Pubdate: Sat, 15 Nov 2014
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2014 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum, Creators Syndicate
Page: A9

ROAD TO WHITE HOUSE GOES THROUGH MARIJUANA COUNTRY

Of the three jurisdictions where voters approved marijuana 
legalization last week, Washington, D.C., is the smallest but the 
most symbolically potent.

The prospect of legal marijuana in the nation's capital dramatically 
signals the ongoing collapse of the 77-yearold ban on a much-maligned plant.

The passage of Initiative 71, which voters backed by a margin of more 
than 2 to 1, presents a challenge to the Republicans who will soon 
control both houses of Congress.

Will they respect democracy and local control, or will they insist 
that Washingtonians toe a prohibitionist line that is steadily disappearing?

Initiative 71 allows adults 21 or older to possess two ounces or less 
of marijuana, grow up to six plants at home and transfer up to an 
ounce at a time to other adults "without remuneration."

It does not authorize commercial production and distribution, but the 
D.C. Council is considering legislation that would.

"I see no reason why we wouldn't follow a regime similar to how we 
regulate and tax alcohol," incoming Mayor Muriel Bowser said last week.

The initiative does not take effect until after D.C. Council Chairman 
Phil Mendelson submits it to Congress for review. Congress then has 
either 30 or 60 days (a matter of dispute) to pass a joint resolution 
overriding the initiative; if it fails to do so, the initiative becomes law.

Congress also can stop legalization by barring the D.C. Council from 
spending money to implement Initiative 71. For more than a decade, 
legislators used that technique to block a medical marijuana 
initiative that voters approved in 1998.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who unsuccessfully tried to prevent the D.C. 
Council from decriminalizing marijuana possession earlier this year, 
told The Washington Post he will "consider using all resources 
available to a member of Congress" to stop legalization.

He might have more luck this time, since his earlier amendment was 
approved by the House but not the Senate, which will soon have a 
Republican majority.

Then again, the House last May approved an amendment introduced by 
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that was aimed at stopping the 
federal government from undermining medical marijuana laws.

The amendment, which attracted votes from 49 Republicans in addition 
to 170 Democrats, explicitly applied to D.C. as well as the 23 states 
that let patients use marijuana for symptom relief.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is expected to chair a key committee that 
oversees the District, believes Congress should respect the will of 
the voters who approved Initiative 71.

"I think there should be a certain amount of discretion for both 
states and territories and the District," Paul told reporters on 
Election Day. "I'm not for having the federal government get 
involved. I really haven't taken a stand on ... the actual 
legalization ... but I'm against the federal government telling them 
they can't."

The D.C. Cannabis Campaign, which backed Initiative 71, hopes that 
even Republicans who still associate marijuana with the 1960s 
counterculture will see the merits of local autonomy.

"What we want is for Phil Mendelson to transfer the initiative when 
the new Congress is seated," says Nikolas Schiller, the campaign's 
director of communications. "We believe that a new Republican 
Congress will not interfere with something that deals solely with 
personal liberties."

Principles aside, there are sound political reasons for Republicans 
to avoid defining themselves as pot prohibitionists. Several recent 
polls indicate that most Americans favor legalization, and support is 
especially strong among younger voters.

Last year a Gallup survey found that retirees were the only age group 
in which most people still supported prohibition.

"With marijuana legal in the federal government's backyard," says Tom 
Angell of the antiprohibitionist group Marijuana Majority, "it's 
going to be increasingly difficult for national politicians to 
continue ignoring the growing majority of voters who want to end prohibition.

"I've been saying for a while that 2016 presidential candidates need 
to start courting the cannabis constituency, and now the road to the 
White House quite literally travels through legal marijuana territory."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom