A month ago, I posted that Bill Keating and Joseph Kennedy III — in stark opposition to their constituents and the rest of New England’s US congressmen — voted to retain a gag order preventing veterans from discussing medical marijuana with their doctors.
Evidently, these two congressmen have no intention of reconsidering their position and abiding by their districts’ wishes.
Last Friday, the House considered another medical marijuana vote — an amendment to an appropriations act. This amendment aimed to keep the federal government from cracking down on medical marijuana services in states that have legalized it. As its text stated, it would “prohibit the use of funds to prevent certain States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Once again, Keating and Kennedy joined a small fraction of Democrats (17 in all) to vote No.
The rest of Massachusetts’ and New England’s delegation were part of the 170 Democrats who voted Yes…and since the number of Republican Yes votes more than doubled since that gag order vote, the amendment passed, 219-189.
What makes Kennedy and Keating’s most recent No vote additionally galling is the way it particularly defied Massachusetts and put the will of its voters in jeopardy. This amendment was all about keeping hostile presidential administrations from using their executive power to effectively negate popular, progressive state pot laws. Massachusetts voters approved medical pot in a landslide, but Kennedy and Keating tried to undermine the state law we passed by enabling federal agencies to butt in and tell us, “No you don’t.”
The appropriations act wound up passing. Thus, depending on the Senate and White House, the USA may actually be on the brink of a powerful legislative action in support of medical marijuana.
Despite quibbling from some pot activists who think this amendment is redundant or mild, no surprise that others are calling it “historic.” As AlterNet’s April M. Short observes, “It was the first time since the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 that the majority of a chamber of Congress voted in favor of something that would alter national marijuana policy.”
“The Senate is always unpredictable but we have reason to be optimistic,” says Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance. In recent months, medical pot-related subjects have gained support from a number of senators, including conservatives and centrists. (See previous link.) Despite a zealous Drug Enforcement Administration, Obama has lately moderated his tone on pot in general, and, predating this amendment, his Department of Justice chose not to challenge full legalization in Colorado and Washington.
Unlike Kennedy and Keating, they’ve begun to recognize that times have changed.
jconway says
With the likes of John Barrow and Jim Cooper. Unlike those two holdout Blue Dogs, these two are in some of the safest districts in the country. It’s a sad day when Dana Rohrabacher is more progressive than a Kennedy on an issue-but here we are.
matthewjshochat says
Although I am aware of the vote, I am not up in arms about it for a couple reasons: (1) the amendment passed – plain and simple, and (2) this particular issue has never been one of my top pet peeves. Would I vote in favor of it? Sure. But it doesn’t rank the most important compared to other things.
Christopher says
…from legislation trying to regulate what OB-GYNs discuss with their patients regarding reproductive choices? Sounds like a blatant first amendment violation not to mention violations of privilege. As someone who subscribes to the Burkean view of representation whining that they aren’t doing their constituents bidding is a weaker argument, however.
theloquaciousliberal says
This amendment is about the use of federal monies and has absolutely no First Amendment implications at all. Your ill-informed and emotion-laden opposition to intelligent marijuana public policy is seemingly preventing you from stringing together a coherent argument here. I’ll limit my comment to three sentences that hopefully make more sense than the three sentences you cobbled together in this comment.
Christopher says
The first amendment reference was to the previous legislation referred to in the first paragraph of this post and that is what I latched on to, which it sounds like you and I agree on. (mea cupla)
I’m not sure how I feel about the legislation this diary was about. On the one hand on the merits I’m open to loosening federal laws to allow states to experiment with their own policies. OTOH I believe very strongly in federal supremacy and am sympathetic to enforcing laws as they are.
Your second sentence where you decide to turn it into a personal attack on me because you disagree was completely uncalled for.
theloquaciousliberal says
For the personal attack.
But you should know that it comes from a place of real disappointment in your “arguments” on the issue of marijuana policy, particularly in contrast to your usually well-reasoned comments on most other issues.
Just last month, for example, you offered the following “insights”:
You obviously know quite a bit about the Constitution and public policy. And, generally, your views are progressive with a libertarian bent.
Yet, you persist with the utterly nonsensical and rapidly shifting arguments against a rational policy of marijuana. A policy of legalization that is supported by the large majority of both progressives *and* libertarians across the country.
