{"id":1364,"date":"2013-02-22T08:04:08","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T08:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/?p=20666"},"modified":"2013-02-22T08:04:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T08:04:08","slug":"after-months-of-silence-u-s-government-responds-to-new-marijuana-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/after-months-of-silence-u-s-government-responds-to-new-marijuana-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"After Months of Silence U.S. Government Responds to New Marijuana Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/after-months-of-silence-u-s-government-responds-to-new-marijuana-laws\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"260\" height=\"194\" src=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/gil-kerlikowske.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"gil kerlikowske\" title=\"gil kerlikowske\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-20667\" href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/news-and-articles\/after-months-of-silence-u-s-government-responds-to-new-marijuana-laws\/attachment\/gil-kerlikowske\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-20667\" title=\"gil kerlikowske\" src=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/gil-kerlikowske-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>After the historic vote by the people of both Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational marijuana, a swift response by the federal government was expected.\u00a0 However, most federal officials have yet to utter a public response to Colorado and Washington taking legalization into their own hands.\u00a0 United States Attorney General, Eric Holder, did meet with high ranking officials from Washington State but made no comment to the public regarding the discussions.<\/p>\n<p>The people are finally being informed of the federal government\u2019s position on marijuana since the November election. \u00a0Unfortunately, it seems only <strong><em>Canadian<\/em><\/strong> residents are being kept in the loop for the time being.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ondcp\/kerlikowske-bio\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske<\/a>, told the Canadian based <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maclean\u2019s magazine<\/a> that the federal government will still target marijuana growers and providers.\u00a0 He went on to say \u201cI think a patchwork of policies would create real difficulties\u2026 \u201cI don\u2019t see the legalization of drugs and making them widely available as a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Kerlikowske was also asked if he noticed any parallels between same-sex marriage and the current legal situation with marijuana.\u00a0 He responded by saying \u201cI don\u2019t look at marijuana as a human right, or a civil right, or even in the same venue as gay marriage\u2026this is a public health issue.\u201d\u00a0 Struggling patients seeking pain relief will likely disagree with the initial portion of the quote.\u00a0 As traditional medical treatments have failed so many, medical marijuana is considered a right by millions of Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Mason Tvert of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Marijuana Policy Project<\/a> responded by saying \u201cWe are hopeful [federal officials] will see the benefits of regulating marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, and we are pleased to see the progress these two states are making toward doing just that.\u201d\u00a0 There is validity to some of what Gil Kerlikowske stated.\u00a0 Marijuana <strong><em>is<\/em><\/strong> a public health issue.\u00a0 Providing pain relief without physically addictive opiate based medications is in the utmost interest of the people.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see what is said when the federal government decides to finally address its own people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"260\" height=\"194\" src=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/gil-kerlikowske.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"gil kerlikowske\" title=\"gil kerlikowske\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-20667\" href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/news-and-articles\/after-months-of-silence-u-s-government-responds-to-new-marijuana-laws\/attachment\/gil-kerlikowske\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-20667\" title=\"gil kerlikowske\" src=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/gil-kerlikowske-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>After the historic vote by the people of both Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational marijuana, a swift response by the federal government was expected.\u00a0 However, most federal officials have yet to utter a public response to Colorado and Washington taking legalization into their own hands.\u00a0 United States Attorney General, Eric Holder, did meet with high ranking officials from Washington State but made no comment to the public regarding the discussions.<\/p>\n<p>The people are finally being informed of the federal government\u2019s position on marijuana since the November election. \u00a0Unfortunately, it seems only <strong><em>Canadian<\/em><\/strong> residents are being kept in the loop for the time being.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/ondcp\/kerlikowske-bio\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske<\/a>, told the Canadian based <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maclean\u2019s magazine<\/a> that the federal government will still target marijuana growers and providers.\u00a0 He went on to say \u201cI think a patchwork of policies would create real difficulties\u2026 \u201cI don\u2019t see the legalization of drugs and making them widely available as a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Kerlikowske was also asked if he noticed any parallels between same-sex marriage and the current legal situation with marijuana.\u00a0 He responded by saying \u201cI don\u2019t look at marijuana as a human right, or a civil right, or even in the same venue as gay marriage\u2026this is a public health issue.\u201d\u00a0 Struggling patients seeking pain relief will likely disagree with the initial portion of the quote.\u00a0 As traditional medical treatments have failed so many, medical marijuana is considered a right by millions of Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Mason Tvert of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Marijuana Policy Project<\/a> responded by saying \u201cWe are hopeful [federal officials] will see the benefits of regulating marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol, and we are pleased to see the progress these two states are making toward doing just that.\u201d\u00a0 There is validity to some of what Gil Kerlikowske stated.\u00a0 Marijuana <strong><em>is<\/em><\/strong> a public health issue.\u00a0 Providing pain relief without physically addictive opiate based medications is in the utmost interest of the people.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see what is said when the federal government decides to finally address its own people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146,52,253,102,1386,457,1387,56,9,51,878,70,1,3,1388,61],"tags":[2724,2632,2831,2680,3956,3031,3957,2636,2631,3451,5,3958,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}