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:::::::USA Set to Reschedule Cannabis::::::: HHS Releases Recommendation Documents:::::::

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Latest statement:

Former President Donald Trump says he supports federally rescheduling marijuana and opening up access to banking services for businesses in the cannabis industry. He is also reiterating his support for the legalization initiative on Florida’s November ballot.
“As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens,” Trump said in a post on his site Truth Social on Sunday night.

Trump’s latest marijuana post follows up on one he made last month in which he indicated—but did not explicitly say—he supported Amendment 3 in Florida. The earlier comments predicted that Florida voters would approve the cannabis measure and generally discussed the benefits of legalization, but left some observers wanting more clarity on the former president’s position on the specific state initiative.


“In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” Trump said in the prior post. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”

Later clarified with this statement:

“As I have previously stated, I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he said. “We must also implement smart regulations, while providing access for adults, to safe, tested product. As a Floridian, I will be voting YES on Amendment 3 this November.”



While Harris privately reaffirmed her support for legalization during a roundtable event at the White House event with marijuana pardon recipients—and she sponsored a bill to end federal prohibition during her time in the Senate—she’s been silent on the issue since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and she became the nominee.

Is Harris flip flopping by not speaking out about cannabis reform since becoming a candidate for president 90 days before the election in November? What is her current position on the issue as a presidential candidate?

 
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pipeline

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I like the fact that Trump claims to begin in his 2nd term wanting to work with congress to help pass common sense cannabis laws and promote states rights to be able to pass laws that work for their state.

But I don't like the first sentence talking about doing more research. Trump is kind of a fo-di-doe flip flop on this issue to some extent, but what is he supposed to do when the media has a tight grip on the narrative and mindset of the American people.

The research that comes out from the feds, we aren't going to like, its going to be biased against cannabis consumers and patients. They can't even grow their own plants, and they have to develop protocols. Cannabis has been thoroughly studied already and there is more than enough information to make a decision.

Calling for more research, I see as being more of a way to delay reform so they can do it on their own time and make political gains.

Also the harm they caused to society through decades and generations of people under the oppression of cannabis prohibition is blood on their hands. They have to back it off slowly, with questioning by die-hard prohibitionists to keep their story alive and keep back the tsunami wave of blowback for POOR POLICY WHICH HARMS LIVES OF PEOPLE THEY SERVE.
 
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Starting to get lit up now... What are we going to do about this? This is quite a big deal because the enforcement of these laws has harmed so many people's lives. :smoke:



Politics

Nixon Admitted Marijuana Is ‘Not Particularly Dangerous’ In Newly Discovered Recording​

23e664f1b1d91830887336bfd60bd196

Published

on
September 14, 2024
By
Tom Angell
Former President Richard Nixon, despite declaring the war on drugs and rejecting a federal commission’s recommendation to decriminalize marijuana, admitted in a newly unearthed recording that he knew cannabis is “not particularly dangerous.”


“Let me say, I know nothing about marijuana,” Nixon said in a March 1973 White House meeting. “I know that it’s not particularly dangerous, in other words, and most of the kids are for legalizing it. But on the other hand, it’s the wrong signal at this time.”


“The penalties should be commensurate with the crime,” Nixon said, arguing that a 30-year sentence in a cannabis case he recently heard about was “ridiculous.”



“I have no problem that there should be an evaluation of penalties on it, and there should not be penalties that, you know, like in Texas that people get 10 years for marijuana. That’s wrong,” the president said.


The comments, first reported by the New York Times, come as the federal government is reconsidering marijuana’s status as a restricted Schedule I drug.



The Department of Health and Human Services, after conducting a review initiated by President Joe Biden, recommended last year that cannabis should be moved to Schedule III. The Department of Justice agreed, publishing a proposed rescheduling rule in the Federal Register in May.


The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), however, has expressed hesitation about enacting the reform, however, and has scheduled a public hearing on the cannabis rescheduling matter for December 2, after the upcoming presidential election.



Nixon’s admission in the newly revealed tapes that marijuana is “not particularly dangerous” runs in contrast to his image as a drug warrior and undermines his and subsequent administrations’ decisions to classify it in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which is supposed to be reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical value.


On June 17, 1971, Nixon declared at a press conference that drug misuse was “public enemy number one,” saying that “in order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”


In 1972, Nixon rejected the recommendation of a federal commission that recommended decriminalizing cannabis.


When Nixon appointed so-called Shafer Commission to research and issue a report on federal marijuana laws, most people expected it to bolster the administration’s position that cannabis was a dangerous drug that ought to be criminalized. But that’s not what members concluded in their report.