It just frustrates the heck out of me that it’s so difficult to conduct a reasonable debate on marijuana policy in this country. Even with people who are reasonable in so many other debates.
jconway says
I posted a link to that Washington Monthly article and Christopher ended up replying with the boilerplate Nancy Reagan talking points on this issue.
We are wasting a ton of money, ruining a ton of lives, and frankly harming far more people in the process of keeping this substance illegal than would be harmed if it were made legal and properly regulated. I think having concerns about the manner in which it is legalized eg. controlled sale vs free market for instance, are totally valid. But I honestly see no legitimate reason based public policy concern that would justify continuing the status quo. And I have yet to hear one from Christopher beyond a profound personal aversion to marijuana and broad assertions as to it’s harm. I am open to something more concrete, and welcome him as an ally in the decriminalization campaign, but that still leaves a lot of people behind.
Christopher says
…besides some grand conversion and seeing the supposed error of my ways. I have not said keep exact status quo. I did backtrack to the Washington Monthly article, read it thoroughly and offered my genuine thoughts, which I really don’t think were Nancy Reagan’s. Since you are all willing to acknowledge that I’m a thoughtful commenter on most issues maybe you will be willing to grant that I am being thoughtful here too and have come to a different conclusion. Do my health concerns really mean nothing?
jconway says
Feel free to link to articles supporting your side, give me numbers, for instance give me annual deaths from marijuana use-oh what is that? ZERO
That same article says we lose 40,000 a year in prescription drugs. Maybe that is the war we should be fighting. We lose 88,000 a year with alcohol. We lose 480,000 a year with cigarettes and other tobacco related deaths.
Those products are totally legal, and history shows us that prohibiting them has as many deleterious effects as the war on drugs is having now.
I don’t expect you to have a conversion, I expect you to engage with the facts and evidence presented by my side and present facts and evidence for your side beyond “studies (that you don’t link to) say it’s unhealthy”. Asserting it’s unhealthy over and over again doesn’t prove that it is.
Christopher says
A simple Google search will yield plenty of health concerns from a variety of sites. Enough for me to say there is no public health upside and all downside to legalizing another substance, especially for recreational use.
jconway says
You saw the links demonstrating zero fatalities from pot, yet 40k deaths per year from prescription drugs, 88k from alcohol, and 480k from cigarettes. Not to mention that our existing policies actually do a poor job preventing people from using this harmful drug, if 7 out of 10 Americans have enjoyed it’s recreational usage at one point or another, along with most of our elected officials. I am not arguing it is good. Alcohol and tobacco are actually worse, and have done far more to injure my family and friends than pot ever has, and I still favor their legality. Just as we are both pro-choice but personally opposed to abortion, precisely because we recognize the very dangers an underground abortion market poses to the health and welfare of women, we are both pro tobacco and marijuana legalization for the very reason.
Tobacco has always been allowed, but since the FDA began regulating it, issuing warning labels, advertising against it, and taxing the crap out of it, it’s usage rates have fallen to 20% of the adult population. Alcoholism actually went down after prohibition. A well regulated market, not a free one, but a controlled one with significant state intervention, would be a far smarter policy than the zero intolerance massive incarceration strategy that puts addicts in jail rather than treats them, and that costs billions of dollars that could instead be generated and pumped back into public health causes. We may see that 70% number actually drop under a legalized regime, it may become a significantly less popular drug since it will lose some counter-cultural cache. And by taxing it and controlling the price for it, we will see the black market dry up and prices stabilize. People who do smoke will be using a safer product.
Medical marijuana certainly can be beneficial for certain cases, particularly with kids suffering seizures, glaucoma patients, etc., but I have not argued that recreational marijuana is a good thing the state should promote. In fact, the state actively advertises against tobacco. I wouldn’t mind it if anti-drug ads continued, even against pot, but I would prefer that the funds for that come from pot tax revenues, and I would definitely prefer that we get the savings out of ending this failed war, bringing the troops home from Columbia and other states where they are operating, and cutting the main money supply and gateway product that enables the cartels to sell worse products that actually kill people.
If your state goal is to keep an unhealthy product off the street you should be joining me in supporting legalization.
Christopher says
…how I got my reputation for being opposed to abortion. I’m am prochoice, not “personally prolife, but politically prochoice”, but I digress.
