Pubdate: Wed, 09 Apr 2014
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Seth McLaughlin

REPUBLICAN PUSHES FOR PLATFORM ON POT

Says Candidate Should Back States

COSTA MESA, CALIF. - Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, one of the GOP's earliest 
champions of marijuana legalization, says his party should field a 
presidential candidate who will support states' rights to legalize pot.

Mr. Rohrabacher insists he has not touched marijuana since he was 23 
and says he isn't advocating its use.

But he said the federal government should not be in the business of 
deciding the issue and that the argument should be a central part of 
a broader Republican push to empower states, with an agenda that also 
includes scrapping the Department of Education.

"I think we ought to look for a presidential candidate who will make 
that part of his message," the 13-term California Republican said. 
"Just transfer it all to the states. Now this government would have 
nothing to do with education, and how about, from now on, drug laws 
are considered criminal matters, which is what our Founding Fathers 
had in mind, and that is up to the states."

He said it's an issue his former boss, President Reagan, would have embraced.

"In about half of Ronald Reagan's speeches, look real close and you 
see him saying, 'Our goal is not to put people in jail' - and I 
wonder who worked with him on the speech?" he said, alluding to his 
role as speechwriter in the Reagan administration.

"Reagan did not want to put people in jail," he said. "He did not 
want to militarize our county in order to stop people from smoking weed.

"He oversaw the greatest reduction in the use of illegal drugs than 
any other time period, and it had nothing to do with enforcement. It 
had everything to do with 'Just Say No,'" he said, alluding to the 
1980s ad campaign that was part of the "war on drugs." "It was 
cultural messaging. That is what made the difference."

Mr. Rohrabacher made the comments as the Republican Party and the 
country as a whole shift stances on legalization.

In a March poll from NBC News/ Wall Street Journal, more respondents 
said tobacco, alcohol and sugar are more harmful to health than 
marijuana. The Washington Times/Conservative Political Action 
Conference poll this year found that a plurality at the grass-roots 
gathering thought marijuana should be legalized.

Mr. Rohrabacher has been at the forefront of that push for years.

In 2005, he joined Reps. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, and Barney 
Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, and television talk show host Montel 
Williams, who has multiple sclerosis, at a press conference in 
Washington to call on the federal government to stop interfering with 
states that have medical marijuana laws on the books.

He also pushed to bar the Department of Justice from using federal 
tax dollars to arrest and prosecute physicians and pharmacists in 
states, including his home state, that had approved medical marijuana.

Mr. Rohrabacher now is sponsoring the Respect State Marijuana Laws 
Act of 2013, which would end the enforcement of federal marijuana 
laws in states that have legalized marijuana for either medical or 
recreational purposes.

The proposal has been bottled up in the House.

Some potential Republican presidential candidates - including Sen. 
Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Texas Gov. 
Rick Perry - have signaled that they want a shift in federal policy 
that would leave the issue up to the states.

Since 1996, when California became the first state to enact 
legislation allowing medical marijuana, 20 other states and the 
District of Columbia have followed suit, according to the National 
Conference of State Legislatures.

Colorado and Washington have approved referendums allowing people 21 
and older to possess a limited amount of marijuana for personal use. 
Several other states have decriminalized possession of small amounts 
of the drug.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom