By: Matt Agorist /The Free Thought Project In a bipartisan push back against the tyrannical Jeff Sessions and his relentless war on cannabis, U.S. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) have introduced a bill that will end federal prohibition of marijuana.
“The fact is our marijuana laws in America are broken,” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said at the bill’s unveiling at the Capitol. “They are savagely broken, and the jagged pieces are hurting American people.”
The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States, or CARERS, Act would go directly after the DEA’s absurd and immoral classification of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. It would allow for the states to act on their own in regards to possession, production, and distribution of medical marijuana.
While this bill was originally introduced in 2015 — as the first ever medical marijuana bill in the US Senate — it now boasts, even more, support, adding Democratic Sen. Al Franken and Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mike Lee.
This bill mirrors bipartisan legislation that was introduced in Congress by Representatives Tom Garrett (R-VA) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) to exclude cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in February, and illustrates how preventing the government from caging and killing people over a plant has transcended party lines.
The CARERS Act also specifically addresses veterans and the ability to obtain this most beneficial plant. SB-683 directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to authorize VA health care providers to provide veterans with recommendations and opinions regarding participation in state marijuana programs.
“The reintroduction of the CARERS Act is the first of many steps we hope this Congress will take to end the federal prohibition of medical marijuana,” Don Murphy, director of conservative outreach for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement. “Polls show overwhelmingly strong support for medical marijuana, and it spans the political spectrum.
“The federal government should not be meddling in state laws that allow it or obstructing research into its many medical benefits.”
This bill comes at a dire time in the history of cannabis prohibition in America. Just after tyrant Jeff Sessions was exposed for privately sending a letter to congressional leaders asking them to turn legal medical marijuana patients into criminals, Republicans and Democrats put their party differences aside and joined forces to stave off the inevitable persecution of innocence that would follow such assinine policy.
Notably, the senators are even calling Sessions out for his misguided rage against cannabis, pointing out how it has already — in spite of prohibition — saved the lives of countless children who suffer from seizures.
“I dare him to sit down with families and listen to their stories and then pursue a policy like he’s advocating for now,” Booker says of Sessions’ letter.
However, judging from Sessions’ ignorance and obstinance on the issue of marijuana, he would most likely arrest the parents and their child for possessing a controlled substance.
As Rolling Stone reports, While the bill’s proponents know their proposal faces an uphill battle, they also say they believe the effort is quickly picking up steam, especially because many red states have now passed some form of legal weed. “I believe things are changing and they’re changing fast,” Sen. Gillibrand tells Rolling Stone. “I think we will get the support we need.”
Gillibrand is right, the times are changing. People are no longer accepting the status quo of government kidnapping and caging people for possessing a plant. People are also waking up to the fact that cannabis is a medicine and can fight our current opioid problem in this country.
Those who continue to persecute their fellow American for possessing this plant would do well to get on the right side of history and refuse to enforce such tyranny. After all, without the state’s enforcers willing to ruin people’s lives by extorting, kidnapping, caging, and killing people over a pot, prohibition is nothing more a piece of paper, scribbled on by a bunch of corrupt lowlifes who couldn’t care less about their fellow human.