The panel, which was formally titled the “National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse,” found that while marijuana use might pose some health risks, the policy of criminalization is excessive and unnecessary. The report from the 14-member commission, which had been appointed by Nixon himself and congressional leaders, recommended decriminalization.


“A coherent social policy requires a fundamental alteration of social attitudes toward drug use, and a willingness to embark on new courses when previous actions have failed,” the commission wrote.



The panel’s report stated plainly that “criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use.”


“It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance,” it said.


Therefore, the commission concluded that reforms be enacted so that “possession of marihuana for personal use no longer be an offense, [and the] casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration, no longer be an offense.”


Nixon ignored the findings but then, the next year, made the newly discovered comments about marijuana not being “particularly dangerous,”


The newly noticed recordings were shared with the New York Times after being dug up by Minnesota cannabis lobbyist Kurtis Hanna in a trove of recent uploads by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.



“President Nixon, the man who signed the bill into law to put marijuana in Schedule I, who kept it in Schedule I after the Shafer Commission report, and who created the Drug Enforcement Administration through administrative action didn’t believe marijuana was addictive or dangerous,” Hanna told Marijuana Moment.


“Jack Herer declared in 1973, ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ in his book by the same name,” Hanna said. “Through the release of the audio I found, we now have definitive proof of the Emperor himself admitting in private that he knew he was naked.”



Although Nixon can be heard on the tapes admitting that he felt marijuana penalties were too harsh, he also made clear he didn’t support fully legalizing it.


“But we are not for legalization, I don’t want to encourage the drug thing,” he said in one recording. “We’re starting to win the fight against drugs. This is not a time to let down the bars. and to encourage, basically, people to break open the discussion into the drug culture.”


Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, later conceded that the president’s insistence on criminalizing people over drugs was part of a political ploy to undermine “the anti-war left and Black people.”


“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said in a 1994 interview that was published by Harper’s in 2016. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
 
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pipeline

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Starting to get lit up now... What are we going to do about this? This is quite a big deal because the enforcement of these laws has harmed so many people's lives. :smoke:



Politics

Nixon Admitted Marijuana Is ‘Not Particularly Dangerous’ In Newly Discovered Recording​

23e664f1b1d91830887336bfd60bd196

Published

on
September 14, 2024
By
Tom Angell
Former President Richard Nixon, despite declaring the war on drugs and rejecting a federal commission’s recommendation to decriminalize marijuana, admitted in a newly unearthed recording that he knew cannabis is “not particularly dangerous.”


“Let me say, I know nothing about marijuana,” Nixon said in a March 1973 White House meeting. “I know that it’s not particularly dangerous, in other words, and most of the kids are for legalizing it. But on the other hand, it’s the wrong signal at this time.”


“The penalties should be commensurate with the crime,” Nixon said, arguing that a 30-year sentence in a cannabis case he recently heard about was “ridiculous.”



“I have no problem that there should be an evaluation of penalties on it, and there should not be penalties that, you know, like in Texas that people get 10 years for marijuana. That’s wrong,” the president said.


The comments, first reported by the New York Times, come as the federal government is reconsidering marijuana’s status as a restricted Schedule I drug.



The Department of Health and Human Services, after conducting a review initiated by President Joe Biden, recommended last year that cannabis should be moved to Schedule III. The Department of Justice agreed, publishing a proposed rescheduling rule in the Federal Register in May.


The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), however, has expressed hesitation about enacting the reform, however, and has scheduled a public hearing on the cannabis rescheduling matter for December 2, after the upcoming presidential election.



Nixon’s admission in the newly revealed tapes that marijuana is “not particularly dangerous” runs in contrast to his image as a drug warrior and undermines his and subsequent administrations’ decisions to classify it in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which is supposed to be reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical value.


On June 17, 1971, Nixon declared at a press conference that drug misuse was “public enemy number one,” saying that “in order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”


In 1972, Nixon rejected the recommendation of a federal commission that recommended decriminalizing cannabis.


When Nixon appointed so-called Shafer Commission to research and issue a report on federal marijuana laws, most people expected it to bolster the administration’s position that cannabis was a dangerous drug that ought to be criminalized. But that’s not what members concluded in their report.



The panel, which was formally titled the “National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse,” found that while marijuana use might pose some health risks, the policy of criminalization is excessive and unnecessary. The report from the 14-member commission, which had been appointed by Nixon himself and congressional leaders, recommended decriminalization.


“A coherent social policy requires a fundamental alteration of social attitudes toward drug use, and a willingness to embark on new courses when previous actions have failed,” the commission wrote.



The panel’s report stated plainly that “criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use.”


“It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance,” it said.


