Rep. Jared Polis: Federal government shouldn't be banning marijuana

Colorado Democratic Rep. Jared Polis said Wednesday that the federal government should not be in the business of regulating marijuana use by Americans.

"I don't see a federal role," he said in a "Washington Unplugged" interview, noting that his state is among those that allow medical marijuana use. (There is also a push in Colorado for full legalization.) "I don't think that the federal side should be coming in and second guessing what states are doing."

"Just as the policy of prohibition failed nationally with alcohol - it's now up to states and counties - I think we should do the same with marijuana," he said.

Polis said his state's marijuana regulatory structure has been a model for other states, pointing to monitoring of production and dispensaries as well as background checks.

He also said he doesn't see "much downside" in moving toward decriminalization or legalization.

"One of the major issues we have with marijuana is its accessibility to minors and underage children, and that's because the corner drug dealer doesn't care if they're selling it to somebody who's 14 years old," he said. "If we regulate it, just like we do with alcohol and tobacco, we can have a real system in place to make sure that minors, young people don't get a hold of substances they shouldn't be using."

Polis is working on legislation to make it easier for growers and distributors to have access to banking services.

"Many banks don't want to take on the perceived risk of dealing with companies that might be in violation of federal law, so we're trying to clarify that if companies are following state law there won't be any risks for asset forfeiture or other risks for the banks," he said.

Polis said it's apparent that "we are not winning the drug war," pointing to increased drug abuse and the flow of drugs across the southern border from criminal cartels.

"Drug abuse is fundamentally a medical issue, a health issue, more than a criminal issue," he said.

The lawmaker asked people to ask themselves how they would want someone close to them to be treated if they were struggling with drug abuse.

"Do you think that person would have been better served by being in jail for several years or getting the help they needed to end their chemical dependency?" he asked.

Polis also pointed to a recent study finding that marijuana is already a $1.7 billion industry.

"It's already created thousands of jobs in Colorado, several millions dollars of tax revenue - I really think that's just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the potential of the industry in terms of job creation, revenue creation for the government," he said.

The congressman said the Obama administration has been better than the Bush administration when it comes to federal involvement in the issue, noting that there has been a move away from raids of legal buying clubs.

"However, they've still been causing some trouble around the edges for what we still feel are fundamentally legal state businesses," he said, adding that a "general fear" remains.

"We really can't have this be at the whim of what side of the bed a president or an attorney general wakes up on," he said.

Polis was also asked if he has any trouble getting people to take the issue seriously. When asked about legalization in 2009, President Obama laughed off the question.

"Well, I mean, it's as serious as any other issue," Polis said, adding: "I don't see anything funny about it." 

SPECIAL REPORT: Marijuana Nation

[bobchog]

As long as people fund in dollars for others to think for them there will always be thought-police.
Socialism and elementry school tells you what is safe and makes rules like, dont eat this or dont take that and if you dont we all have to pay.. right o.k. so who am I accountable for?
Me, so why should I be paying someone to make laws that cause me to pay for others actions such as.. making laws that I must pay them while all along other laws must be passed so that we dont hurt ourselves running in the hall-way right? cuz if I get hurt not useing my seatbelt correctly
the insurance companies get sad cuz they have to pay more? right...
and the big law makers dont get my tax money cuz I would be dead then right? Is that why? beacause socialized goverment cares so much more for me than myself? When the money runs out "and it will someday" or when people quit paying they money to the thought-police all the laws that pertain to governing ones personal accountabilty will end, and there will never be enough money to fund such a cause as governing personal accountability of ones own safety. wait and see or read history.

[normalice]

1. a moot point. You know i did not mean actually showing up to work stoned. You can get fired for being high on your own time, and that is what I'm talking about. But since you brought it up, not smoking at work and not smoking at all are separate issues - much like the consumption of alcohol. And if you want to go on assuming everyone who smokes pot is unproductive, including just a teensy bit when not high, I'll ask you how unproductive they will be when you add a criminal record to the high.

2. mystic theory. Also, i would like to point out that you consider marijuana a gateway drug in the same paragraph that you subjected tobacco and alcohol to the same rules, but did not consider tobacco and alcohol gateway drugs. Why? I'm guessing for you the gateway drug is whatever the safest illegal drug is out there.

3. mystical theory

4. fine, but "because it doesn't make enough money" is not a reason to arrest people for having it.

5. in fact i did not admit it, hence the word "alleged". also, mystical theory. Anything that assumes there would still be a black market is mystical theory - just as it is mystical theory to assume there would not be a black market.

