If you know the lyrics to this youtube video, chances are we are around the same age. On the other hand, if it’s your first time seeing it take out a few minutes to listen to the lyrics and learn something about how bills are turned into laws.
Thousands of bills are introduced during each Congress. Vanishingly few of them end up becoming law — fewer each year, as Congressional gridlock and dysfunction worsen. Out of 7,207 bills and joint resolutions introduced during this Congress, only 103 have become law — fewer, by this point, than in any other Congress since at least the 1970s.
MEDICAL MARIJUANA is an issue building up a lot of momentum. There are currently 21 medical marijuana states and several waiting for bills to be passed through. Under federal law, marijuana is treated like every other controlled substance, such as cocaine and heroin. The federal government places every controlled substance in a schedule, in principle according to its relative potential for abuse and medicinal value. Under the CSA, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, which means that the federal government views marijuana as highly addictive and having no medical value.
Conflict between State and Federal Law
As of this printing, the federal government claims that marijuana is not medicine and in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the United States Supreme Court held that the federal government has the constitutional authority to prohibit marijuana for all purposes. Thus, federal law enforcement officials may prosecute medical marijuana patients, even if they grow their own medicine and even if they reside in a state where medical marijuana use is protected under state law. The Court indicated that Congress and the Food and Drug Administration should work to resolve this issue.
The Raich decision does not say that the laws of California (or any other medical marijuana state) are unconstitutional; nor does it invalidate them in any way. Also, it does not say that federal officials must prosecute patients. Decisions about prosecution are still left to the discretion of the federal government.
TRACKING NEW STATE GUN LAWS–
In April of this year, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed HB 60, a bill which expands the ability to carry firearms in public spaces such as bars and airports. The media was quick to report that this bill is evidence of a backlash against the many significant gun violence prevention laws enacted in the states last year, despite the media’s predominant narrative from last year that, after Newtown, more states weakened gun laws and the gun lobby “won”. The truth is that the recent media narratives are far from accurate.
Despite popular belief, in the last sixteen months since Newtown, the media has incorrectly portrayed the complicated and nuanced activity in fifty different state legislative bodies. The new laws have been tallied, and often, have been inappropriately equalized. Small bills which keep concealed weapons permit holders’ information private have been categorized as having equal weight to sweeping new laws that require background checks and ban assault weapons. The stories proclaiming the Georgia bill to be a pro-gun backlash make little of the fact that it was the NRA’s top priority in Georgia for two years and, after failing last year, barely scraped by this year and only in a watered-down version. The backlash stories also fail to mention the groundswell of activism that rose in opposition to the bill and succeeded in forcing the gun lobby to strip provision after provision from the measure.
Maestro Speaks
STREET JUSTICE 