[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4317-4318]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            MARIJUANA DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as we struggle to deal with the epidemic 
of opioid addiction and thousands of deaths from overdose, it is ironic 
that later this afternoon I will be part of a debate at the Brookings 
Institution about whether or not marijuana should continue to be a 
Schedule I controlled substance because, according to the statute, it 
has no medical value and a high potential for abuse.
  Well, as part of the national drug reform movement, this much is 
clear: marijuana is less addictive, by far, than tobacco, alcohol, and 
cocaine. Indeed, the percentage of people who become addicted is less 
than 9 percent, as opposed to alcohol, cocaine, and tobacco, which is 
much, much higher.
  It carries this designation of Schedule I despite the fact that 
millions of people have used marijuana and there has never been a 
single documented case of an overdose death.
  As to medical value, it has repeatedly been confirmed. The New 
England Journal of Medicine did a survey in 2013 of practitioners who 
overwhelmingly supported the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. 
It has been endorsed by 15 State medical associations, the Epilepsy 
Foundation, and the American Nurses Association. People who have looked 
at it objectively agree that there is a huge potential for benefit. And 
that, most compellingly, is borne out by thousands of years of human 
existence.
  It is used by well over a million Americans in 40 States to deal with 
things like PTSD and chronic pain. It is well known that it helps deal 
with

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the debilitating effects of chemotherapy for cancer: nausea and the 
loss of appetite. Indeed, we are having families move across the 
country to be able to get legal access to medical marijuana in States 
like Colorado because it is the only remedy that they have been able to 
get to give relief to their infant children who suffer a debilitating 
type of epileptic seizures, torturing their babies, and it works for 
them.
  Well, in the 1970s Richard Nixon rejected the advice of his own 
handpicked Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse and decided to make 
this the centerpiece of his war on drugs. A trillion dollars later and 
after millions of lives being affected, we are on the verge of a 
national effort to right this wrong. We are going to see State after 
State voting to follow Oregon, Colorado, Washington, and Alaska in 
adult legalization.
  It is time for Congress and the administration to reassess the flawed 
principle of making marijuana a Schedule I controlled drug, with all 
the resulting harms and none of the benefits. It is past time for 
action.

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