Monday 7 December 2015

Federal government undermines state marijuana laws

By Gino Riccardi
The United States Postal Service recently sent a memo to its headquarters in Portland, Oregon, warning against delivering marijuana-related advertising under penalty of law, according to the Chinook Observer.

This comes as some surprise because Oregon state law permits the use, sale and carry of medical and recreational marijuana.

Last Monday, the Chinook observer received a memorandum from the postmaster in Long Beach, Oregon that included that line, “If a mailpiece contains an advertisement for marijuana, that piece is unmailable,” Matt Winters of the Chinook observer said.

States have been steadily legalizing the sale and use of marijuana since 1998 while the federal government has remained stagnant on the issue. Consequently, the two legislative bodies are at an impasse.

By now, one would think that the federal government would have left the decision up to the individual states, the same way it did with alcohol prohibition. To some extent, it has, but it’s kind of a secret.

“Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government’s prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy,” said the Los Angeles Times.

The measure, called the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, is a landmark piece of legislation for advocates of decriminalization. It “basically prevented the DEA from going after medical marijuana dispensaries, provided that such dispensaries were acting in compliance with state law,” according to the Washington Post.

With a rank-and-file Republican like Dana Rohrabacher championing the legislation, it’s evident that even conservatives are beginning to agree that smoking, or otherwise ingesting, marijuana is a victimless crime whose harmful effects far outweigh any benefits that criminalization might bring about.

The next battle is for the complete federal decriminalization of marijuana.

It’s the most socially acceptable taboo since consensual sodomy, and the only opposition seems to be coming from the USPS and the Drug Enforcement Administration, who attempted and failed to use the Department of Justice to misinterpret the amendment to the letter and not the spirit of the law.

The only two explanations for the DEA’s rebuke of the bill could be that it weighs on their collective moral conscience or, more likely, enforcing the soon-to-be antiquated law brings in a ton of money for law enforcement.

Luckily for the common sense-loving general public, states have much more to gain from decriminalization. For one thing, state budgets would feel immediate relief with regard to incarceration costs.

“Marijuana arrests have increased between 2001 and 2010 and now account for over half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Secondly, states can look forward to new streams of income with the legalization, regulation and taxation of a new commodity. “Colorado collected almost $70 million in marijuana taxes during that time, nearly double the $42 million collected from alcohol taxes,” according to Time Magazine.

There’s no telling why the USPS decided to draw a line in the sand for Oregon-based newspapers, but the state representatives are taking measures to ensure that common sense can prevail.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and representative Earl Blumenaur both support the state marijuana laws and have gone on record to say they are in the process of figuring out why the statement was issued, according to Oregon Live. But they will fight to uphold the laws of their state

The fed will likely change its stance on recreational use in due time. As Winston Churchill once said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing … after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

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