Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) celebrates, Finally, some great news from Congress:
U.S. House and Senate negotiators agreed on Tuesday on the final details of the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which contains at least three BIG victories for reformers:
* Washington, DC will finally be allowed to implement the medical marijuana initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved in 1998 but has been blocked by Congress each year since then.
* Funding for the White House “drug czar’s” ad budget has been slashed by more than a third of its size last year. Studies have repeatedly shown that these ads actually cause teens to use more — not fewer — drugs.
* Washington, DC will be able to use federal funds to implement syringe exchange programs.
Jacob Sullum says it’s a move that libertarians, reform-minded liberals, and fiscal conservatives should all welcome. And asks about Bob Barr:
The restriction, which prohibited D.C. from using any money to put the law into effect, was originally known as the Barr Amendment, after Bob Barr, then a Republican congressman from Georgia…I followed Barr’s evolving views on drug policy here, here, and here. As an L.P. official and the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, he staked out a federalist position on medical marijuana and called for lifting federal barriers to research on the drug’s therapeutic uses. But I don’t know if he ever directly addressed the question of whether he regretted overriding the decision that D.C. voters made in this area—which is not, strictly speaking, a federalist issue, since D.C. was created by the national government and is under the direct control of Congress. If you’ve seen any relevant comments by Barr on this question, let us know in the comments.
There in comments, Boston points to this statement from Barr:
[T]he House of Representatives lifting the 11-year old prohibition on the District of Columbia from taking steps to pass and implement any measure decriminalizing or legalizing the sale or use of marijuana in the District, represents an important step in the direction of individual freedom and properly limiting the power of the federal government.
While I in fact sponsored the initial appropriations limitation in 1998, the years since then have witnessed such a dramatic increase in federal government power and an unprecedented decrease in individual liberty, especially since 2001, that I have come to realize that such limitations as the so-called “Barr Amendment” are not and cannot be justified. It has become necessary to reevaluate the power of the federal government that I and others once were able or willing to justify, and do what we can to roll back the tide of government control.
How politic of him.
LEAP’s Tom Angell writes, “From what I understand, the DC medical marijuana law is incredibly loosely-written, like California’s.”
Meanwhile, in California, the LA City Council voted yesterday to bring the city’s medical marijuana dispensary boom under tight control. Raw Story rounds up the details.