Author Topic: Momentum Continues to Build for Historic Federal Medical Marijuana Bill  (Read 3686 times)

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Offline SubliminallyOveranalyzed

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hxxp://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/momentum-continues-build-historic-federal-medical-marijuana-bill



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It’s been five months since the historic medical marijuana bill – the CARERS Act – was introduced in the Senate, and as Congress enjoys its summer recess, it’s a good time to reflect on where the bill is positioned as we head into the second part of the year.

Click here(below) to contact your Senator and ask him/her to sponsor the CARERS ACT.
https://secure2.convio.net/dpa/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1323

The legislation was introduced in March by Sens. Booker, Paul and Gillibrand, and received huge media attention, including a lead editorial in the New York Times in support of the bill, the day after it was introduced.

The advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. pushing CARERS have spent much of a very successful summer building support for the bill by advocating for the passage of three Senate appropriations amendments that mirror provisions of CARERS. These spending amendments would take effect for one year only, so they are less impactful than the legislative changes we would see through the passage of CARERS, but nonetheless they allowed us to test the waters on support for major provisions of the bill.

The key takeaway from these votes is that the Senate is ready to debate medical marijuana, and a majority would approve the CARERS Act if it was brought to the floor for a vote.

The adoption by the Senate of three amendments that are almost identical to provisions in the CARERS Act was a welcome development, not least because every amendment garnered bipartisan support. Perhaps the most important part of CARERS is the section that allows states to set their own medical marijuana policies.

The amendment mirroring this provision passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 21-9, with seven Republicans supporting. The size of the victory demonstrates that, contrary to what some may have said, the Senate is ready to tackle full medical marijuana. Another amendment allowing veterans access to medical marijuana passed 18-12, and an amendment allowing marijuana businesses to access banking services passed 16-14.

We’ve also seen Executive action reflective of reforms included in CARERS. The Obama Administration recently removed a large research barrier – the PHS Review - that CARERS sought to eliminate.

Senators Grassley and Feinstein, whose buy-in is important for CARERS to progress, have gone from being opponents of medical marijuana to holding a recent hearing on the issue, and drafting a Time magazine op-ed on the need for more research and access to certain types of medical marijuana. Sen. Feinstein also secured language in a separate funding bill calling for more research and recognizing “the potential therapeutic benefits that marijuana and its components may bring to patients with serious medical conditions, including seizures, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, substance use disorders, and neuropathic and cancer pain.” Sen. Grassley is a crucial player in this process, given that he chairs the Judiciary Committee, through which CARERS must pass.

The bill itself has a lot of momentum behind it - 15 cosponsors, including 12 Democrats, two Republicans and one independent. The recent addition of Chuck Schumer – the likely future head of the Senate Democrats and a key Judiciary member – was another boost. And the bill continues to be regularly praised in the media, including in last Sunday’s New York Times editorial.

The next few months will see advocates turn their attention to translating the Republican support for appropriations amendments into cosponsorship for CARERS – something we need your help with. Advocates will also continue our dialogue with Senator Grassley and push for a Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on CARERS, which would clearly pass the Senate if allowed to move forward. Let’s hope the next five months are as successful as the last five.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2015, 08:40:26 PM by SubliminallyOveranalyzed »
You draw to yourself in this existence and in all others those qualities upon which you concentrate your attention. If you vividly concern yourself with the injustices you feel have been done you, then you attract more such experience, and if this goes on, then it will be mirrored in your next existence. It is true that in between lives there is "time" for understanding and contemplation.

Those who do not take advantage of such opportunities in this life often do not do so when it is over. Consciousness will expand. It will create. It will turn itself inside out to do so. But there is nothing outside of yourself that will force you to understand your issues or face them, now or after physical death.

The opportunity for development and knowledge is as present at this moment, in this life, as it will ever be. If you ignore day-by-day opportunities for development now, no one can force you to accept and utilize greater abilities after death, or between lives. The teachers are there in after-death experience, but there are also teachers here in your existence now.

If man paid more attention to his own subjective behavior, to those feelings of identification with nature that persistently arise, then half of the dictates of both the evolutionists and the creationists would automatically fall away, for they would appear nonsensical. It is not a matter of outlining a whole new series of methods that will allow you to increase your psychic abilities, or to remember your dreams, or to perform out-of-body gymnastics. It is rather a question or a matter of completely altering your approach to life, so that you no longer block out such natural spontaneous activity.

~Seth in TES9 (The Early Sessions Book9) by Jane Roberts - Session 510 - January 19 1970 (Seth is an energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality for existence, as trance-channeled by author & medium Jane Roberts & her husband Robert Butts from Dec 1964 - Sep 1984 [Jane's Death])