He's Not High: Inside Barney Frank's Plan to Legalize Marijuana!

OH BARNEY....have you not seen how SMOKERS are PENALIZED (while Gun Owners are Not) over their "Legalized Vice" and yet you promote an Illegal Behavior and you are gonna get MUCHO APPROVAL!

SHAME ON YOU! Don't you get your own BETRAYAL of your PRINCIPLES and how this comes off for Smokers paying over $6.00 a pack...whicle you promote the "BagMen on the STREETS? :eyes:

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He's Not High: Inside Barney Frank's Plan to Legalize Marijuana

While Congress debates health care, handles the economic downturn, and the quagmire in Afghanistan, Congressman Barney Frank is eyeing America's draconian pot policies. Read our exclusive interview.

PLUS: Why Obama really might decriminalize weed, and what the Bush team knew about legalization

By: John H. Richardson
Congressman Barney Frank is pushing hard for new marijuana laws with the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009. Read our exclusive interview.

To my shame, I started my interview with Congressman Barney Frank about the legalization of marijuana by apologizing to my subject. "I know you guys have a lot on your plate these days, so I'm sorry to be calling you about something kind of trivial..."

Then I did a rapid midcourse correction. "But it's not trivial, because people go to jail over it."

"That's exactly right," Frank said.

We were talking about the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009, Frank's latest attempt to bring sanity to the federal marijuana laws. Currently, pot is classified as a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance under federal law, which makes it worse than morphine, cocaine, amphetamine, and PCP. Possession of a single joint carries a penalty of $1,000 and a year in prison – a charge faced by about 800,000 American citizens every year. This is the government whose judgment on war and economics we are supposed to respect.

So I started the interview over.

ESQUIRE: Could you tell me why you're doing it at this time? Everybody says you guys have got so much to handle right now.

BARNEY FRANK: Announcing that the government should mind its own business on marijuana is really not that hard. There's not a lot of complexity here. We should stop treating people as criminals because they smoke marijuana. The problem is the political will.

ESQ: That's my second question. There's already been a lot of change in the country. Thirteen states have decriminalized pot. What's holding up Congress?

BF: This is a case where there's cultural lag on the part of my colleagues. If you ask them privately, they don't think it's a terrible thing. But they're afraid of being portrayed as soft on drugs. And by the way, the argument is, nobody ever gets arrested for it. But we have this outrageous case in New York where a cop jammed a baton up a guy's ass when he caught him smoking marijuana.

MORE AT...........

http://blog.norml.org/2009/07/14/esquire-hes-not-high-inside-barney-franks-plan-to-legalize-marijuana/

It's high time, lol!

Really...make use of this product, make us pay taxes on it, and watch the money roll in...

Plus, the criminals will probably drop out of dealing, once their profits disappear.

K&R

Are you just a "One Issue" person on this?

Please discuss.

I'm all in favor of taxing cigarette smokers, and I have no opinion on gun rights...

Please clarify your question...

:shrug:

it legalized FOR ALL...and not just the medical uses ...and that Gun Rights Folks get similar dispensation from our tax laws?

Discuss.

and even our Military are being cautioned that the NEW RULES ARE: NO CIGARETTES at PX or ANYWHERE FOR YOU! While even our current President admits he hasn't "kicked the habit" and yet the taxes have gone up so bad on those who smoke it's considered GREAT for the HEALTH OF AMERICANS to tax SMOKERS...because they are bad and cost the health care system...YET...SMOKING CIGARETTES is still LEGAL...while POT IS NOT.

You seem desperate to equate the two, so show us the corresponding studies that support that.

And do you think that if marijuana is legalized that it's NOT going to be taxed up the ass?

Especially now, in hard times, we have to throw overboard the things that we are harming ourselves with (instead of throwing people overboard because we think we can't afford to meet their needs). One of the things we are harming ourselves with as a set of draconian laws, including the drug laws, that needlessly fill prisons and destroy lives. Just as we got rid of Prohibition in the last Great Depression, it is time to legalize or decriminalize drug use. I say start with pot, since it's the least harmful: simply legalize it; maybe tax it. Then decriminalize the other drugs.

but I think in these times criminalizing cigarettes when it's legal should be looked at...just as those who know guns kill...but folks deny it and they are legal but not taxed like cigarettes these days (yeah...I don't have the numbers to support my case) but if guns were taxed as heavily as legal cigarettes are going then one would think the "use would lessen" and that might be as good for our nations health as combatting cigarette smoking and "second hand smoke" is to our Health Care system.

Pot is still ILLEGAL ...yet folks go at Cigarettes... Why not decriminalize it all?

:shrug: So...I agree to much extent with what you say.

shouldn't be legalized. Go Barney!

Both are very bad for our health. Although there is some evidence from the Pro-Marijuana users that it has great benefit for many who are on chemotherapy. And many of us (myself, included do feel it should be de-criminalized because too many folks fill our jails for it's use which is ridiculous.

Yet...there seems to be a big campaign to make "Smokers of Cigarettes" be seen as CRIMINALS who are causing not only themselves but others to be sick ...causing the Health Care System to go broke paying for "Life Style Choices" which are NOT ACCEPTED by the THOUGHT POLICE.

If they come for your Cigarettes they will come for your Pot and your GUNS...

Hey...I'm just funning and playing with the various factions all vying for the same RESTRICTIVE LEGISLATURE here...

Playing around with the games they play on us on what to tax and what not...and what's in vogue to do and what not depending on the current Political Power in Play. :-(

cigarettes and probably guns as well. Life is full of all kinds of danger. That's just the way it is.

need to replace the lost revenues they provide.

Just another thought...

I got it.

Does pot?

:shrug:

above.

There is not one documented case of Cannabis killing a single person, ever.

Do you have the first case in recorded history? If so, please share it, otherwise stop spreading this lie.

anti cancer components.

I had some elder friends in their 80s who smoked pot, but never tobacco and were in better health , more alert than those that did smoke tobacco.
I do smoke tobacco and we are now starting our own little organic tobacco patch.
I would gladly switch if it were legal to smoke the other.
I am a long term HIV/AIDS patient who has been through several bouts of pneumonia, CMV solid organ, cancer 3x. on and on. When I could get pot I did better. My meds still make me sick every day.

I get marinol at a cost of some 1200$ per month, mj on the other hand would be about 200$ per month. Marinol is not nearly as effective and takes about 2 hrs for it to start working and it is harder to dose, because whatever you take is set, and if you only need a little or need a little more for the day you are kind of stuck with it.

Also there are other ways to use mj besides smoke, everyone starts on the smoke part and does not even consider other forms of us,such as vaporizing which releases the good part, but does not have the burnt carbon component and it is much easier to take.

It also helps relieve chest congestion I get from meds and I can cough that mess up and that mucus is where pneumocystis pneumonia gets started so far as I can tell. Of course if I say that to a dr they have a fucking cow because it's unlawful!! god forbid that you should mention something unlawful to the dr they could be arrested.. godam drug nazis..it is ok to go kill innocents in the mideast to steal their oil, but for me to have some weed.

Which by the way I haven't seen any in 2 or 3 years, for that reason.
It was made unlawful (illegal is not a word it is a sick bird!- a lawyer told me that years ago)
When I smoked pot I was a responsible stoner and stayed my self at home, near the munchies while high. I was also not in so much pain, and did not suffer like I with D and nausea every day from HIV meds.

lung cancer and given only weeks to live. He started smoking (!) pot and is still puffing away 5 years later.

I wish I could remember where I read his account, it would be a great addition.

:kick:

I can't tell if you're defending smokers, attacking gun owners, or smearing the idea of fixing our broken drug laws.