Contact:
Mikayla Hellwich For
Immediate Release:
Media@leap.cc Friday, December 18th,
2015
240.461.3066
STATE
MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS PROTECTED, FEDERAL BAN ON SYRINGE EXCHANGE FUNDING
RELAXED BY SPENDING BILL
President
Obama Expected to Sign Bill Into Law
Washington
D.C. – President Barack Obama is expected to sign a critical
spending bill passed this morning by Congress that contains two
significant drug policy provisions that will protect state’s rights, medical
marijuana businesses and patients, and improve public health. Last year, Reps. Dana
Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Sam Farr (D-CA) cosponsored an amendment that
prevents the Department of Justice (DOJ) from using funds to go after
state-legal medical marijuana businesses. The amendment was approved on a
temporary, one-year basis in the last spending bill and will be renewed pending
the President’s signature.
The
Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment protects medical marijuana businesses that abide by state law
from federal interference. Federal law still lists marijuana under Schedule I
of the Controlled Substances Act, a category supposedly relegated to drugs that
have no medical value or applicable uses in medical settings and extremely high
potential for abuse and addiction. Until the amendment was passed, federal
enforcement agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), were
still able to shut down facilities despite state law. A federal judge in
California upheld the amendment in
October after the DEA brought a case against a medical marijuana business
owner.
“Patients
who benefit from medical marijuana should not be treated like dangerous
criminals, and the businesses that support them need to be protected from the
old drug war mentality that still runs deep within the DEA,” said Maj. Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive
director for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of criminal justice professionals working to end
the drug war. “It’s very encouraging to see such widespread support for
protecting state’s rights and the rights of patients.”
In
an incredible victory for public health, the bill undermines the decades-old
ban on federal funding used for clean syringe programs. Federal dollars still won’t
be permitted for purchasing syringes directly, but money can be used for
everything else involved in the programs, including staff, if local public
health agencies in consultation with the CDC agree that there is an HIV or
hepatitis outbreak. In 1988 the government banned federal funds from being used
to provide clean syringes to people who inject drugs. It was a common
misconception at the time that providing basic harm reduction services, such as
clean needles, enables people with addictions and will increase the number of
people who use drugs. This myth has been debunked repeatedly (though
the same argument continues to be made against the lifesaving
opiate-overdose-reversal drug naloxone), and federal law now demonstrates a
more significant effort to show basic compassion and improve the health of
injecting drug users and the community at large. Countries that have robust
needle exchange programs are greatly reducing
the spread of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis.
“Needle
exchange is a public health and safety necessity,” said retired corrections officer, substance
abuse counselor, and LEAP speaker, Patrick Heintz. “This new
law will not only protect those who use drugs from disease, but it will help
prevent other innocent victims who come into intimate contact with people who
use IV drugs that have been forced for so long to share contaminated needles.”
Four
states and the District of Columbia have legalized the adult-use of marijuana.
Twenty-three states and D.C. allow some form of medical marijuana access. The
United States has one of the lowest records
of availability of clean syringe access in the developed world even though
203 programs operate in 34 states.
LEAP is committed to
ending decades of failed policy that have created dangerous underground markets
and gang violence, fostered corruption and racism, and largely ignored the
public health crisis of addiction. The drug war has cost nearly $2 trillion
dollars, yielded only disastrous outcomes, and has diverted valuable law
enforcement resources away from more important crimes.
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