I’ve said all along we can be smarter about enforcement and open about medical usage.
I’m skeptical of how this will play out. We still see a lot of people for reasons passing understanding smoking cigarettes and I don’t want to start seeing that with pot. Even though these products are for adults, minors get their hands on them since being legal they are easy to obtain.
jconway says
Forgive me if I conflated my own abortion position with yours, I think we have consistently agreed in the past that we can practice our own faith privately while publicly supporting laws that leave that decision to the woman. My understanding has never been that you were pro-life politically. My broader point there was that we can favor or disfavor certain personal choices for ourselves without wishing the government to impose our preferences on others.
And I am still curious that you can hold that position for abortion, gambling, drinking and smoking tobacco without understanding how one could hold that for pot.
The risk for minors using the product is greater on a black market than a regulated one where age can be enforced and the supply strictly governed, and again, let’s see how it works in WA and CO. So far it seems to be generating a substantial amount of revenue without incurring any significant social costs. But unfortunately, Keating and Kennedy take an astringent hardline stance against those kinds of policy experiments and innovations and it seems like you do as well. At least decriminalization at the federal level would help restore so many incarcerated lives by allowing these victims of addiction, in both of our estimations I might add, to get the treatment they need, while saving us billions a year and reducing the very real casualties of the drug war. I would hope you could be on board with that, along with these Congressmen.
Christopher says
…but it is not the one I hold for reasons stated. I think your last paragraph above is very reasonable.
SomervilleTom says
Your comments here are consistently anti-abortion except when narrowly restricted to questions about the legality of abortion.
You have argued with me about virtually every other aspect of this procedure. My recollection is that when I said that anti-abortion extremists who murder abortion providers and bomb clinics should be treated as terrorists, you disagreed. When I said that the Catholic Church has blood on its hands by not disowning these terrorists and their organizations, my recollection is that you argued with me.
BTW, cigarette smoking is demonstrably far more addictive than marijuana.
Minors get their hands on marijuana anyway. Legalizing it is likely to reduce, rather than increase, that phenomena. More importantly, the corner convenience store is far less likely to sell those minors crack, heroin, downers, uppers, and all the other wares offered by the current illegal purveyors.
Christopher says
…but I have rethought my definition of terrorism a bit and the Church has always denounced violence in the strongest terms that I have heard and read.
You just helped make my case for banning cigarettes – thank you:)
Sure some minors get their hands on marijuana, but when I was in college I observed countless classmates smoking cigarettes in public and they didn’t pick up the habit on their 18th birthday. Since it’s acceptable to smoke tobacco I have to ask someone to kindly not do it in my presence. I just don’t want to now have to experience this with marijuana too.
SomervilleTom says
The arguments you are presenting are not persuasive enough to cause tobacco and alcohol to be banned — since the evidence against tobacco and alcohol is so much more one-sided, it doesn’t make sense to use those arguments against marijuana.
It really does seem as though the core of your argument is centered about yourself — whether you have to “smell it”, whether you might have to — heaven forbid — ask someone to stop.
Those are, frankly, terribly unpersuasive. You are, essentially, elevating your personal desires above the equally valid desires of those around you — you then toss up all sorts of Gish Gallop-style rationalizations about health effects and such.
The truth is that marijuana is a substance that an overwhelming majority of Massachusetts voters believe should be legal. Your personal inconvenience is not a reason to thwart that reality.
Christopher says
…in the kind of environment I want to live in, especially when there are health issues. I don’t want to inhale it and others around may not want to either. This isn’t perfume that may just have a strong fragrance. By your logic lets not regulate pollution because our desire to breathe clean air counts for nothing.
Christopher says
It occurs to me that I’m not at all surprised about the statistics regarding the legal substances, since being legal they are more common and thus most likely by basic law of averages to be a problem.
SomervilleTom says
An overwhelming majority of Massachusetts residents voted to legalize marijuana. I’m confident that a national referendum would have the same results. It is long past time that the government — federal and state — followed the expressed desire of the people.
jconway says
In my view, whether the American people want sane marijuana policy or not, it is clearly and unequivocally the right thing to do from a moral and policy standpoint. But I welcome the fact that my generation is getting wiser on this issue and favoring a more liberal regulatory regime, and our presence is finally getting felt in polling in a variety of states.
