that he 1) often claims to be a libertarian who favors limited taxation, controlling government spending, and maximizing entrepreneurialism and personal freedoms, 2) supports the 9th and 10th Amendments, which largely articulate states’ rights to make their own constitutional laws.

Too bad Boehner has consistently voted against the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, a spending amendment in Congress that sought to check federal law enforcement’s ability to spend tax dollars harassing state compliant medical marijuana cooperative and dispensaries, and, in effect, recognizing states’ ability to craft greater legal protections for medical cannabis patients and their providers.

After watching Boehner’s verbal gymnastics and political CYA, I could have used a naturally occurring anti-emetic, if you know what I mean!

A Congressional Cannabis Conundrum
The most powerful legislator in the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports medical access to marijuana, but will not soon likely do anything to solve this long festering public health-law enforcement quandary, and the most powerful Republican legislator in the country is a chain-smoking, libertarian-talking prohibitionist.

Ugh.

The general public who support marijuana law reform (which is about 75% for both decriminalization and medical access) and many members from the working media inquire with NORML daily, ‘Why does marijuana prohibition continue despite its obvious failings?’

Regrettably, one need only point to this single, but poignant example, demonstrated by this Pelosi-Boehner cannabis conundrum: Leaders who will not lead.*

*Even when they very likely know better and the American people (common sense, economics and decency) demand it!

Capitol Hill Cannabis Law Reform Lobby Highlighted

Since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, despite the government’s best, but utterly feckless efforts to suppress cannabis culture and use in America, the ‘buzz’ in Washington D.C. and nationwide these days about alternatives to cannabis prohibition is palpable.

One interesting tea leaf for me to gather in this evolution towards cannabis law reforms at the national level is to see otherwise staid, Capitol Hill-based print publications such as The Hill and most recently Roll Call taking interest in the cannabis law reform lobby’s efforts in Washington—after decades of ignoring us.

Is real change afoot here as indicated by these mainstream, political publications casting needed public and political attention towards NORML’s nearly 40-years of grassroots advocacy?

Time, and increased public efforts by reformers, will tell…

Read a scanned version of Roll Call’s ‘Vested Interests’ article, here.

Fortunately, thousands of Digg.com users posed the following question to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi live on CNN: “As a taxable resource, what stops marijuana from being legalized, for medical or recreational purposes, throughout the country?”

(The question comes four and a half minutes into the video.)

Pelosi’s response is candid yet disappointing. While acknowledging that scientific research clearly supports the medical use of cannabis, Pelosi acknowledges that most of Congress — including many otherwise ‘progressive’ members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus — “just isn’t there yet. … There just isn’t enough support for it.”

Of course, anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Speaker’s Congressional assessment is painfully accurate.

That said, I find myself a bit incredulous when Pelosi says: “We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress for [the] use of medical marijuana. … [W]e need peoples’ help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this should be the case.”

While I agree that it’s both important and necessary for constituents to contact their elected officials, I’m disappointed that Ms. Pelosi still believes that the ‘heavy-lifting’ needed to successfully move this issue forward federally must be engaged in outside, not inside Congress.

Pardon me, but here in the real world (outside of the Washington Beltway) public voteafter public vote illustrates that the overwhelming majority of registered voters back the legalization of medical pot, and national poll after national poll consistently shows that upwards of 70 percent of the electorate support a patient’s right to use cannabis legally.

Here in the real world, numerous health and medical organizations such as the American Public Health Association and the American College of Physicians have passed resolutions urging Congress reschedule marijuana so that a physician may prescribe it, and scientific papers indicating that cannabis can inhibit diseases ranging from multiple sclerosis to cancer to MRSA are being published virtually every week.

Given this reality, I humbly submit that those of us who work ‘outside’ the so-called ‘hallowed halls’ of Congress have done our part. It’s now time for our federally elected officials, in particular Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama, to pledge to do theirs.

“Supporting marijuana use is an example of domestic terrorism—it puts the public at great risk and threatens the very fabric of our society.” -Ron Brooks, President of National Narcotics Officers’ Association, 4/11/08

In my many annual public appearances and media interviews advocating for cannabis law reforms, the question will often arise ‘if NORML and the other drug policy reform groups are right that there are safe and viable alternatives to cannabis prohibition laws, who then opposes you in trying to amend current state and federal laws?’

The recent political endorsement given to former Republican congressman and ardent drug warrior Doug Ose by the National Narcotics Officers’ Association (NNOA) provides a handy opportunity that helps reveal exactly who are America’s prohibitionists and what are their motivations against ending cannabis prohibition.

Who Actually Supports (Or Profits From) Cannabis Prohibition?
At this juncture having worked over 17 years at NORML/NORML Foundation, my standard reply, without achieving doctoral dissertation length is 1.) There are five basic subgroups of Americans who strongly oppose any reforms in cannabis laws, and 2.) These subgroups constantly seek to deepen and enhance prohibition laws, i.e., politically and culturally oppose citizens and organizations who don’t favor prohibition laws; advocate for greater criminal sanctions and fewer civil liberties (more penalties, longer prison sentences, higher fines, and more of the ‘Big Three Ps’: police/prosecutors/prisons) and civil penalties (forfeiture, drivers license suspension, loss of child custody for parents who consume cannabis, denial of college loans to students busted for pot, removal from public-assisted living housing, etc…).

