A proposal to constitutionally ban marijuana in Idaho narrowly passed out of the state Senate on Wednesday, setting the stage for legislators in the state House to decide.
The proposed amendment to the state’s constitution passed by a vote of 24-11, barely eclipsing the two-thirds threshold necessary for such a proposal. The ban would apply to “all psychoactive drugs not already legal in the state,” according to the Associated Press.
The AP noted that supporters of the constitutional amendment were motivated to act given that prohibition on recreational pot use has been lifted in neighboring states. To the west of Idaho’s border are Washington and Oregon, where marijuana has been legal for years; to the east is Montana, where voters approved a legalization measure in November’s election.
“Senators, we have a duty to protect our children, our families, our communities from the scourge of drugs and the drug culture which we have seen go clear across this nation,” state Sen. Scott Grow, a Republican who co-sponsored the legislation, said when debate on the proposed amendment began, as quoted by the Associated Press.
Republicans have large majorities in both of Idaho’s legislative chambers. The state’s GOP governor, Brad Little, has also made it abundantly clear that he is no fan of legalization.
If Idaho voters were expecting legal pot to come to their state, Little said months after taking office in 2019, “they elected the wrong guy as governor.”
Democratic Pushback
The AP said that all seven Democratic state senators “voted against the legislation, citing the need to keep medical options open for marijuana and new and experimental drugs that could help patients,” and they were joined by “four Republicans who said they were troubled by altering the state’s constitution, or felt banning marijuana would impinge on personal freedoms.”
“Having lost three close family members in less than four years, I know what writhing in pain looks like,” state Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, a Democrat, said, according to the Associated Press. “And I know when pain becomes too intense, and all hope has fallen off the cliff, people seek a small amount of relief and a single ray of hope. And I believe medical cannabis is a humanitarian issue, not a substance abuse issue.”
The implications on medical marijuana in the state are potentially significant, given that there is an effort in the state House to legalize the treatment there. A Republican and Democratic member of the House intend to introduce the medical cannabis measure in their chamber next week, according to the Idaho Press, which said that under the proposal marijuana “would only be available by prescription…[and] would be packaged like any other medicinal drug, and would be dispensed by pharmacies.” Edibles and joints would be a no-go, according to the Idaho Press. The Republican co-sponsor of the bill, state House Rep. Mike Kingsley, the “whole goal is to keep it from becoming recreational.”
Medical marijuana is legal in nearly 40 other states. A poll in 2019 found that more than 70 percent of Idahoans supported legalizing medical cannabis.
If cannabis was legal when Idaho became a state, therefore accepting the ratified status of cannabis under the 9th and 10th Amendments, then how can Idaho make a constitutional amendment to prohibit cannabis without violating the U.S. Constitution?
If cannabis is not prohibited by the text of the Federal definition of marijuana, but is prohibited only by the misinterpretation of that text, then how can Idaho make a constitutional amendment to prohibit cannabis without violating Federal law?
If the Federal definition of marijuana can be reconstructed by Congress to carefully deschedule cannabis plants for citizens and literally uphold the Constitution, would Idaho still want to make its constitutional amendment that prohibits cannabis?
Now that the U.N. has rescheduled cannabis, and more than 34 states have some form of cannabis legalization, people in Idaho and elsewhere, can contact their members of Congress about reconstructing the Federal definition of marijuana to carefully deschedule cannabis plants for citizens while retaining the Schedule 1 status of marijuana itself for separate reconsideration, like this:
(21 U.S.C. 802(16)) The term “marijuana” means all parts of the smoke produced by the combustion of the plant Cannabis sativa L., which is, as are the viable seeds of such plant, prohibited to be grown by or sold by any publicly traded corporation or subsidiary company, and such smoke is prohibited to be inhaled by any child or by any person bearing any firearm, as is their intake of any part or any product of such plant containing more than 0.3% THC by weight unless prescribed to such child by an authorized medical practitioner.
What a bunch of stoopid dumbarse bumba clots
Looks like Idaho is about to pass Mississippi, Alabama and Floriduh in the dumbest State race.
What a bunch of stupid goat-roping cowpies. I’d like to be able to say I’m proud of my home state but these troglodytes make me glad I now live in a state with more educated, enlightened legislators.