Edge of My Seat... (smoking)

Ron Paul and Barney Frank Propose Landmark Pot Legislation

via Law Blog 

AP

Members of Congress, including Barney Frank and presidential contender Ron Paul, plan to introduce a bill tomorrow that would end the federal law’s blanket prohibition of marijuana.

It will be the first such bill introduced in Congress.

Here’s a WSJ report and one from the Oakland Tribune.

The legislation proposes limiting the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or interstate smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states that permit it.

Under the law, states would also be free to tax the drug, according to a press release from advocacy groups that was confirmed by Frank’s office, WSJ reports.

“The human cost of the failed drug war has been enormous — egregious racial disparities, shattered families, poverty, public health crises, prohibition-related violence, and the erosion of civil liberties,” said co-sponsor Barbara Lee, a Democratic Congresswoman from Oakland, according to the Tribune.

If the bill is passed, “each state would be free to make its own marijuana policy and would be solely responsible for enforcing it,”  Marijuana Policy Project spokesman Morgan Fox told the Tribune.