Therefore, the commission concluded that reforms be enacted so that “possession of marihuana for personal use no longer be an offense, [and the] casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration, no longer be an offense.”


Nixon ignored the findings but then, the next year, made the newly discovered comments about marijuana not being “particularly dangerous,”


The newly noticed recordings were shared with the New York Times after being dug up by Minnesota cannabis lobbyist Kurtis Hanna in a trove of recent uploads by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.



“President Nixon, the man who signed the bill into law to put marijuana in Schedule I, who kept it in Schedule I after the Shafer Commission report, and who created the Drug Enforcement Administration through administrative action didn’t believe marijuana was addictive or dangerous,” Hanna told Marijuana Moment.


“Jack Herer declared in 1973, ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ in his book by the same name,” Hanna said. “Through the release of the audio I found, we now have definitive proof of the Emperor himself admitting in private that he knew he was naked.”



Although Nixon can be heard on the tapes admitting that he felt marijuana penalties were too harsh, he also made clear he didn’t support fully legalizing it.


“But we are not for legalization, I don’t want to encourage the drug thing,” he said in one recording. “We’re starting to win the fight against drugs. This is not a time to let down the bars. and to encourage, basically, people to break open the discussion into the drug culture.”


Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, later conceded that the president’s insistence on criminalizing people over drugs was part of a political ploy to undermine “the anti-war left and Black people.”


“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said in a 1994 interview that was published by Harper’s in 2016. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
I just read that and was goning to post it here
 

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The deception has been continued until now, with new research. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Would be heavy handed not to back off since a significant number of people across the nation have made such an effort to obtain successful cannabis law reform and have their voices heard , I would think.
 

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Politics

Democratic Lawmaker Pushes GOP House Speaker To Put Marijuana Bills On Floor After Trump Support And Nixon Revelation​

3b71d81faa493372a683c777756df1f4

Published

on
September 16, 2024
By
Kyle Jaeger
marijuana-plants-9.jpg

A Democratic congressman is calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring marijuana legislation to the floor in light of former President Donald Trump’s recent endorsement of state and federal reform, as well as newly unearthed audio capturing former President Richard Nixon conceding that cannabis is “not particularly dangerous.”
In a letter sent to Johnson on Monday, Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chair Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) said the comments from Nixon, whose administration codified federal marijuana criminalization, represent “a devastating public admission of a devastating public policy.”
“For 50 years, the Schedule I classification of cannabis has inflicted generational harm on Black and Brown communities who have suffered from the deliberate and disproportionate enforcement of criminalization,” Blumenauer wrote. “It confirms what we have known for years, but we have never heard it in Nixon’s own words before.”

The congressman also pointed out that Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, recently backed an adult-use cannabis legalization initiative that’s on the ballot in Florida, as well as federal rescheduling and legislation to allow marijuana industry access to the banking system. Vice President Kamala Harris has been silent on the issue since becoming the Democratic nominee, but she’s also strongly advocated for cannabis reform in the past.
“With both party leaders in favor of commonsense reforms and the revelation that the President who started the war on drugs never found cannabis dangerous, it is clearly past time for Congress to act,” the letter says. “I strongly encourage you to bring bipartisan cannabis legislation to a vote as soon as possible.”

Blumenauer, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, discussed a series of cannabis bills that he believes could pass if brought to the floor. That includes the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to federally legalize marijuana, earlier versions of which have passed the House twice under Democratic control. He said bipartisan cannabis banking legislation and a proposal to promote veterans’ access to medical marijuana are also “examples of policies that could easily clear the House if you simply bring them to the floor for a vote.”
“As we approach the government funding deadline, it is clear we will need to remain in Washington to keep the government open. What remains unclear is what we will vote on while you continue to negotiate to resolve the budget impacts,” he said. “I would suggest moving policies that, instead of further dividing us, makes a difference for the American people, including for our veterans, law enforcement, small businesses, and more.”

“It’s never too late to do the right thing.”
Whether Johnson will take the congressman’s advice remains to be seen. Prior to becoming speaker, Johnson consistently opposed cannabis reform, including on incremental issues like cannabis banking and making it easier to conduct scientific research on the plant.
Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Marijuana Moment last week, Blumenauer also weighed in on Trump’s newfound position on cannabis, saying it “shows that now everybody agrees—even Donald Trump.”

But other lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Andy Harris (R-MD), have been skeptical about the authenticity of Trump’s stated support for marijuana reform, arguing that it amounts to a campaign ploy to attract voters ahead of the November election.
Harris’s campaign has also recently accused Trump of lying about his support for marijuana reform, stating that his “blatant pandering” runs counter to his administration’s record on cannabis.
“As president, Trump cracked down on nonviolent marijuana offenses—undermining state legalization laws, opposed safe banking legislation, and even tried to remove protections for medical marijuana,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said. “Donald Trump does not actually believe in marijuana reform, but the American people are smart enough to see through his campaign lies.”

