Political Quotes

“First of all, it is absolutely a fact that marijuana, the use of marijuana and the sale of marijuana, is against federal law. Now, you may want to change that law, but that is the law. Also, our banking system, even those that are State banks, State charter banks, fall under a Federal banking system. You are talking about money laundering. Well, what about other drugs? What about heroin? What about methamphetamines? Should we also have exemptions and carve-outs for those as well? Why even have a system that detects money laundering and actually enforces that if we are going to begin to create exemptions and carve-outs for that as well? Also, I would remind folks that with regard to medical marijuana, that is still very controversial. The reason why marijuana is still a Schedule I drug, illegal, is that it is neither known nor accepted by authorities that raw marijuana has an acceptable medical use. {time} 1815 Now, yes, extracts of marijuana, even Marinol--which is synthetic THC--is a schedule III, like hydrocodone, and that can be prescribed and monitored by a physician. There is no problem with that, and the money can go into any banking system. So if there are beneficial parts of the marijuana, we can extract that and create medication from it, whether it is liquid or tablet, injection or whatever, and then that will certainly be delivered, prescribed by physicians. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.…”