Posted on February 6, 2014

Rep. Steve Cohen: Every Moment Spent Enforcing Pot Means Less Time For Heroin

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Nobody dies from marijuana, but people die from heroin overdoses—including the late Philip Seymour Hoffman—every day. Every second we spend trying to enforce marijuana possessions laws is a moment that we’re not enforcing laws meant to protect Americans from the ravages of drugs like heroin and meth. That’s where our priority should be. When we put marijuana on the same level as LSD, crack, heroin, meth, and cocaine, it only encourages young people not to listen to us. They know that marijuana isn’t as dangerous as harder drugs—and they don’t listen because they know it’s wrong.



###



People shouldn’t be smoking marijuana, but they are. They shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol either, but they are. We shouldn’t lock them up for any of that. Any time an American goes to jail and has their liberty taken away from them for marijuana possession, that is an injustice and a travesty—it’s a crime perpetrated by our federal government. It is ludicrous, absurd, and crazy to classify marijuana on the same level as more dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. There is a cultural lag in this country, and Congress and this Administration must fix it.