{"id":5784,"date":"2016-03-31T09:47:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T09:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/?p=48474"},"modified":"2016-03-31T09:47:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T09:47:33","slug":"obamas-not-keeping-us-safe-from-legal-marijuana-senators-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/obamas-not-keeping-us-safe-from-legal-marijuana-senators-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Not Keeping Us Safe From Legal Marijuana, Senators Say"},"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\/obamas-not-keeping-us-safe-from-legal-marijuana-senators-say\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>A key Congressional\u00a0panel has scheduled a hearing for next week that seems intended to embarrass the Obama administration over its response to the legalization of marijuana in a growing number of states.<\/p>\n<p>The Tuesday\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.drugcaucus.senate.gov\/content\/grassley-feinstein-convene-drug-caucus-hearing-%E2%80%9C-department-justice-adequately-protecting\">hearing<\/a> before the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control is titled, \u201cIs the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from the Impact of State Recreational Marijuana Legalization?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Its witness list is stacked with ardent prohibitionists, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Doug Peterson, the Nebraska attorney general who oversaw a lawsuit his state and Oklahoma filed together against neighboring Colorado over its legal marijuana law. The U.S. Supreme Court <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2016\/03\/supreme-court-dismisses-colorado-marijuana-case\/\">decided<\/a> last week not to hear the case.<\/li>\n<li>Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. attorney from California who helped to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsreview.com\/sacramento\/u-s-attorney-breaks-silence-on\/content?oid=5379500\">lead a crackdown<\/a> against state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries during the first term of the Obama administration.<\/li>\n<li>Kathryn Wells, a medical doctor from Denver and a board member of leading anti-legalization organization <a href=\"https:\/\/learnaboutsam.org\/who-we-are\/leadership-team\/\">Smart Approaches to Marijuana<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;The one-sided lineup of witnesses suggests this will be more of a prohibitionist pity party than an open and honest discussion about what\u2019s actually happening in states like Colorado and Washington,&#8221;\u00a0Mason Tvert, communications director for the <a href=\"http:\/\/mpp.org\">Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>, told Marijuana.com in an email.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">The caucus, which has the status of a Senate standing committee, is chaired by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and its co-chair is Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Both lawmakers have have long been among\u00a0Congress\u2019s most dedicated proponents of the war on drugs, arguing against efforts to reform marijuana laws whenever possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Also scheduled to testify\u00a0at the hearing is\u00a0Jennifer Grover of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2016\/02\/justice-department-needs-better-plan-on-state-marijuana-laws-gao-says\/\">released a report<\/a> last month criticizing the Justice Department for not having a clear plan for\u00a0deciding when to enforce federal drug laws against people who are operating in accordance with state marijuana legalization programs.<\/p>\n<p>That report was requested by Grassley and Feinstein, who aren&#8217;t happy with the relative leeway the Obama administration\u00a0has given states to implement their own marijuana laws without much federal interference.<\/p>\n<p>In a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.grassley.senate.gov\/news\/news-releases\/administration-too-slow-certain-anti-opioid-measures-sends-mixed-message\">press release<\/a>\u00a0sent Tuesday responding to the president&#8217;s newly announced plan to combat the opioid overdose crisis, Grassley\u00a0characterized the president&#8217;s approach as\u00a0having &#8220;decided to effectively suspend enforcement of federal law relating to marijuana in states that legalized it for recreational use.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In August 2013 the\u00a0Department of Justice issued a memo directing\u00a0U.S. attorneys\u00a0to generally respect state marijuana laws and not target people following\u00a0those policies unless one of eight identified\u00a0federal enforcement priorities were triggered. The directive describes how\u00a0federal prosecutors should avoid\u00a0interfering with state marijuana programs unless there is\u00a0evidence that the drug is\u00a0ending up in the hands of children, being distributed across state lines, contributing to increased impaired\u00a0driving or violence, among other priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Calling that policy &#8220;a\u00a0sham,&#8221;\u00a0Grassley said, &#8220;The mixed messages and misplaced priorities are troubling when so many experts find that people who are addicted to marijuana are much more likely to be addicted to heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Piper, senior director for national affairs for the <a href=\"http:\/\/drugpolicy.org\">Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>, called the upcoming hearing &#8220;a joke&#8221; and said that the caucus&#8217;s leaders were out of touch.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that it is so one sided shows that Grassley and Feinstein are afraid to have a real debate, probably because they know they\u2019re on the losing side of history,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Four states and Washington, D.C. have already legalized marijuana, and as many as six other states could see\u00a0initiatives to end cannabis prohibition on their ballots this November. Additionally, state legislatures in Vermont and Rhode Island are considering legalization bills that could have\u00a0enough traction to be enacted this year. National polling now consistently shows that most Americans support legalizing cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>Grassley also chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has so far refused to grant a hearing or a vote on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/114th-congress\/senate-bill\/683\/\">bipartisan medical cannabis legislation<\/a>. That bill, the\u00a0Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act, would\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2016\/03\/medical-marijuana-gains-momentum-in-us-senate\/\">reschedule marijuana<\/a>, protect\u00a0banks that\u00a0provide financial services to state-legal cannabis businesses, lift restrictions on marijuana research, allow for the interstate importation of cannabidiol-rich strains and authorize\u00a0V.A. doctors to recommend medical cannabis to military veterans, among other changes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Surely Sen. Grassley must see the irony in holding a hearing on what he perceives to be the federal government&#8217;s inaction on this important issue,&#8221; MPP&#8217;s Tvert said.\u00a0&#8220;Meanwhile, he is single-handedly blocking the progress of bipartisan medical marijuana legislation that is supported by the vast majority of the American public.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mike Liszewski of <a href=\"http:\/\/safeaccessnow.org\">Americans for Safe Access<\/a>, which advocates on behalf of medical cannabis patients, said the upcoming hearing is just another indication of Grassley&#8217;s hostility to marijuana in the face of growing calls for policy reform.<\/p>\n<div class=\"_4tdt\">\n<div class=\"_4tdv\">\n<div class=\"_5wd4 _1nc7 direction_ltr\">\n<div class=\"_5wd9\">\n<div class=\"_5wde _n4o\">\n<div class=\"_5w1r _3_om _5wdf\">\n<div class=\"_4gx_\">\n<div class=\"_d97\"><span class=\"_5yl5\">&#8220;We understand that Senator Grassley is getting several calls a day from constituents seeking a hearing on the CARERS Act, so it&#8217;s disappointing that he continues to ignore them and Iowans who are among the 285 million Americans living in states with some kind of medical cannabis law,&#8221; he said. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A key Congressional\u00a0panel has scheduled a hearing for next week that seems intended to embarrass the Obama administration over its response to the legalization of marijuana in a growing number of states. The Tuesday\u00a0hearing before the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control is titled, \u201cIs the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2417,9,2418,1,3],"tags":[2419,2420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5784"}],"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=5784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}