Spokane7
65°
December 1, 2011 in City
Governors want marijuana reclassified
Gregoire, R.I. leader petition for Schedule 2
OLYMPIA – Governors from Washington and Rhode Island asked the federal government Wednesday to reclassify marijuana so it can be used for medical use.
Gov. Chris Gregoire and Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee petitioned the Drug Enforcement Administration to remove marijuana from Schedule I, which is reserved for drugs like heroin and peyote that have no medicinal use and thus are illegal under all circumstances. They want it considered a Schedule 2 drug, like morphine and codeine, which are illegal under many circumstances but can be prescribed by a doctor and filled by a pharmacist for certain conditions.
“It’s time to show compassion and it’s time to show common sense,” Gregoire said. “There’s no evidence to suggest any medical marijuana patient has died from an overdose.”
Gregoire is a Democrat and Chafee a political independent. They said they expect governors from other states that also have medical marijuana laws on their books to join them.
The petition was filed Wednesday and will be turned over to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They’ve requested public hearings.
The request is prompted in part by recent federal crackdowns in Washington and other states against a growing number of medical marijuana “dispensaries,” where patients with physician approval for marijuana for diagnosed medical problems have purchased their supplies.
“Our intent is to ask for an expedited petition,” Gregoire said after acknowledging the last request to reclassify marijuana took about nine years and was rejected by the Obama administration. Since that time there have been new studies on the value of marijuana to treat some medical conditions, and its legalization for medical use has been supported by the American Medical Association.
Supermajority for taxes unconstitutional, judge rules 
massenberg420 on December 01 at 7:53 a.m.
Looks like the pill makers have paid off Gregoire!
Cannabis ( AKA ) Marijuana, does not fit into the listing of a level 1 drug as it has been proven to have Medical Value and as it states in the level 1 guidelines, ” for a drug to be a level 1 drug, it can not be safe even under the eyes of a doctor. ”
As most of you know, Marijuana in 5,000 years has never killed anyone, can the same thing be said about WATER?
Don’t take my word for it, look it up and see if anyone has ever died from drinking too much water, then see if anyone has ever died from Cannabis.
This needs to stay in the hands of Patients or growers that want to sell it to the State, but pill makers should not have their day or we could see Cannabis soar from 300 per ounce, to a Thousand or more per ounce.
As it is now, we the taxpayers are already paying Big Pharma $1,724.00 PER MONTH, per bottle of man made marijuana pills for over FOUR MILLION PER YEAR, out of our Tax Dollars that could be going to other things like Schools or the Homeless, or to fix streets.
At a time when the Federal Government & the State of Washington being so broke, why do we keep spending Tax Dollars on busting people that are sick & Dying who are working hard to help others that are sick & Dying, is this not going to cost a lot more Tax Dollars taking care of all these sick people in Jail?
With Actions like these, your tax rates will keep going crazy as the State of Washington & the Federal Government will keep raising rates till we stand up and say NO MORE!
Proper testing needs to be allowed to see of this should be taken off the listing or at what level to place this, and since the FDA & DEA have their hands dirty with pill maker money, the testing needs to be done by someone that has nothing to gain from this.
greyhound2 on December 01 at 8:06 a.m.
Far too much hard earned taxpayer money is being wasted on victimless and non-violent crimes. It is a lot easier for police to bust some kid for smoking a joint than to solve a burglary or some other real crime. It costs taxpayers about $30,000 per year to warehouse somebody in jail, and that money could be much better spent on something productive. In the years since Nixon started the alledged “War on Drugs”, a lot of money has been flushed down the toilet with not much to show for it.
idahocity on December 01 at 9:26 a.m.
at the very least unhitch hemp from marijuana. something that cannot get you high and has no real medical value other than being a really nutritious food to keep you healthy has no place on a controlled substance ban list.
Sadbuttrue on December 01 at 11:02 a.m.
The “basis” for the modern “War on Drugs” is a hilarious conversation between Nixon and Art Linkletter, who blamed weed for his daughter’s suicide (which turned out not to be true).
Nixon and Linkletter got snockered and thoroughly drunk one night at the White House, and started discussing the ill effects of weed, as they saw it.
Basically, the two of them concluded that the use of weed will quickly turn a person into a commie, a faggot or a Jew.
When Marijuana was first listed as a scheduled drug in the 1930’s, the drug czar was a thoroughly racist bigot, who argued before Congress that without weed prohibition, there would be no way to control the negroes and the mexicans, the “dusky races” as he put it.
This is why our prisons are now swollen to the gills with non-violent law-abiding marijuana users.
Ed Byrnes on December 01 at 8:29 p.m.
Reposting from last night:
This issue cuts across traditional political boundaries when rationalism is applied to the question of cannabis prohibition.
I have always been an advocate of legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis in the same way as alcohol.
Over the past few years I have offered plenty of evidence to support my position on legalization, essentially declassifying cannabis rather than reclassifying it, though I consider reclassifying as a step in the right direction because it actually considers empirical evidence for the first time since federal prohibition began in the 1930s.
Reclassifying cannabis also removes the justification for the extensive overreach of the federal government that is currently underway.
We can anticipate strong resistance to any modifying of the prohibition status quo by the usual suspects: Law enforcement because of the profit motive inherent in the seizure and forfeiture laws; Public and private corrections for essentially job security reasons; The “treatment” industry because of coerced treatment being profitable (SAMHSA, an administration within the US Dept of Health and Human Services released data two years ago demonstrating that of people in “treatment” exclusively for cannabis 75% were court ordered); The drug testing industry because of reduced volume and profits; The alcohol industry because of competition.
No government has any business persecuting people for slightly altering their own consciousness with a relatively benign natural substance.
I have in the past and can presently, empirically and readily take on the straw man arguments about cannabis being a “gateway drug” or “addictive” that I expect to hear from prohibition advocates since empirical generalities derived from science refute these arguments.
The thing is that people are waking up to the policy disaster that prohibition is and the fallacy of the prohibitionists arguments. Survey data consistently demonstrate a trend toward people being favorable toward legalization so the question is no longer if, but rather when, we will abandoned this misguided and failed policy in favor of empiricism and liberty.
Ed Byrnes