Pubdate: Thu, 27 Nov 2014
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2014 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

HOW ONE CONGRESSMAN COULD STOP DC DECRIMINALIZATION

We should get some indication of how the new Republican Congress 
feels about cannabis when it convenes in January.

The District of Columbia intends to offer Initiative 71, its recent 
law decriminalizing marijuana possession, to the new Congress as soon 
as it is seated. The resolution was passed by almost 70 percent of 
District voters (which should give the new Congress some indication 
of what people closest to them think of the government-sponsored Drug War).

Congress then has 30 days to act or it automatically becomes law. The 
two branches could pass a joint resolution (ha ha!) that would 
disallow the initiative, or both could vote to stop money intended to 
implement the program, effectively ending it that way. It's possible, 
but highly unlikely since that's only been done once before.

Still, the District's delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, 
called a press conference last week urging members to lay off after 
Maryland Rep. Andy Harris told the Washington Post that he would do 
everything in his power to stop the law from going into effect.

Harris will have to work quickly to get both houses to approve a 
measure, which would also require the signature of President Obama, 
and the administration has indicated it has a hands-off policy when 
it comes to the District.

But that's probably not what Harris has in mind, anyway. Earlier this 
year he got an amendment attached to a bill passed in the House 
Committee for Appropriations that would have blocked funding after 
the District made possession of small amounts a civil offense rather 
than a criminal one.

"Congress has the authority to stop irresponsible actions by local 
officials," Harris, who says he is a doctor, told the Huffington 
Post. "And I am glad we did for the health and safety of children 
throughout the District."

This method of attaching amendments to other bills to stall District 
legislation, sneaky though it is, has precedent. The District voted 
to approve medical marijuana in 1998, but the attachment process 
helped delay the opening of medical stores until 2013. That's 14 
years of pure Congressional obstructionism.

Whether Harris is bloviating or actually has support will be known soon enough.

But that a member of a party that professes to believe in states' 
rights, personal liberty and limited government would want to 
overturn a 2-1 vote boggles the brain. Isn't that the definition of 
the word autocratic?

So even though cannabis is considered by uninformed elected officials 
like Harris as a dangerous drug, it will be legal to use it, grow it 
and gift it in the District of Columbia. And the federal government 
will continue to tax legitimate cannabis businesses in states where 
it is legal. Could anything possibly be more hypocritical? Congress 
does need to act, but not to stop decriminalization of pot inside its 
own borders. What it needs to do is take cannabis off its Schedule 1 
designation and let the states decide for themselves. More than half 
already have, and it would be nice if Congress acted before they all do.

I was deleting old files and manila folders in my office the other 
day when I came across one that was labeled, simply, "Drug War." It 
was filled with old marijuana magazines (who remembers Head or Rush 
or Homegrown?) and articles I clipped from the 1970s and 1980s from 
mostly "underground" magazines. The one on top had been clipped from 
The Los Angeles Times. It was dated March 10, 1990, and had quite the 
tantalizing headline: "Red Dye May Be Pot's Kiss of Death."

The story, picked up by newspapers across the country, began even 
more provocatively: "A government test has determined that a red dye 
used in many lipsticks is a powerful herbicide capable of killing 
marijuana plants, prompting some Bush administration officials to 
propose using the dye in an airborne offensive against domestic 
marijuana cultivation."

As Jon Stewart might say, go on. "The prospective new weapon, Red Dye 
No. 22, is regarded by many government experts as safer than 
conventional herbicides such as paraquat. In addition, its rosy hue 
would tip off users that their marijuana had been sprayed should the 
growers choose to market the spoiled crop." Some officials added that 
it also rids the plants of their THC content so that even if it were 
smoked, the user couldn't get a buzz. Wow. An almost perfect "weapon" 
against the marijuana scourge. Kills the plants, sucks out the THC 
and tags the pot crimson all at the same time. Visions of helicopters 
shooting red dye from 100-foot-long tubes into fields all around the 
country. Who would have thought?

That year, the Bush administration doubled its spending on domestic 
pot eradication, and administration officials asked for an extensive 
spraying campaign. Some even suggested that the United States get 
other countries to apply it to their cannabis crops, too. It was all 
based on one test done on a Hawaiian hillside with results the 
government wouldn't share. What could go wrong?

"Since the test, state and federal officials in Hawaii have continued 
to use the red dye in an aggressive joint spraying campaign against 
marijuana cultivation, officials said. But, for the time being, they 
have decided to mix the dye with a commercial product called Rodeo, 
which contains a proven herbicide called glyphosate." (Glyphosate, or 
Roundup, of course, is the most-used herbicide today.)

Needless to say, the red dye campaign, which was dopey from the word 
go, was never carried out, although I'm sure some taxpayer dollars 
were expended by Poppy Bush's administration before the program 
mercifully ended. You'd like to think we learn from those kinds of 
mistakes, but as the case of Rep. Andy Harris trying to keep the 
District of Columbia from enforcing its own laws, I'm not betting on it.

You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado 
cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU. 
http://news.kgnu.org/category/features/weed-between-the-lines/ 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom