Jacob Fischer of Buzzfeed reports House Votes To End DEA Raids On Legal Medical Marijuana Operations
WASHINGTON — The House passed an amendment late Thursday night to restrict the Drug Enforcement Administration from targeting medical marijuana operations in states where it is legal.
The 219-189 decision came on a bipartisan appropriations amendment spearheaded by California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and California Democrat Sam Farr. The amendment still faces several procedural hurdles before it is ratified, but this is the first time such an amendment has succeeded in the House.
The vote is an encouraging one for marijuana advocates, who say it shows the congressional pendulum is finally tilting in their favor.
“The significance of it is a symbolic importance,” said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies at the Marijuana Policy Project. “We are nearing a point now where the United States Congress is essentially ready to end marijuana prohibition.”
The amendment passed by one vote.
It's about time. A few hours ago I posted a rather scathing blast at A.G. Eric Holder and DEA Director Micelle Leonhart.
22 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana.
Thu May 29, 2014 at 10:16 PM PT: Eric Holder has failed to stop DOJ interference of state legal medical marijuana, congress must act
Thu May 29, 2014 at 10:29 PM PT: Matt Ferner and Ryan J. Reilly of he Huffington Post report House Tells DEA To Leave State Hemp Programs Alone
WASHINGTON -- House members early Friday blocked the Drug Enforcement Administration from using funds to interfere in state-legal industrial hemp research, a rebuke to the agency less than a month after it seized hemp seeds intended for Kentucky's pilot program.
Two hemp-related amendments to a DEA funding bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) prohibit the Department of Justice, including the DEA, from blocking states' importation of hemp seeds, and from preventing states from implementing laws authorizing industrial hemp activities made legal under this year's federal farm bill.
Massie’s amendment passed 246-162, and Bonamici’s was approved 237-170. The Senate will likely consider its own appropriations bill for the DEA and Justice Department, and the House amendments would have to survive a joint conference before going into effect.
Both this vote and the early vote prohibiting the DEA from interfering with state legal medical marijuana operations are a direct rebuke to DEA Director Michele Leonhart, Attorney General Eric Holder, and President Obama under who have instructed the DEA and DOJ to continue to raid and prosecute state legal marijuana dispensaries and growers. Please check out my scathing post early this evening denouncing these cruel, unswise, destructive and regresive policies.