California Representative Dana Rohrabacher has been fighting for medical marijuana in Congress for years now, and is willing to take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“Marijuana laws in this country have violated every basic principle this country stands for over the last 75 years. It’s time to stop,” Congressman Rohrabacher said at a recent cannabis talk. “If we have to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, we will win on this.”
In 2014, the Congressman co-authored the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which blocked the Justice Department from spending federal funds on prosecuting legal medical marijuana users or businesses. The amendment, which was due to expire, was just added to a recent omnibus spending bill.
“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.”
Rohrabacher, who has used medical marijuana himself to treat his arthritis, has made plans to discuss medical marijuana with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The two men have known each other since they were teenagers, and Rohrabacher called Sessions “an honest man and person who has got a good heart,” but also a man who “thinks he can help you along by telling you what to do with your personal life.”
The Congressman said he was unsure whether or not he could help Sessions see the light on medical marijuana. But if President Trump follows through on his recent promise to interfere with medical cannabis, Rohrabacher is confident that the courts will back Congress' right to deny the Justice Department funding for medical marijuana prosecutions. “It would be a huge waste of his time and money, and why would he do that?” he said.
While we couldn’t be more excited about Representative Rohrabacher’s commitment to medical marijuana, his “yes” vote for the American Health Care Act is puzzling.
