I know, I’m as shocked as you are.
Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, has recently backed a bill to require federal officials to comply with state marijuana laws, which was introduced in April and has since garnered support from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle.
The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2013, introduced by California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, would bar federal drug enforcement agents from penalizing any person abiding by the marijuana laws in their own state.
The law “shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with State laws” — that is, people who are in compliance with their state laws regarding possession, manufacture or use of marijuana will not be subjected to federal penalties.
Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. have already legalized medical marijuana, and both Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use.
Stockman became the 19th sponsor of the bill, according to this website that you might not want to click if you’re at work. Let’s be perfectly clear about this: Steve Stockman is a whackjob, a terrible Congressman, and a reprehensible human being. Nothing about this changes any of that, but it does show that even a reprehensible whackjob can occasionally land on the right side of a public policy matter, even if as PDiddie notes it will have zero effect in his home state. And while I approve of the basic idea in this bill, I am fully aware of the bad history behind the “leave it to the states” argument. I’d much rather see a bill that simply scaled back federal enforcement of marijuana laws, as a prelude to a larger scaling back of the out of control “war on drugs”. But I don’t think we can get to that today, even with polling data showing much greater acceptance of decriminalization. I see that as a multi-step process, with the RSML Act of 2013 being the first step. More states need to take action, and the debate needs a wider airing at the federal level, possibly – hopefully – in the 2016 Presidential election. In the meantime, I support this effort, even if I don’t care for some of the people pushing it. Politics is like that, and you have to start somewhere. Grits and Texpatriate have more.