[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13250]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THE WAR ON MARIJUANA

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, Sunday's New York Times editorial page--the 
entire page, a very unusual circumstance--was dedicated to ending our 
crazy and unsuccessful and expensive war on marijuana, emphasizing that 
the war on marijuana costs us much money in prosecuting and also ruins 
people's lives. It costs us more than it protects, and it has a 
disparate impact on African Americans and minorities, as they are much 
more likely to be arrested, have a scarlet M on their chest for the 
rest of their lives, denying them public housing, scholarships, and 
often jobs.
  It is time we left the situation to the States, like we did with 
alcohol, the last prohibition we had in this country, and let the 
States make these decisions, as Colorado and Washington have, the 
laboratories of democracy. Let's make sense of our drug policies and 
drug laws and not have marijuana and heroin in the same class.

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