[Plumbline89]

normalice:
Nice try. Let me respond to some of your points.
1. Produces unproductive members of society (or "high social costs": Everyone I know who smokes weed can not function 100% normally when under the influence. It's a fact that if people could legally show up to work stoned they would be less productive. You can't avoid that, it's the same as showing up to work drunk. You can be fired for that. Not because you drank alcohol, but because you were drunk at work. So the idea that all weed smokers can retain their productivity while high doesn't hold water.Heavy smokers or even lighter ones who are high at work would still still be unproductive and eventually still be fired, even if the drug were legal.

2. Gateway drug: If legal, pot would still serve as a gateway. Users could still subvert regulations to obtain, and the only difference form current enforcement being presumably no arrests to the user, amusing they are of age. Say you set the smoking age at 18, as the congressmen and you seem to be hinting at. All you're doing is moving the prohibition form the entire population to those under 18. How are the tobacco and alcohol age prohibitions working out? My point is, you can't logically claim legalization would stop the underground market. That market will always exist. Even with no age limit, there will always be people who prefer not to use the "legal and safe" channels to obtain their weed. They will not use federal or state standards and not check ID's. Lifting the ban does nothing to stop this market, and might even strengthen it because with it being legal, more people would be willing to try at the easiest access point, the black market. Also to say the dealers will not continue to push harder drugs is joke, you know they will, especially with young people. Again, legal weed might even make things worse, as now, dealers could come to kids and say will marijuana is safe and legal, and crack should be too! You should try it because the government lied to you about it like they did with marijuana. The southern dealers will just move their operational and resources towards cocaine and other dungs and they will replace weed as the "rebellious" drug of choice. Rather then the weed dealer on the corner it will be a crack dealer, while at the same time, they will retain a robust black market for pot.

3. Education. Right, because we've been so effective teaching those under 21 not to drink. At least now, there's a built in turn off for potential smokers. If legal, or partly legal (18 and over), no one would follow the education guidelines and they would get into bad situations at about the same rate as they do now, although if you had more overall smokers, you'd have more overall incidents and related deaths (shootings, car crashes, drownings, mixing with alcohol, and on and on)

4. Taxes. The money collected form weed wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for the feds or the states. There are way better ways to raise or save way more money.

5. Potency: you seem to admit this is a problematic issue and then try to blame it on the it the black market. As mentioned in #2 the black market would find ways to adapt and grow stoner in the face of partial or even full legalization. If the black market still exists, then so would the more potent and problematic weed.

[dgmeansit]

Let me respond to some of your points Plumbline99!

1 - Marijuana (pot, cannabis, ganga or whatever) does not produce unproductive members of society. I've known lots of users and they are all very productive. I agree with you that while under the influence that one can't funtion at 100% but so what? After 1 to 4 hours you're back to normal and no hangover. You probably don't realize this but in some ways you can function at greater than 100%! Among other things I practice karate and nunchaku, I juggle, I play chess. Believe it or not, getting a little high enhances my abilities to do these things.

2 - Pot is absolutely not a gateway drug anymore than milk is. Pot becomes a gateway to using other things purely because of it's prohibition. Illegal dealers have no problem trying to push dangerous drugs on their customers for one. Secondly, our Govt has been lying to us about pot being dangerous, so why believe them when they say LSD, or heroin, or meth, or cocaine, etc. is dangerous?

3 - Education is absolutely the right answer regarding any and all forms of intoxicant use. The problem is that we need to be able to trust what we are being told by our Govt and we have good reasons not to. I believe that you are wrong about all the new problems that would occur since people that want to are already consuming pot not in spite of it's illegal status - so little or no change there. After all, very few people are going to start using pot just because it's made legal. If they want to they already are.

4 - I agree with this point but it shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not pot is legal or not.

5 - Potency has increased because of advanced botanical procedures. But I don't see that as a problem... One simply needs to adjust the dosage accordingly. I think that taking a couple of tokes from a really potent strain is probably healthier than smoking 3 whole joints from some weak strain. Again, here is a problem that comes from prohibition - all to often, because someone got it illegally from an unregulated source, they don't know what they're getting! It would be much better to be able to legally go into a store and buy something that has a label explaining exactly what you're getting.

