At CPAC, support for DC’s marijuana laws

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Hat tip, DCist: Morning Roundup: Underground Edition

At CPAC, support for DC’s marijuana laws

The conference’s libertarian streak favors the District.
By Kristen Doerer
Published March 2, 2015

Marijuana became legal in DC last week, despite threatening talk from the head of the House Oversight Committee and impediments thrown into place by other conservatives in Congress. But at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives at National Harbor that ended Saturday, views on pot were more attenuated.

I spoke on Thursday with a group of students from the University of North Florida who had no qualms about marijuana legalization. When I told them that DC had legalized marijuana that day, one of them began clapping while the other two nodded in approval.

It was in this group of students that I found a self-proclaimed libertarian. “I’m definitely for state power, and DC isn’t necessarily a state, but it should have the power to enforce its own laws,” said UNF student Dylan Lowe, who is from Miami.

Among the students I spoke with, none thought states had no right to legalize marijuana. But a debate Thursday onstage in the Potomac ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center showed a divide among attendees on the issue. ... “Having a debate on whether or not to legalize marijuana is like debating whether the sun is going to come up tomorrow. It’s going to come up,” Gary Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, libertarian presidential candidate, and current CEO of Cannabis Sativa Inc said.

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1. Democratic Party leadership is ceding this issue to the Republicans. Stoopid and unforgivable.

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3. BS

Actual Republican politicians with actual power think Cannabis is the Devil's weed, and they will always believe that because they are idiots.

I don't know of any Democrats who feel the same way, and most progressives are strongly in favor of legalization for at least medical purposes.

Why did you even feel the need to say that? Gary Johnson is not a Republican by any modern metric, he is a Libertarian.

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4. BS, huh?

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-wasserman-schultz-medical-marijuana-20140606-story.html

Following her vote against an amendment to a bill in Congress that would restrict federal agents’ ability to go after marijuana users in states where the drug is legal, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, has also come out against Amendment 2, the proposed state constitutional amendment that would legalize medical marijuana in Florida.

Of course DWS is only Chair of the DNC. Maybe you don't consider that a leadership position within the Party.

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5. No I don't consider Wasserman Shultz a leader.

Like holy Joe, I don't even consider her a Democrat. Do you? She certainly isn't progressive.

And anyway, she doesn't claim that Cannabis is the Devil's weed.

Which Republicans do you believe will be introducing legislation to Federally legalize Cannabis? Boner? Some random idiot teabagger?

[Scuba]

6. "Which Republicans do you believe will be introducing legislation to Federally legalize Cannabis?"

Well, maybe this one ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/gop-congressman-republicans-should-embrace-marijuana-legalization/2014/11/14/49e20ad8-6b77-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html

GOP congressman: Republicans should embrace marijuana legalization

The federal courthouse in right-leaning Orange County, Calif., is named after former president and Republican Party icon Ronald Reagan. Countless drug cases prosecuted in that building can be traced back to an expanded war on drugs under the 40th president, who once called marijuana “probably the most dangerous drug.”

The Republican congressman who represents the land of Reagan, however, wants marijuana legalized. After winning reelection in a landslide last week despite that well-publicized position, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday with a message for his party.

“To my fellow Republicans,” said Rohrabacher, a former Reagan press secretary and speech writer, “Wake up! . . . The American people are shifting on this issue.”

Meanwhile, the Chair of the DNC votes against even medical use. But you don't consider her a leader, even a Dem. Kinda makes my point, don't you think?