Decriminalize weed? How overdue is that?

Go Barney Frank! I can hear the wisecracks already. Openly gay man, advocating legalization of small quantities of weed? This should have been done long beFORE hundreds of thousands of people were JAILED for small quantities of weed. This is from one of the Chronicle blogs.

High time for legal pot use, says one lawmaker

Wikimedia.org A bill by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would eliminate federal penalties for possession and use of small amounts of marijuana.

One member of Congress believes it is high time that the federal government drop criminal penalties for possession and use of small amounts of marijuana.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he will introduce legislation that would eliminate federal penalties on use and possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana. The proposed legislation would drop federal penalties for not-for-profit transfers of up to one ounce of pot.

Frank chairs the House Financial Services Committee which will be tackling some heavy issues this spring such as mortgage crisis relief. But during a recent appearance on HBO's ``Real Time With Bill Maher,'' the Massachusetts lawmaker also suggested that the small time drug user also deserves a break.

``It's time for the politicians to catch up with the public on this,'' said Frank, who is a board member of NORML -The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. ``The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly.''

While some Americans might support easing the right to inhale, such a proposal in an election year is likely to go up in smoke.

link is here.

Got to have those cutesy puns, now don't we? I hope I'm wrong, but I think this country is still too uptight to legalize weed. Things could change. Things WILL change. Why not now?

Frank should go for legalizing the cultivation of hemp while he's at it. We are the ONLY developed nation to prohibit it. Yet another bow to the corporations.

You allow cultivation of hemp and legalize its cuzzin cannabis and you're going to give a BIG KICK to the economy. The uses to which hemp can be put are really mind-blowing. We could actually SOLVE our energy problems with the use of hemp. But will the corporations allow it? It's not up to Congress. It's up to big business.

Hemp. Read all about it here, here, here, here and here. And a thousand other places. Unleash that much-vaunted American ingenuity: legalize hemp and cannabis.