In the case of Keating and Kennedy I wonder if they are truly going against the grain of their districts or have some other motive at work. Clearly, Kennedy is trying to build up a conservative record on security and law enforcement issues for a higher run for office. These votes are part of a larger pattern on his part, voting against the delegation and his district on Syria and the NSA in addition to drug policy.
Keating, as a former prosecutor, probably just has been enforcing the bad status quo for so long that he can’t empathize with the people sitting in jail in his own district for using or selling a substance significantly less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Or he figures his older, slightly more Republican leaning district, would make a liberal vote on drug policy a vulnerability-but I dispute that since he has easily won this district in spite of his liberal votes elsewhere, as did Bill Delahunt before him. Either way, I welcome them to explain themselves to the grassroots community here.
llp33 says
Albeit less time than Keating. Maybe they both need a sit-down with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Ironic that Keating used to be a legislator from Sharon, one of the most liberal towns! But even now, as the Globe map shows, none of his Cape towns are conservative whatsoever on medical pot.
Likewise…if Kennedy envisions himself in statewide office, I think he actually needs to turn around his act, and fast. None of these conservative votes will be selling points for a Mass. election, let alone a Democratic primary for governor or Senate (or House…) What will his message be? “Vote for me, cause I oppose a law most of you like!” “Vote for me cause I want the NSA to spy on you!” And what else does he have he can run on?
jconway says
on?
His last name DID get him to Congress….
llp33 says
A dynasty name is well and good for a sleepy House primary against 2 nobodies, but a statewide race will attract hungry liberals who will be glad to draw a contrast to these bad votes Kennedy keeps making.
jconway says
I honestly hope we have rounded a corner in Massachusetts that would allow for such a contrast to occur. I worry when he inevitably gets a shot at a higher position the decks will be cleared for him, either intentionally or due to a cowardly opposition willing to fight.
It would be one thing if he was a leader and not a backbencher, and if he was voting properly rather than awkwardly, but were we to stack his record up against his father or his great uncle on security issues we would see he is arguably to their right, possibly significantly as Ted was a strong anti FISA crusader. And we don’t even need to look to the past to see that his own cousin is significantly bolder on the issue of drug reform.
jconway says
This is why I wish we could edit post, Patrick Kennedy is actually even worse on this issue, apologize for the misleading link.
Christopher says
…comes largely from personal experience. It might behoove us to heed cautions from the likes of him.
jconway says
Linking to it might have been one of the dumber mistakes I’ve made on this site. In that article he says that prison time is a good thing for offenders, when he himself got a wrist slap and a small ‘pee in the cup in front of an officer’ offense while the vast majority of poor, non-white offenders can sometimes get life sentences for possession with the kind of harsh laws both Kennedy’s apparently support.
This is a strong social justice issue, and the affects of marijuana addiction, which I won’t deny, are less harmful than alcohol or cigarette addiction currently allowed under law and currently providing revenue to the state. Don’t see why a regulatory regime for pot would be significantly worse than that status quo-and I have yet to see evidence beyond yours and Patches ‘personal experience’ to justify that status quo.
jconway says
At least be consistent Christopher.
Christopher says
Tobacco – in my perfect world it would be banned and I am so glad that restrictions on its usage have gotten tighter in recent years, and that the tobacco lobby has taken both legal and political hits. In practice I fear that such a ban would be about as “successful” as Prohibition, which leads us to…
Alcohol – though to be fair I have also read that Prohibition did keep consumption down to levels that did not recover to previous levels until the 1970s. I do not favor the outright prohibition of alcohol. It can be enjoyed responsibly without polluting the surrounding air and may in some cases (e. g. red wine for your heart) have health benefits.
I guess for me the greatest consistency is in keeping the status quo. No need to ban what is legal, but also no compelling case to introduce a new substance to the legal column. Also marijuana combines the fumes element of cigarettes with the impairment elements of alcohol.
jconway says
Is this supposed to be favoring decriminalization as your middle ground?
Christopher says
I have said I’m open to decriminalization, but that’s not what I meant here. I’m at a loss for how to put it in different words. I guess I’m saying that if pot were already legal I would not be champing at the bit to ban it, and likewise if tobacco were not legal and the proposal was to legalize it I imagine myself having about the same reaction as I’m having to the idea of pot legalization.