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California Democrats agreed over the weekend to kindly ask the president to lay off medical marijuana and recreational marijuana in states that allow it: namely California, Washington and Colorado.
The resolution, adopted by the California Democratic Party Executive Board, also praises Colorado and Washington for laws passed November.
While resolutions don’t create new laws, nor do they really hold anyone accountable for any of the proposals within. But still, getting the state behind a resolution that points out the racial disparity in marijuana arrests in this country directly to the president can’t hurt the cause.
Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, puts it into perspective:
“More and more prominent voices are speaking up to encourage the president to finally follow through on his 2008 campaign pledge to respect state marijuana laws,” Angel said in a press release to our sister paper, The L.A. Weekly. “A few weeks ago it was the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the New York Times editorial board. Now it’s the Democratic Party of the country’s most populous state. Pressure is mounting, and sooner or later the administration is going to have to announce what it wants to do about Colorado and Washington. Almost no one is clamoring for a crackdown, so the popular — and the right — thing to do is to let these states implement their own laws without interference.”
Read the entire resolution below:
MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION RESOLUTION FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA
WHEREAS, 18 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws legalizing t he use of cannabis when recommended by a physician, and Colorado and Washington in 2012 passed laws legalizing the recreational use of cannabis, and over 825,000 Americans are caught up in the criminal justice system every year for marijuana law violations, and
WHEREAS, the United States spends over $20 billion a year enforcing marijuana prohibition laws, and thousands of people are murdered every year involving the smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States and marijuana accounts for over half of these illegal drugs, and polls show overwhelming support for the medicinal use of cannabis and majority support for legalization of marijuana, and
WHEREAS, marijuana prohibition laws are racially enforced with a far larger percentage of African Americans and Hispanics convicted and imprisoned for marijuana prohibition offenses than their white counterparts even though marijuana use in their communities is no more than in white communities, and Whereas college students lose their college grants and scholarships if found to be using marijuana,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party requests: President Obama to allow the newly enacted marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington to go into effect with no federal interference, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party asks President Obama to end the Department of Justice interference and raids by federal agencies in states with medical marijuana laws, and a comprehensive study be immediately undertaken to produce recommendations for reform of our nation’s marijuana prohibition laws.
