Press Release: Federal Marijuana Legalization Bills Introduced to Congress

Contact: Darby Beck                                                                                           For Immediate Release:
darby.beck@leap.cc                                                                                                     February 20, 2015
415.823.5496

FEDERAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION BILLS INTRODUCED 

TO CONGRESS   

Congressmen Jared Polis (D-CO) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) Introduce Separate Marijuana Tax,  Regulation Bills 

Washington D.C. – Today US Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Earl Blumenauer

(D-OR) introduced separate bills to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana for adults at the

federal level. Polis introduced a bill that would allow states the ability to choose to

legalize marijuana without fear of federal intervention, and a federal regulatory structure

would be built to accommodate those new laws. Blumenauer’s bill would tax marijuana

at the federal level, in addition to any taxes that may be imposed by state and local

jurisdictions. Marijuana is already state-legal in Colorado, Washington, Alaska and

Oregon, and medical marijuana is allowed in 23 states and Washington, DC. Yet despite

a Department of Justice memo that instructed federal prosecutors to be sparing in their

interference in state-legal operations,  “using [their] limited investigative and

prosecutorial resources to address the most significant marijuana-related cases,” which

the memo explained, and passage of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment defunding federal

prosecution of medical marijuana cases, some US attorneys, such as Melinda Haag,

continue to inappropriately use federal law to go after state-legal operations.



“Cops have better things to worry about than the recreational habits of responsible,

nonviolent adults,” said Maj. Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of Law

Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of criminal justice professionals

opposed to the drug war. “And dispensary owners have better things to worry about than

whether the federal government is going to arrest them and/or seize their assets for acting

in accordance with state law.”

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