He’s Not High: Inside Barney Frank’s Plan to Legalize Marijuana

While
Congress debates health care, handles the economic downturn, and the
quagmire in Afghanistan, Congressman Barney Frank is eyeing America’s
draconian pot policies. Read our exclusive interview.

By: John H. Richardson

To my shame, I started my interview with Congressman Barney
Frank about the legalization of marijuana by apologizing to my subject.
“I know you guys have a lot on your plate these days, so I’m sorry to
be calling you about something kind of trivial…”

Then I did a rapid midcourse correction. “But it’s not trivial, because people go to jail over it.”

“That’s exactly right,” Frank said.

We were talking about the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009,
Frank’s latest attempt to bring sanity to the federal marijuana laws.
Currently, pot is classified as a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous
Substance under federal law, which makes it worse than morphine,
cocaine, amphetamine, and PCP. Possession of a single joint carries a
penalty of $1,000 and a year in prison – a charge faced by about 800,000 American citizens every year. This is the government whose judgment on war and economics we are supposed to respect.

So I started the interview over.

ESQUIRE: Could you tell me why you’re doing it at this time? Everybody says you guys have got so much to handle right now.

BARNEY FRANK: Announcing that the government should mind its
own business on marijuana is really not that hard. There’s not a lot of
complexity here. We should stop treating people as criminals because
they smoke marijuana. The problem is the political will. Read the rest of this entry »