[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16270-16271]
[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, advocates from the new emerging 
marijuana industry in Oregon are descending on Capitol Hill at a very 
critical time for this fledgling industry.
  They have a report about the implementation of Oregon's Ballot 
Measure 91--overwhelmingly approved by voters last year--to legalize, 
tax, and regulate marijuana at the State level. Possession became legal 
July 1. Retail sales were authorized in existing dispensaries on the 
1st of October to significant interest around the State. The first week 
saw an estimated $11 million in sales.
  They are working hard to implement the spirit and the letter of the 
measure, working closely with the Oregon legislature to refine it, 
learning from the experience of States like Washington and Colorado 
that have already legalized adult use.
  Theirs is a positive story of economic opportunity, product 
development, tax revenues, more freedom for individuals, and 
eliminating the racial disparities in the enforcement of a failed 
policy of prohibition that comes down heavily against young men of 
color, especially African Americans.
  At the same time, there was a scathing report this week from 
Brookings Institution researchers John Hudak and Grace Wallack that 
called out the roadblocks that are being put in place by law 
enforcement and Federal policies that stifle medical marijuana 
research, that interfere with the science and the doctor-patient 
relationship in ways that are completely unwarranted, 
counterproductive, and destructive.
  They come at a time when the Federal Government has told the Drug 
Enforcement Agency to stop harassing medical providers after Congress 
clearly passed legislation to protect the industry and, more 
importantly, a patient's right to medicine.
  The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment passed with strong bipartisan support, 
clearly specifying that the Federal Government should not interfere 
with State-legal medical marijuana operations.
  The Department of Justice, unfortunately, took an outrageously flawed 
position, which infuriated those of us who authored these provisions 
and have worked to pass them over the last 2 years. The DEA ignored the 
law, and

[[Page 16271]]

the Department of Justice defended them in this unfortunate action.
  It is the latest example of how far out of touch the Federal 
Government agencies are with the reality on the ground, with the will 
of the majority of the American people, who think that marijuana should 
be legal, and with the policies of the President himself.
  President Obama has declared marijuana no more harmful than other 
perfectly legal substances, like tobacco, which is, in fact, true, and 
that he had bigger fish to fry than fight against State legalization. 
Unfortunately, some parts of his Federal Government are still frying 
those fish.
  The good news is that the tide has turned. As I mentioned, the 
majority of the American people now think marijuana should be legal, as 
23 States, the District of Columbia, and Guam now have medical 
marijuana and 17 more have authorized a limited version of medical 
marijuana. We have 4 States and the District of Columbia that permit 
outright adult use, with more States considering this over the course 
of the next year.
  All the Federal Government has to do, as Secretary Clinton recently 
said in Colorado, is just stay out of the way. Stop interfering. Let 
legal marijuana businesses have bank accounts. Don't force them to be 
all cash. Let them deduct their business expenses from their taxes 
instead of penalizing them with grotesquely punitive levels of tax. Let 
the States continue in their efforts at reform. Let them treat it just 
like we do alcohol.
  The day is fast coming when the Federal policy will be to robustly 
research and, ultimately, deschedule--or remove--marijuana from the 
Controlled Substances Act, no longer pretending that it is or should be 
a Schedule I controlled substance, and, instead, tax and regulate it at 
the Federal level.
  In the meantime, the States will continue marching forward; the 
public will continue to request that we, at the Federal level, stop 
interfering with medical marijuana; and Congress will continue our 
efforts with increasingly large, bipartisan majorities to make this 
policy work to replace the failed attempt at marijuana prohibition.

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