California Representative Dana Rohrabacher is ready to take the fight for MMJ all the way to the Supreme Court is he has too.
Per TheCannabist
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said he hopes to convince Attorney General Jeff Sessions that good people do indeed sometimes smoke pot. But if he can’t, the Republican congressman from Costa Mesa said he’ll see his longtime friend in court.
“Marijuana laws in this country have violated every basic principle this country stands for over the last 75 years. It’s time to stop,” Rohrabacher said during a roundtable talk on cannabis at UC Irvine on Friday.
“If we have to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, we will win on this.”
Though 29 states have legalized medical marijuana and eight, including California, allow recreational cannabis, the drug remains illegal at the federal level.
He co-authored the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which has blocked the Department of Justice since 2014 from spending money on medical marijuana prosecutions in states where cannabis is legal. That amendment became even more crucial once President Donald Trump appointed Sessions, who has said “good people don’t smoke marijuana,” sparking concerns of a renewed federal crackdown on state-legal dispensaries.Rohrabacher — who has used cannabis himself to ease arthritis and visited the Bud and Bloom dispensary in Santa Ana on Friday night after his talk — has unexpectedly become a leading figure in the fight to change that.
The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment was set to expire but was included in an omnibus spending bill approved Thursday to fund the federal government through September.
“I had to work really hard to make sure it was in the omnibus bill,” Rohrabacher said. “I had to run around and talk to people and twist arms.”
This comes on the heels of Trump announcing that he has the right to ignore Congress and take on the medical marijuana programs if he wants to. Well, Rep. Rohrabacher is ready for a fight if need be. Rohrabacher is an ally Trump might need in the long-run, he’s the only person outside of the White House who thinks Putin is “ok” in his book.