The Five Pillars Of Pot Prohibition
For all intent and purposes, in my opinion, educators, religious leaders, health organizations, military leadership, business and insurance institutions, and economists are not rabid supporters of cannabis prohibition per se. However, the five subgroups of Americans who do support rigorous cannabis prohibition laws and penalties are:

1- Law Enforcement
Police, sheriffs, state police; prison guards, parole officers and wardens; federal law enforcement [i.e., DEA]; local, state and federal prosecutors; drug court professionals and probation officers. Also, as you plainly read from the NNOA’s webpage, private law enforcement officer associations such as NNOA, California Narcotics Officers Association (read the CNOA’s anti-cannabis, laugh-inducing rants, click here, and here), Fraternal Order of Police, Chief of Police Association (and their state affiliates; Florida’s chapter is a prime example of police influencing the law—not just enforcing them) and the National Association of Attorney Generals (NAAG) work in concert to promote prohibition over tax-n-control policies.

2- So-called Parents Groups
Back in the 1970s there really was an organic, grassroots parents’ movement motivated and organized to oppose NORML’s marijuana decriminalization efforts. However, after the successful election bid of Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan in 1980, the executive branch largely hijacked the parents’ movement under the guise of Mrs. Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ anti-drug program and a number of well funded government front groups were established by inside the beltway Republicans as promotional vehicles for Mrs. Reagan, leaving the nascent grassroots parent’s movement largely high and dry.

The legacy of federal government anti-drug bureaucracies usurping the 1970s parents’ movement against marijuana is found today in a number of what are supposed to pass for parents’ groups, but today are largely government-funded organizations such as, in two examples: National Families in Action (NFIA) and Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA).

3-Companies and industries that financially benefit from the government’s 70-year old ban on cannabis and hemp products

When government passes a law there are always winners and losers. When the US Congress created cannabis/hemp prohibition in 1937 it created a number of economic opportunities for certain industries that effectively exist to support and prosper cannabis prohibition, such as: drug testing industry; private prisons; private for-profit cannabis ‘rehabilitation’ centers, high-tech surveillance (i.e., forward looking infrared radar, aka FLIR) and interdiction devices (i.e., ion scanners).

Many of these profit-making, prohibition-supportive companies and industries (some of which are multi-billion dollar and powerful multi-national corporations, i.e., General Electric, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin or Dyncorp) aggressively lobby for government policies and tax expenditures that benefit their companies, and their shareholders.

A change in cannabis laws from prohibition to tax-n-control negatively impacts the bottom line of many large and politically connected US corporations (and their subsidiaries), along with hundreds of smaller government contract-dependent companies.

4- Companies that would have to compete with cannabis and hemp products if it were not for the government’s cannabis prohibition, and therefore lobby for cannabis/hemp to remain illegal and its consumers treated like violent criminals:

The alcohol industry (beer, wine and distilled spirits; wholesalers and retailers), tobacco industry (cigar, spit and cigarettes; wholesalers and retailers), pharmaceutical industry and industrial material and energy companies (i.e., wood, paper, petroleum, plastics, fiber, seed oil, animal fodder, etc…), lobby and/or advocate against taxing and controlling cannabis and hemp products. Pro-industry associations like the US Chamber of Commerce and The Business Roundtable often work closely with industries and companies benefiting from cannabis prohibition by opposing cannabis law reform, promoting the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries (after all, these are legitimate, tax-paying industries. Right? Must be nice…).

5-Local, County, State, Federal and International ‘Anti-Drug’ Government Agencies and Bureaucracies

One could argue that absent the tens of thousands of government employees (civil servants and political appointees alike) and their inherent taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar annual budgets, there would be no so-called ‘war on drugs’ in America (and around the globe attributable to America’s exportation of cannabis prohibition through 1.) United Nation treaties and World Bank funding criterion, 2.) NIDA funding for anti-cannabis scientific and medical research and 3.) US Government-funded crop eradication and market disruption.

However, in conclusion, as long as the US Congress continues to allocate tens of billions of funding annually for huge government agencies and anti-cannabis propaganda campaigns—such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Partnership for a Drug Free America, Drug Awareness and Resistance Education (DARE), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and about a dozen more US government bureaucracies with odd sounding acronyms that represent tax-draining agencies, most of whom the general public have never heard of, such as the incredible Congressional boondoggle known as NDIC, the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, PA—allows the other four pro-prohibition subgroups to both foster and proliferate cannabis prohibition in support of their parochial profits and narrow business interests (or in the case of government agencies and their employees: annual funding with almost assured built-in budget increases, nearly impossible to terminate civil worker status, regular cost of living increases and a host of other highly sought after government employee benefits).

Thankfully, on June 3, Ose and National Narcotics Officers’ Association lost the primary to one of the most longstanding libertarian politicians in the nation, California Republican state senator Tom McClintock—a supporter of cannabis law reforms.

Therefore, NORML has teamed up with Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts to draft legislation that would strip the federal government of its authority to arrest responsible cannabis consumers.

Yes indeed, for the first time in more than two decades, we will shortly have legislation in Congress that, if enacted, would end the federal prosecution of adult marijuana consumers!Based on the recommendations of the 1972 National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (also known as the Shafer Commission), this proposal would eliminate all federal penalties prohibiting the personal use and possession of up to 100 grams (3 ½ ounces) of marijuana. Under our measure, adults who consume cannabis would no longer face arrest, prison, or even the threat of a civil fine. In addition, this bill eliminates all penalties prohibiting the not-for-profit transfers of up to one ounce of pot. In short, for the first time since 1937, the possession, use, and non-profit transfer of marijuana for personal use by adults would be legal under federal law!Please check NORML.org and NORML’s blog for more information, as we will continue to bring you the latest news regarding this important legislation.