Pubdate: Fri, 06 Jun 2014
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2014 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/send-a-letter/
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117

IN DRUG WAR, LINE IN THE SAND

House Vote Shows States Tired of Disjointed Tack

We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many 
dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal 
government and states that have gone their separate ways on the 
failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs.

Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an 
unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in 
states that legalized pot for medicinal uses.

If the Senate goes along in drawing that line, it will establish a 
zone of sanity in an otherwise crazed patchwork of federal and state 
approaches to drug enforcement.

Setting the terms for Washington is important to the states, because 
the federal government can't come to terms with itself. President 
Barack Obama said this year that he thinks marijuana is less 
dangerous than alcohol. Attorney General Eric Holder told his Justice 
Department to back off of bringing drug cases against low-level 
nonviolent possession suspects with no gang ties. And Holder set out 
conditions to stave off federal interference for the two states that 
legalized recreational pot sales.

At the same time, DEA chief Michele Leonhart has drawn a hard line, 
suggesting that marijuana should keep its Schedule One classification 
as among the most dangerous of drugs.

Lawmakers in both parties know that's not true, and more and more 
Republicans are willing to say so. Georgia's Rep. Paul Broun, a 
Republican and M.D., told the House last week that pot has valid uses 
under a doctor's care and is "less dangerous than some narcotics that 
doctors prescribe all over this country."

Last week's measure was carried in Congress by a Republican, Dana 
Rohrabacher of California, the first state to legalize medical 
marijuana, in a 1996 vote. Now there are 22 states, along with the 
District of Columbia, with laws allowing access to marijuana for 
medical reasons.

This newspaper has long contended that Texas should join that list. 
Statewide surveys show widespread support now for medicinal marijuana 
in Texas - even support among most Republicans.

There are growing indications that Texas and its political leaders 
are weary of the counterproductive drug war and its bitter fruit: a 
state incarceration rate that ranks fifth-highest in the nation.

Gov. Rick Perry has added his voice to those looking for a smarter 
way, through decriminalization. That means different things to 
different people, but at the very least next year's Legislature 
should eliminate jail time for low-level, possession-only drug 
suspects. They should eliminate craziness in state laws, like the 
provision that has left a 19-year-old from Round Rock subject to a 
life sentence for a batch of brownies baked with hash oil, a 
marijuana derivative.

As the governor has said, states should have the latitude to craft 
their own drug laws. Given that latitude, Texas lawmakers should 
bring the state in line with the smarter framework that the public expects. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom