Pubdate: Thu, 13 Feb 2014
Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright: 2014 The Commercial Appeal
Contact: http://web.commercialappeal.com/newgo/forms/letters.htm
Website: http://www.commercialappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Michael Collins

COHEN FILES DRUG REFORM LEGISLATION

Frees Drug Czar to Study Medicinal Pot

WASHINGTON - A week after his comments about marijuana went viral on 
the Internet, U. S. Rep. Steve Cohen has filed legislation that would 
give the nation's drug czar the freedom to reform the nation's policies on pot.

The bill, if approved, would remove federal restrictions that require 
the Office of National Drug Control Policy - commonly referred as the 
"drug czar" - to oppose changing the legal status of marijuana and 
prevent it from even studying whether there might be any medical 
benefits to the drug.

The drug policy office's job "should be to develop and recommend sane 
drug control policies, not be handcuffed or muzzled from telling the 
American people the truth," said Cohen, D-Tenn.

"How can we trust what the drug czar says if the law already 
preordains its position?" he asked.

Cohen said his legislation, known as the Unmuzzle the Drug Czar Act, 
would give the office "the freedom to use science, not ideology" in 
its recommendations and would give the American people "a reason to 
trust what they are told."

Cohen raised the issue last week during a congressional hearing in 
which he complained to Michael Botticelli, the Drug Control Policy 
office's deputy director, that the war on drugs has failed and that a 
generation of young Americans believe marijuana is not as dangerous 
as they have been told by the government.

"Nobody dies from marijuana, but people die from heroin," Cohen said 
in remarks that spread like wildfire across the Internet.

On Wednesday, Cohen and other members of a bipartisan coalition led 
by U. S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D- Ore., sent a letter to President 
Barack Obama urging the reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug.

Listing a drug under Schedule 1 means the federal government doesn't 
recognize it for medical use.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom