House Votes To End DEA Raids On Legal Medical Marijuana Operations

[RainDog]

65. The majority of Republicans voted against it

172 of them voted against it... so, it's not like some radical change in position for the party as a whole - and Rand Paul wants to run for President as the leader of that party, so he is going to kowtow to the constituents of that party.

ergo: he wants to put science up for sale...how convenient for major corporations - http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/senator-rand-paul-says-forget-fed-s-11-02-04/

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has introduced a bill that would chop a half trillion dollars out of the federal budget. And although Paul was trained as an ophthalmologist, his axe doesn’t show any mercy to science.

The National Science Foundation would lose 62 percent of its budget because Paul argues that private industry and the states, not the federal government, should be paying for research. But there’s no evidence that industry wants to foot that bill, and the states are already financially strapped.

This, alone, is motivation for me to vote against Paul and to make sure everyone I know would oppose him because this is the sort of "Stalinist" capitalism that would destroy an entire nation. That's no exaggeration, imo, when you know about the way scientists have been made to dispute reality to please their employers. This, to me, makes him like the anti-christ of Republicans. That's how horrid he is. I say "Stalinist" because of Lysenko-ism - science forced to comply with extremist ideology - whether communist, in Lysenko's case, or corporatist, as in Paul's case.

His lies about his stance toward the drug war are just part of being a Republican. We'll see how he votes on this issue and others.

HOWEVER - the other Republicans? Rohrabacher is in California and is a co-sponsor of the Polis bill to remove cannabis from the CSA and have it controlled by the ATF (like alcohol.) California isn't Kentucky. Rand did go in with McConnell on the hemp bill, however.

I can't tell you why others voted as they did, but my guess, as I noted here before, is these congress people want to provide cover for legal medical marijuana in their states based upon seeing actual incidents, via Gupta's reports, that showed mmj isn't just about an excuse for stoners - there are legitimate reasons to use cannabis as medicine - an herbal supplement...

Since Gupta's report, the FDA has fast-tracked an epilepsy study... while, before Gupta's report - research on treatment of PTSD for vets couldn't even get a response, and then it was a no....Even tho Israel already treats vets with cannabis for PTSD. Gupta's reports made it impossible for most people to continue to claim there's no medical benefit without looking like a fool or tool.

I really can't stress enough how important Gupta's reportage was because he busted all the stupid stoner stereotypes that have been used to dismiss this issue for so long.

He outright challenged the DEA and said federal agencies had lied to him, the rest of the medical community, and the American people. Gupta APOLOGIZED for being so wrong on an issue. People saw children who were having multiple seizures in a day with epilepsy - which can lead to permanent brain damage or death - in fact, one child in Indiana died right after Gupta's report, from seizures.

Look at the list of all these "red" states that have pending legislation for medical marijuana this year.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002481

These legislators in state houses don't want to vote for medical marijuana and then deal with DEA raids. The reason for this spate of medical mj legislation, again, is a direct consequence of Gupta's reports on cannabis.

This is why what Gupta did is so important. And, I assume, why 49 Republicans signed on to this amendment.