The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing July 10, taking more than two hours of expert testimony on the social ills associated with cannabis prohibition \u2014 and why it must end.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Entitled \u201cMarijuana Laws in America: Racial Justice and the Need for Reform<\/a>,\u201d the hearing weighed policy alternatives including removing the Schedule I classification that criminalizes cannabis under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n Subcommittee chair Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) stated in her opening remarks: \u201cSince the time President Nixon declared a war on drugs in the early 1970s, the effects of this war on black and Latino communities has been severely disproportionate. The war on drugs was racially biased from its inception and has been carried out in a discriminatory fashion with disastrous consequences for hundreds of thousands of people of color and their communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She went on to quote statistics about the disproportionate rate at which black and Latino individuals are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses and noted that these disparities are not regional, but rather the reality across the country. \u201cIn recent years as a society, we have begun to examine the issues surrounding the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs, and develop policies and legislation to work against the devastation wrought by this war in the black and Latino communities,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lawmakers went on to hear\u00a0testimony<\/a>\u00a0from Dr. David Nathan of\u00a0Doctors for Cannabis Regulation<\/a>, Baltimore city attorney\u00a0Marilyn Mosby (who recently\u00a0instated a suspension of prosecutions<\/a>\u00a0for cannabis possession), Washington, D.C. physician\u00a0Dr. G. Malik Burnett (who led the successful\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance campaign<\/a>\u00a0to pass\u00a0Initiative 71<\/a>\u00a0in 2014, legalizing cannabis in the District of Columbia), and Neal Levine, chief executive officer of the\u00a0Cannabis Trade Federation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mosby boasted that her office has vacated nearly 5,000 cannabis convictions dating back to 2011. She added that her office also issued a white paper arguing for the \u201clack of public safety value\u201d in prosecution for cannabis possession, and the \u201ccounter-productive outcomes of utilizing limited law enforcement resources\u201d in such prosecutions. She called for the federal government to follow the example of her office: \u201cI implore Congress to not only decriminalize marijuana, but remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, thereby federally legalizing it.\u201d<\/p>\n This demand was actually echoed by some of the assembled lawmakers. \u201cMarijuana should be an issue of personal choice and public health,\u201d said Rep. \u00a0Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the Judiciary Committee. Even more forthright was Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA): \u201cI think marijuana should be completely taken out of the Controlled Substance Act\u2026 Everything in politics seems impossible until it happens\u2026 Keep on fighting and I believe we can get this done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And California\u2019s Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican who has\u00a0helped lift the federal pressure on cannabis<\/a>, said\u00a0marijuana decriminalization \u201cmay be one of the very few issues upon which bipartisan agreement can still be reached in this session.\u201d<\/p>\n It should be noted that some lawmakers are cautiously using the term \u201cdecriminalization\u201d even for\u00a0proposed measures<\/a>\u00a0that would in fact remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, effectively legalizing at the federal level.<\/p>\n A coalition of advocacy groups released a joint\u00a0Statement of Principles<\/a>\u00a0to coincide with the hearing, outlining their shared agenda for legislative reform. Signatories included the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML<\/a>), the\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>,\u00a0Human Rights Watch<\/a>, the\u00a0Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights<\/a>, the\u00a0Immigrant Legal Resource Center<\/a>, the\u00a0Center for Law & Social Policy<\/a>, the\u00a0Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights Under Law<\/a>,\u00a0Students for Sensible Drug Policy<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Center for American Progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades, marijuana prohibition has devastated the lives of millions and disrupted the economic and social fabric of communities,\u201d the\u00a0Statement of Principles<\/a>\u00a0reads. \u201cThe continued enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws results in over 600,000 arrests annually, disproportionately impacting people of color.\u201d The statement especially notes the intersection of cannabis and the hotly contested immigration question. Last year, \u201csimple marijuana possession was the fourth most common cause of deportation for any offense and the most common cause of deportation for drug law violations.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement also emphasizes the need to consciously craft a new legal cannabis economy that corrects the social injustices of prohibition, including barriers to entry for people of color and immigrants seeking citizenship.<\/p>\n NORML executive director Erik Altieri summed up the hopes raised by the hearing. \u201cAfter nearly a century of prohibition, it is clear this policy has been an absolute failure and a national disgrace,\u201d he said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0of his own. \u201cCongress must act swiftly and begin to remedy the pain caused by the criminalization of marijuana. The only real federal solution to this problem is the full descheduling of cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act\u2026 The American public is overwhelmingly ready to legalize marijuana; their elected officials in Washington need to finally start representing the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, how do you think racial justice can best be implemented as prohibition ends?<\/p>\n The post House Judiciary Committee Holds Historic Hearing on Cannabis & Racial Justice<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing July 10, taking more than two hours of expert testimony on the social ills associated with cannabis prohibition \u2014 and why it must end.\u00a0 Entitled \u201cMarijuana Laws in America: Racial Justice and the Need for Reform,\u201d theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,4009,11573,592,3217,230,11574,81,369,11575,319,11576,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36831,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36830\/revisions\/36831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bipartisan Consensus for Legalization?<\/h4>\n
Activists Encouraged<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: House Judiciary Committee Holds Historic Hearing on Cannabis & Racial Justice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"