While the campaign seems willing to call out Trump on his marijuana platform, it has so far declined to detail the Democratic nominee’s own position—even though she privately reaffirmed her support for legalization during a roundtable event at the White House event with marijuana pardon recipients in March and also sponsored a bill to end federal prohibition during her time in the Senate.
Advocates have also taken notice that a new, long-awaited issues page launched by the Harris campaign omits any mention of marijuana policy reform despite her record promoting comprehensive legalization.

The prior Biden-Harris campaign had also made several prior attempts to contrast the administration’s marijuana reform actions with those of the Trump administration, emphasizing the role that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions played in rescinding the cannabis enforcement guidance.
Following Trump’s announcement of support for the Florida cannabis legalization ballot measure, the campaign for Harris has worked to remind voters that while in office, the former president “took marijuana reform backwards.”

In a memo from a senior campaign spokesperson, the Harris campaign accused Trump of “brazen flip flops” on cannabis. The Democratic campaign says it’s one of the Republican former president’s “several bewildering ‘policy proposals’ that deserve real scrutiny.”
“On issue after issue, Trump is saying one thing after having done another,” the memo says. “For example: As a candidate in 2024, he suggests he is for decriminalizing marijuana – but as President, his own Justice Department cracked down on marijuana offenses.”
Trump’s latest marijuana post follows up on one he made last month in which he indicated—but did not explicitly say—he supported Amendment 3 in Florida. The earlier comments predicted that Florida voters would approve the cannabis measure and generally discussed the benefits of legalization, but left some observers wanting more clarity on the former president’s position on the specific state initiative.

Trump also recently discussed the medical benefits of cannabis and said legalization would be “very good” for Florida in an interview with Lex Fridman.
Last month at a press conference, Trump told a reporter that he’s starting to “agree a lot more” that people should not be criminalized over marijuana given that it’s “being legalized all over the country”—adding that he would “fairly soon” reveal his position on the Florida ballot measure.
Meanwhile, longtime ally and GOP political operative Roger Stone, who is also a Florida resident and supports the legalization proposal, separately told Marijuana Moment that if Trump did ultimately endorse the measure it would “guarantee victory.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is sponsoring a bill to federally legalize marijuana called the States Reform Act, separately said that while she hoped Trump would back the Biden administration’s rescheduling move, she also said part of the reason Republicans in Congress have declined to embrace marijuana policy change is because they’re “afraid of it.”
Trump also recently went after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.
Trump’s line of attack, while misleading, was nonetheless notable in the sense that the GOP presidential nominee implied that he disagrees with criminalizing people over marijuana and is moving to leverage the idea that Harris played a role in racially disproportionate mass incarceration.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) separately told Marijuana Moment in a recent interview that if Trump is serious about his recently stated support for the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, he needs to “bring us some Republican senators” to advance it through the chamber.
Hickenlooper, as well as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), weighed in on the cannabis banking issue in interviews last week, though none were aware at the time that Trump had endorsed the policy change days earlier.
Brown said that “we don’t have enough Republicans, we don’t think,” to secure the passage of the SAFER Banking Act. That point has previously been contested, however, with the bill’s lead Republican sponsor Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) insisting that the votes are there to move the measure along.
Hickenlooper, meanwhile, said that while he hadn’t been appraised on the latest Trump remarks on cannabis banking, he’s skeptical about how serious the former president is in the position, commenting that “it might change by tomorrow” given his proclivity for rapidly taking on opposite sides of various issues.
He added that the SAFER Banking Act is “going through this process,” but he also said the Biden administration’s push to federally reschedule cannabis represents “a major step forward” that could help grease the wheels on marijuana banking reform.

“I think rescheduling is going to get SAFE Banking through the Senate,” the senator said. “Donald Trump can say whatever he wants, but unless you bring us some Republican senators, we’re not going to get SAFE Banking.”
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report last month explaining that federal marijuana rescheduling is “unlikely” to improve banking access for state-legal cannabis businesses, But Blumenauer similarly argued that the reclassification move, when it is enacted, could have a political effect that spurs action on the separate marijuana banking legislation.
It should also be noted that the proposed rescheduling action isn’t guaranteed. Following a public comment period, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) last month announced that it has scheduled an administrative hearing in December to gain additional input before potentially finalizing the rule. It’s possible that rulemaking could extend into January, meaning there’s a chance that the next presidential administration could influence the final outcome.

Read Blumenauer’s letter to Johnson on bringing cannabis reform bills to the floor below:
 
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