MEASURE TO LEGALIZE
ADULT POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA IN DC PASSES
Washington DC – Ballot
Initiative 71, which will legalize the adult
possession of 2 ounces of marijuana and allow for home-cultivation of up to 6
plants, but not legalize sales, passed today by a wide margin. Additions to DC
tax code cannot come from a ballot initiative, meaning that retail sales will still
not be permitted. However, the D.C. Council held a public hearing last Thursday
to discuss passage of a separate bill, the Marijuana
Legalization and Regulation Act of 2013, which would implement a retail
system for marijuana sales. The passage of this bill may delay activation of
Initiative 71.
“Today the people have
spoken, and right in the shadow of the Capitol, they have stated unequivocally
that they want drug policy reform,” said Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive
director of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition. “Tomorrow each Congressperson must choose how he or
she wants to be remembered in history: as someone who respected the people’s
wishes and worked to end one of the most pernicious problems of the 21st
Century, or as an anachronism, like those prohibitionists who refused to see
the writing on the wall in the 1930s.”
The measure will now undergo a 60-day
Congressional review period before it becomes law. This article
summarizes the possibilities for what happens from here.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is a 501(c)3
nonprofit of cops, prosecutors, judges and other law enforcement officials who
want to end the war on drugs.
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While this is good news for medical marijuana purposes, I hope that there are measure in place to seek out and do something about the people who are abusing the substance for themselves. We don't need more drug addicts around - they give the whole industry a bad name!
ReplyDeleteStigma, shame, hunting people down, sounds a lot like Prohibition redux to me.
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