Barney Frank Aiming To Decriminalize Marijuana
Rep. Barney Frank will soon introduce legislation to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, the Massachusetts Democrat said during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Frank offered no details on his legislation, and it’s not at all clear that he could ever get it to the House floor for a vote. A Frank aide was unaware of his plans other than his statement on HBO.
Frank has introduced legislation in previous years to allow the use of “medical marijuana,” although the bills never made it out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Asked by Maher as to why he would push a pot decriminalization bill now, Frank said the American public has already decided that personal use of marijuana is not a problem.
“I now think it’s time for the politicians to catch up to the public,” Frank said. “The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. I’m going to call it the ‘Make Room for Serious Criminals’ bill.”
(Politico)
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
If you can't handle using your real email address, don't bother posting a comment.
good.
I - don’t smoke marijuana - but feel it is infinitely safer than alcohol and other alternatives. Its good for the economy (especially taco bell and pizza delivery restaurants) and is impossible to overdose on.
I know a lot of people will not agree with me here, but I’ve had to do many research projects on America and drugs and that is how I feel.
The only argument against marijuana I have heard that has weight is the whole gateway drug argument - which is clearly, what happens to some who smoke marijuana. Although, I have found no research between some ones tendency to develop ambitions for other drugs through the use of marijuana and those same peoples likeliness to use harder drugs forthright. I’m willing to bet, those tendencies when measured, would be pretty much the same.
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:35 pmSounds good to me.
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pmI miss those Movies.
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:59 pmWith over 500,000 drug offenders in prison something has to change. I would rather free up some prison space to keep sex offenders and other violent losers off the streets. May be the only time I agree with Barney but a good conservative is an open minded conservative.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pmI spent 20 years smoking that shit. I’m against it. Mary Jane is good for nothing…unless you’re into lethargy, sapped energy. and mind control. Anyone that wants to legalize that shit is fucking retarded or in this guy’s case…fucking gay.
Take it from someone who’s been there and done that. Excercise (martial arts especially) and manufacturing your own endorphines is a much better way of living.
Or you can adopt the mantra that I teach kids which is dope is for dopes.
Go fuck yourself Barney Franks.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pmAnd one other thing. For those intending on having a career in government service or with DOD contracting, I highly advise that you stay away from dope… Nowadays you need a clearance to work in much of the government. The higher your clearance the more valuable you become to some potential employer. If you smoke dope, you’re SOL.
Secondly, you want to help those on dope in jail? Good. Put them (not violent offenders or sex offenders) in a rehab program. Not just any rehab program, but one with some bite to it.
First offense (not dealing) rehab in a secure rehab facility. You check in at night. You go to classes at night and you go to work during the daytime. Second offense, rehab again. Third offense you go to jail. DNA and piss tests on a regular basis for all.
We have enough controlled dangerous substances in this society as it is. We already got booze and cigarettes…and look how much damage that they cause.
And if you think pot and hash and the like don’t cause the same sort of problems, then you haven’t spent enough time in that degraded society.
Nor does the excuse that pot doesn’t cause physical problems wash either. Ever see someone have a stroke after smoking weed? I have.
Know anyone who went to jail because they stole or committed other crimes while high on dope? I know a number of them.
I’ve watched people sacrifice all that they have just to get another bag of weed. I don’t know what’s the worse addiction dope or cigarettes. Both are equally hard to quit.
Get real people.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:45 pmI used to smoke weed also and have enough brain cells left to tell the difference between de-criminalization and endorsement. I no more endorse smoking weed than I do pecker puffing. Facts are what they are, it cost over 25k a year to keep a convict in prison and law enforcement and correctional budgets are not infinite. I would rather our limited resources be spent fighting crimes with victims.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pmI’m with the cops. You got weed? Enjoy the cuffs. See ya in court. You want to save the states money? Then get off the weed. Just saying “No” is easier than you think.
It takes balls to live a life free of CDS’s. Teach that to your children…Teach it in school. Show it on TV. Keep it criminalized.