[normalice]

sorry, i replied to the wrong comment... but that's okay because it turns out I had stuff to add:

1. a moot point. You know i did not mean actually showing up to work stoned. You can get fired for being high on your OWN time, and that is what I'm talking about. But since you brought it up, not smoking at work and not smoking at all are separate issues - much like the consumption of alcohol. And if you want to go on assuming everyone who smokes pot is unproductive, including just a teensy bit when NOT high (i.e. at work), I'll ask you to consider how unproductive they will be when you add a criminal record to the high.

2. this is just storytelling (or mystic theory). I can't really come up with a response because doing so would be to treat a work of fiction like an argument. It would be just as easy for me to imagine some scenario in which repealing marijuana prohibition solves global warming and rids the world of nukes. Also, i would like to point out that you consider marijuana a gateway drug in the same paragraph that you claim tobacco and alcohol follow the same rules with delinquents, but did not consider tobacco and alcohol gateway drugs. Why? I'm guessing for you the gateway drug is whatever the safest illegal drug is out there. So it's easy: repeal marijuana prohibition and marijuana would no longer be the gateway drug - instead mushrooms would be. Oh, and as an aside, children under 18 have been surveyed and they do claim that marijuana is far more accessible that tobacco or alcohol.

3. mystical theory. You can't know whether or not the government campaigns against drunk driving have been even a little bit successful - neither can I, but I do know that prohibition has not been successful.

4. fine, but "because it doesn't make enough money" is not a reason to arrest people for having it.

5. in fact i did not admit it, hence the word "alleged". also, mystical theory. Anything that assumes there would still be a black market is mystical theory - just as it is mystical theory to assume there would not be a black market. No one knows either way, but that doesn't license you to assume the likely outcome is the one that backs the theory you favor.


I would like to know what exactly "commoners" (like you and I) have against repealing prohibition. The government I get: they get paid a lot of money by people who are making a lot more money off of prohibition. But you do not profit from prohibition - in fact it is your tax dollars that end up being someone else's profit. When did you decide marijuana prohibition was the right thing to do, I wonder? Judging by the logical quality of your comments, I'm guessing it wasn't data that swayed your opinion - most likely it was someone who you trust that simply told you to be against cannabis (be it Regan, your parents, your preacher..) and then gave you a bunch of emotionally potent non-data as fuel to keep you going on that opinion. But that's just a guess as there is no logical arguments that convince anyone that they should be worried about other peoples' business - you can only present emotional arguments in favor of that.

[normalice]

It is funny how marijuana prohibition could not hold up in a real debate, so there never is one. With every single problem people have with marijuana one can point out that the situation is made worse by it being illegal - unless of course the problem is entirely made-up emotionally potent oversimplification or mystical theory.

Young people using it? Drug dealers do not check IDs

Produces unproductive members of society (or "high social costs")? This is self-fulfilling, as one who is fired for marijuana use becomes unproductive once they lose their job, yet they are only fired because it is illegal. Further, the criminal record given to someone with a history marijuana use also reduces their opportunity to be a productive member of society - the drug itself does not.

Gateway drug? Again self-fulfilling, as you have to participate in the same illicit activity to get marijuana as you do to get any of the addictive and dangerous drugs; of course the dealers are going to try to hook you on the addictive stuff - that's just good business.

People driving while under the influence of marijuana? Like alcohol, we could educate people on the dangers of this, but we aren't going to pursue this option while it is illegal, because the response is "they shouldn't be using it at all, why teach people how to use it safely?"

We shouldn't resort to dealing drugs to fix our economy? made-up emotionally potent oversimplification.

Crime would increase? mystical theory.

Marijuana has become more potent than it used to be? This isn't grounds for arresting someone for having it, further this alleged increase in potency would not occur if it was regulated instead of prohibited - that's what regulation is.

Supports terrorism if you use drugs? Again, this is because no one is allowed to grow it in the U.S. - so other (enemy) countries do it.

It's immoral? again, mystic theory.

Of course, I don't claim to know every single argument in favor of marijuana prohibition, but I'm sure each one is either based on false information or the root cause is because it is illegal, not because of the drug.

[Hempheals]

Obviously HiTech53 has never heard about the endocannabinoid system that all living animals from protozoa on up have. I really hate when prohibitionists use the same old rhetoric and activists embrace actual medical studies.

