Bill Delahunt: “As my colleagues know, this is truly a resolution that can be described as a Alice in Wonderland resolution. Up is down…”

“As my colleagues know, this is truly a resolution that can be described as a Alice in Wonderland resolution. Up is down and down is up. Marijuana is dangerous for folks who are suffering, who very well may be dying, but cocaine and morphine are okay. In other words, coke and morphine are less dangerous than marijuana. That just does not make any sense whatsoever. It seems to me, if we are going to ban the use of marijuana in the face of growing medical evidence of its therapeutic value, in cases resistant to other treatments, then we should ban morphine and cocaine as well. What are the arguments for treating marijuana differently from these other and arguably far more dangerous drugs? I am sure that if we ask anyone from the law enforcement community, they will tell us that violent behavior is far more endemic to the use and the abuse of cocaine and morphine and related drugs than marijuana. Well, the first argument is that whatever benefits it may have, marijuana is simply too dangerous for us to send a single signal that it is okay. Yet the same signal is sent by, as I said, allowing therapeutic access to cocaine, and yet we allow it nonetheless.”