Senate Judiciary Committee Stokes Flames of "Drug War"
(from September/October 1996 Marijuana Policy Report)
Exploiting the recently reported increases in teenage drug use, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee staged a drug policy hearing on September 4. MPP Director of Government Relations Robert Kampia attended the hearing to monitor the prohibitionists' plans and get a jump on fighting to prevent harmful new marijuana laws.
Both U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who chairs the committee, and U.S. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), who serves as the committee's ranking Democrat, used the opportunity to stoke the flames of the "drug war."
Hatch attacked the Clinton administration for allegedly neglecting to make the drug war a priority, while Biden listed off a five-point plan of what he would do to fight drugs. (Interestingly, none of Biden's proposals would have expanded the war on marijuana users.)
First to testify before the committee was U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), sponsor of S. 1790, which would have drastically increased the federal penalties for possessing at least 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of marijuana. Senator McConnell's testimony is the only instance that the MPP can find in which a member of Congress has supported this bill. The MPP worked to generate a grassroots response — letters, faxes, and phone calls to congressional offices — opposing this terrible legislation. The MPP discovered that members of Congress consider S. 1790 to be so extreme that there is little chance that this legislation will re-surface when the next Congress convenes in January.
Also testifying were Donna Shalala, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Both of these Clinton administration officials defended President Clinton's record of fighting drugs, advocated that Congress spend more money on fighting the "drug war," and attacked attempts to legalize marijuana — for medicinal use or otherwise.
Dole, Shalala, McCaffrey, and Biden
Oppose California Initiative and Medicinal Marijuana
If California voters pass Proposition 215 on November 5, it will be legal for patients with doctors' recommendations to use and cultivate marijuana for medical purposes in California. Bob Dole made the following comment about Proposition 215 while visiting California on August 28, according to The New York Times:
- Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole (R-KS): "I was in the Congress for a while, and I got used to loopholes -- you could drive a Mack truck through that loophole [that would be created by Proposition 215]. You could have it for stress, headaches, back aches, ingrown toe nails. ... We wonder why the Administration has been so silent on Proposition 215. Since I'm against it, I'm certain they'll send somebody out here right away and say, 'Oh we're against it too; we agree with Bob Dole.' "
Shalala, McCaffrey, and Biden made the following comments about medicinal marijuana at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 4:
- HHS Secretary Donna Shalala: "Children ... get a mixed message from those who believe in the legalization of marijuana, or from those that are now fighting in a place like California about whether marijuana should be used for medical purposes. That's a signal that maybe it's safe if it could be used for medical purposes. So the message has to be clear and consistent from each one of us — that drugs are illegal, that they're dangerous, and they're wrong, whether it's marijuana, or heroin, or cocaine, or any of these new drugs that we've been talking about."
- ONDCP Director Barry McCaffrey: "[The American Medical Association has] been reluctant, it seems to me, to publicly address the cruel hoax of medical use of marijuana."
- U.S. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE): "To explain to my 15-year-old daughter or a 12-year old niece that doctors say ... that marijuana can be used as a medicine, it makes it awful hard for a parent to have a message that says, 'By the way, this is a very bad thing, this marijuana.' "
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