Now we’re talking! :horns up

http://www.marijuana.com/news/2015/04/congress-considers-bill-to-respect-states-on-marijuana

A growing number of states are legalizing marijuana or allowing medical use but, despite the mostly hands-off approach the Obama administration has taken in recent years, the feds could step in at any time and shut down operators in the emerging industry.

That uncertainty would be erased under a new bipartisan bill introduced in Congress on Wednesday.

The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and a group of five other Republicans and six Democrats, would amend the Controlled Substances Act so that its marijuana provisions would "not apply to any person acting in compliance with State laws relating to the production, possession, distribution, dispensation, administration, or delivery" of cannabis.

"If someone is in their backyard, smoking some marijuana, we should not spend limited dollars" going after them, Rohrabacher said in remarks on the House floor on Thursday. "We should not have a Federal police force knocking in doors, going into people’s homes, and spending huge amounts of money in order to prevent people from personal consumption behavior."

Calling the current policy "absolutely absurd," Rohrabacher decried how prohibition enforcement distracts the criminal justice system from real crimes.

"It is sort of like you see a guy over in the corner of a park, and he is surrounded by policemen, and they throw him to the ground, and they handcuff him and put him in jail, and they go through the court procedures with the judges and all these expenses for smoking marijuana, versus the other end of the park, where some lady is getting raped, but there is no policeman there, and they spend all of their money focusing on the people who are smoking marijuana," he said. "That makes no sense."

There are at least 12 other pieces of cannabis reform legislation currently being considered by Congress, but the new bill is simultaneously the simplest and would have the broadest implications.

“Unlike other bills that address only some aspects of the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws, this bill resolves the issue entirely by letting states determine their own policies," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project. "It’s the strongest federal legislation introduced to date, and it’s the bill most likely to pass in a Republican-controlled Congress."

Other advocates agreed.

"There are few principles more fundamental to the Republican Party than states’ rights," said Neill Franklin, executive director for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, in a press release. "Allowing states to decide their own marijuana policy both fits with party ideology and makes much more sense than the laws currently on the books."

Bipartisan efforts that put more nails in the prohibition coffin – winning! :weinerwiggle:

:weedspin :weedspin :weedspin