[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14280-14281]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is much that Congress deals with 
that seems intractable. We struggle with the great issues of war and 
peace. We view climate change and its devastating impacts and are 
paralyzed. We look at this still-simmering racial unrest and the 
painful events of Ferguson, Missouri, and largely are ignoring the 
underlying issues.
  There is one area where government at the State and local level and 
here in Congress can make things a little easier, a little more 
sensible, and that is dealing with our failed policy of marijuana 
prohibition.
  There was a sad article on the front page of The Times yesterday 
about a call center employee, paralyzed since he was 16 years old, who 
was fired from his job because he used medical marijuana in a State 
where it is legal, on his off-hours, at home at night, to control his 
back spasms.
  That had nothing to do with his job performance, yet this person was 
terminated. There is a certain degree of hypocrisy, where someone 
having a glass of wine at home is treated radically different.
  This is just one small example of a much larger problem. The cost of 
our failed prohibition causes untold damage to racial minorities, 
especially African American young men who are much more likely to be 
arrested and jailed, even though they use marijuana no more frequently 
than young White men, jailed for something most Americans now think 
should be legal.
  That hypocrisy was on display with the NFL, who suspended a player 
for a year for smoking marijuana, but remember, the wifebeater was 
suspended for only two games until an even more

[[Page 14281]]

graphic video of the beating forced the NFL's hand because of the 
public outrage; yet this is the same NFL that encourages--some would 
say pressures--players to be pumped with shots and pills to dull their 
pain, which often leads to serious consequences for these players later 
in life, especially prescription drug dependency.
  Remember, we have an epidemic of prescription drug abuse that kills 
more people every year than heroin, methamphetamines, and cocaine 
combined, and of course, no one has ever been killed from a marijuana 
overdose.
  We are wasting lives, law enforcement resources, and money when we 
have more important issues to tackle. I am pleased that my State of 
Oregon, which was the first State to decriminalize a small amount of 
marijuana, now may become the next State to legalize adult use.
  We have seen significant progress here in Congress to allow the 
cultivation of industrial hemp, allow Kentucky tobacco farmers and 
Oregon ranchers to grow hemp for products that are perfectly legal and 
you can buy in any city in America.
  We have helped rein in the Federal Government interference with the 
23 States that allow over 1 million people to use medical marijuana. 
People are picking up and moving to States that permit medical 
marijuana to get access to the therapeutic benefits of marijuana, which 
can reduce the violent epileptic seizures that torture their children.
  It is time for us to do a reality check. Let's legalize, regulate, 
and tax marijuana, and then get on to those bigger problems that need 
our attention, like war and peace, the consequence of a failure to deal 
with climate change, and the epidemic of prescription drug abuse that 
is killing three or four Americans every hour. Let's get our priorities 
straight.

                          ____________________