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pmWe should criminalize alcohol, cigarettes, and some of this over-the-counter stuff, too. Since we’re telling people what they can & can’t put in their bodies. If someone wants to smoke pot and veg out for a few hours, let ‘em. The evidence is out there, and pot does not harm people as alcohol & tobacco does.
But for me, it is a question of liberty, and I do not believe it is the government’s place to tell me what I can’t put in my body, even if it is for the sake of “protection” which it is not. We have a prison problem, and it is much due to our drug policy. And we have a safety problem in our society, which is much due to our prison system. Decriminalize marijuana, and it will clear out a lot of that prison space for people who really deserve the sentence, and it will stop turning these minor offenders into hard criminals.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 pmOne last comment. I got a bunch of ex-hippie ex-dope-smoking
friends. Many of them got off the dope because they went to jail or because a judge threatened them with jail time. I don’t care if the system spent 25K or 25 million bucks on each of them. Jail worked for ALL of them. It was well worth the expense. And now all are married, well adjusted and have kids of their own.
Decriminalization or rehab alone would not have helped any of them. If that were the only two alternatives, then all of them would still be working minimum wage jobs, unable to support their kids because they would be too busy supporting their drug habits.
Prison works in some cases. And I got ten squared-away ex-hippie pot-head friends to back that claim up.
Thank God the system sometimes works. Keep drugs illegal.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 pmI think it’s stupid to put people in jail for it. Waste of tax payers money. Free up space for true criminals, i.e., pedophiles, rapists, murders (the list goes on forever)… If someone wants to smoke it, let them… Heck, tax it and you would probably wipe out the national debt…
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:38 pmPot and all illegal drugs are bad. There is a reason why pot is illegal. Listen to Dr. Savage why pot is so dangerous and you will (maybe) understand. It is not rocket science.
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:04 pmWeak argument, free up space for violent criminals. I am not sure what to do with pot smokers, maybe jail is not the answer, but some kind of stiff societal penalty must apply.
If any of you people knew me well, you would be amazed that I agree with this asspirate. I’ve never done a single illicit drug in my life and never will. Despite Dan (The Infidel)’s evidence (that directly refutes itself…if the substance is so damned bad, why does he have 10 [10!] ex-pothead friends who are now stable, productive members of society?), marijuana is magnitudes less destructive than alcohol. People get high. People veg out and sleep. People get drunk. People think they can kick Superman’s ass or drive like Mario Andretti. There is no comparison, really.
Dan, I’m ideologically with you 99.44% of the time, but you are wrong here. People do pot because it is illegal simply because it is illegal. True, it is an escape, but we, collectively, have many substances that do the same thing. Just as there are alcoholics, just as there are fat-ass fooktards who eat 30 boxes of DingDongs every day, just as there are tobacco addicts who smoke and dip unhealthy amounts, there will always be people who pinpoint habits that are self-destructive. Making one or the other illegal doesn’t solve a problem. I think that you are glossing over the fact that a broad majority does not do any of these things to excess and that the people who insist on bad habits will do so regardless of the law.
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pmI got the weed smoking days out of my system by the time i got out of high school. Im not for this proposed action. I think once you start legalizing one drug it will become a slippery slope. Just like most things, if you give an inch people will take a mile.
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 pmskh.pcola:
The evidence I presented refutes nothing. My point is that it took jail to square away a large segment of the little hippie group that I use to hang out with. You can believe what you want, but you are wrong.
Pot sucks. Potheads are stupid. They do stupid shit all the time. They wreck their cars, their relationships and their lives all on account of weed.
I’ve seen way too many folks waste alot of money and alot of time just to get high.
The dude that had the stroke. That was me.
Don’t try second-guessing me bud. I was there. I experienced the drug culture up front and personal. And I watched these 10 people and many more than that, screw up their lives royally all because they wanted get stupid like Cheech and Chong.
Up in smoke was exactly where their lives went.
I’m all for rehab. But rehab without a jail component doesn’t work for alot of people. Keeping pot and all drugs illegal is a the better way.
Save your analysis bud. You’re not even close. With my wasted 20 years of heavy drug use as a background, I still say keep pot illegal.
Disagree all you want. But you are dead wrong.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:51 am