Industrial hemp activists from around the country visited United States Representatives’ and Senators’ offices in Washington, DC this week to make the case for repealing decades-old US government restrictions related to the plant. When the activists were meeting together after their congressional office visits, RPI Advisory Board Member and former US Rep. Dennis Kucinich dropped in and offered some comments regarding hemp. read on...
Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) presented his absurd and deceptive campaign against all marijuana use in his opening statement for a hearing regarding marijuana laws held by a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the morning of May 9. In the process, Fleming also made a preposterous mischaracterization of libertarianism.
Fleming’s subcommittee statement followed his similarly misleading speech on the House floor in April in opposition to veterans using medical marijuana. And the statement occurred the same day Fleming said he may introduce legislation to block the implementation of a local Washington, DC law that decriminalizes the possession and transfer without payment of an ounce or less of marijuana on private property. read on...
Researchers in several states soon should be able to legally grow hemp for the first time in decades because of legislation approved today in the US Senate.
While the new exception to the US law prohibiting growing hemp will be limited and will not affect US government prohibitions related to other substances under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the exception is significant as a rare instance where a prohibition under the CSA — a statute at the core of the US drug war — is limited instead of expanded. read on...
The so-called immigration bill the United States Senate is considering this week (S.744) is about much more than immigration laws. As Ted Hesson explains at ABC News, the bill would significantly expand the US Border Patrol's already large role in the US government's war on drugs. Putting the legislation in context, San Antonio Express-News columnist O. Ricardo Pimental advises that the legislation advances what he calls the "growing border-industrial complex," which operates much like the military-industrial complex and yields profits for many of the same companies. read on...
