Patrick Leahy holding hearings today on legalizing marijuana:
The Senate Judiciary Committee will open landmark hearings Tuesday in the nation’s capital that could ultimately lead to the legalization of marijuana or at least resolve the deep divide between a federal government that has sent mixed messages on prosecuting users and the growing number of Americans who want the drug to be legal for medicinal or recreational use.
Requested by its committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the timing was triggered by the announcement last month by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that federal authorities no longer will interfere as states increasingly adopt laws to either allow medical marijuana or legalize the drug entirely.
In calling for the hearing, Leahy himself questioned whether, at a time of severe budget cutting, federal prosecutions of marijuana users are the best use of taxpayer dollars.
“Leahy favors legalization,” said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the nonprofit lobby group Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
Riffle said he hopes for a breakthrough in the hearing that would lead to changes in federal banking laws, allowing marijuana sellers to accept credit cards and checks, not just cash.
Dear Mr. Riffle: I would respectfully suggest that you drop the oxymoronic phrase “federal banking laws” from any effort to support legalization of marijuana. The juxtaposition is not helpful to your cause. Lless
Bread and circuses. This issue is a distraction and liberal Leahy knows it. All politicians are corrupt.
My apologies to lless, whose e e cummings-like name I always thought was “Iless.”
With the first letter being “eye,” not “ell.”
(Sans serif fonts are a bitch!)