[Teapot_Party]

The more we publicly debate the legalization issue the sooner Americans will understand the benefits its provides for both our country and our citizens. Join the Willie Nelson's Teapot Party today and learn the fact. www.teapotparty.org

[bobchog]

I feel that people should be able doctor their own bodies, at their own risk of course, and maybe experiment with their own bodies at thier own consequence being good or bad.
Freedom is a radical thing just as, a voting democratic country used to be hundreds of years ago.
I agree that the medical marijuana industry is sort of looking like those medication ads on t.v.
trying to appeal to every condition, I guess its the human capitalistic spirit and a marketing method.
I know some folks who shouldnt use much sugar, and some that souldnt touch caffine ,while there are many more who should stop useing so much of, if not at all ,substances such as tobacco and alcohol.
Parents of children should be the only ones to dictate use of substances "that is if they are not juged as unruly" which arises other questions.
Laws that pertain to ones personal safety such as all drug laws or prohibition, as some call it should not
be.
I almost forgot seatbelt laws and helment laws, while its a good idea and wise to use them, it should be the individuals personal responsibility, safety and personal liability.
Idealisticly so would be an interesting world to be.
Forcing by law personal responsibility and safety, seems to me as the same same ,as forcing a type of religon or not alowing religon on a free society.

Please give me insight on these issues, while I have lived most my life in unknowingly opposition to some of these views, I have found I draw much more insight by not trying to prove my standing perspective, rather to try to disprove the beliefs I hold as true, thus removing facade perspectives and becoming more certain of that which is foundationaly true.
"contact me at [e-mail] or post a new coment."

[edmundsingleton]

People fight and kill because a commodity is of a high value, kill the value, the fighting and killing will stop. No one fights for nothing...

[Multi-Basking]

How many doctors in the U.S. currently prescribe Alcohol to their patients?

[buggsx]

your point?

[Telchek]

Actually there are a number of medical uses for ethanol. Not that this is germain to the story at hand in any way.

[Multi-Basking]

Marijuana remains as a schedule 1 classification next to Heroin. Cocaine is at schedule 2.
By Propaganda's Logic, this means that Cocaine is actually the "Gateway Drug" which leads to "harder" drugs such as Marijuana. ; ) Idiots...

[dgmeansit]

This would be laughable if it didn't have such serious consequences for the users of marijuana! I agree 100% - Idiots!!! The highly paid Drug Czar doesn't seem to have a clue!

[LadyTigerTexas]

US GOVERNMENT ENDS FAILED "WAR ON DRUGS" With a Government Shutdown looming, the national debt spiraling out of control and angry citizens crying "End the Fed!!!!" and "Revolution". The United States Government is making its first attempt at decreasing its stranglehold on the American and World Populace. "Fear is a wonderful motivator!" an unnamed member of Congress stated in response to the overwhelming vote to completely defund and disband the absolute and fundamentally failing "War". "The American public has spoken, and we have to respond," stated another nameless faceless member of congress.

Several Medical Doctors who are known advocates against Prohibition have been appointed to oversee the subsequent decriminalization of all drugs. The domino affect is already taking place. The cartels are outraged and several South American countries have threatened to attack the U.S. borders in response to the decision. "We knew there would be a threats, but the American public has been enslaved by the Government regime and police state long enough!" Mary Jane Smith was quoted as saying-as she lead a celebration after 3 days of protest on capital hill.

Families will soon be reunited. Men and Women who've spent the greater part of their lives behind bars for petty drug offenses. Most of whom were arrested because of the enticement of the drug trade, the potential for great reward in spite of the risks. A victory for the American people! Let the DEA find real jobs, perhaps at one of the marijuana/hemp farms popping up all over the U.S.

In other news, classified documents that have been hidden from the public for more than 5 decades were released today. These documents were studies funded by public and private corporations regarding the health benefits of marijuana. The pharmaceutical companies declined to comment regarding an impending investigation into allegations of political payoffs to keep the public in the dark about the overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of using marijuana for everything from pain and nausea control to weight loss and loss of sexual desire in both men and women. The legalization of marijuana alone opens the potential for huge progress in decreasing drug dependency on more dangerous opiates in chronic pain patients.

Fast forward in 20 years and we will find this is the best decision America could have made. The research and studies into the medicinal qualities of Marijuana opened up an entirely new era in natural and holistic healing. Massages were covered by insurance. Sexual health and understanding how sexual health and overall health are closely intertwined revolutionized the industry and caused a paradigm shift in American attitudes towards wellness,medicine and disease prevention.

Pipe=Dream

[bobbychuckles]

Your penultimate paragraph is far from a pipe dream.
Consult any pre-1937 USP reference books and see just how many ailments were being successfully treated with Cannabis.
Easy hunting for those. Check Google books or any reputable research library.