If you’re planning a trip to Canada, you don’t want to cross the border with cannabis, even after Canada goes legal in 2018. You also don’t want to cross with a firearm, registered or not.
But what about if you’re traveling from California (post January 1) to Nevada, which is already legal? Marijuana Moment asks: If firearms can make the trip if they’re registered, so why not cannabis?
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Related Story: North Americans Marijuana Spending Up 33% In 2017
GOP members of Capitol Hill are trying to pass further legislation that would allow concealed guns to travel with them, even if the other states they’re passing through have stricter laws concerning concealed weapons.
California Congressman Ro Khanna tweeted Wednesday, “Let’s think of this logically: If one state allows the legalization of marijuana, does that mean every state needs to allow the legalization of marijuana? I have always thought that the Republicans are the ones who defend federalism, defend states’ abilities to make laws that they think are going to be best for their people.”
And the logic is sound. Why would the federal government override state laws?
Trying to think logically again: The feds would be smart to legalize cannabis federally. The tax revenue alone would have a positive effect on our infrastructure, social programs, schools, law enforcement training and it would wipe out the black market. In Oregon, the price of black-market marijuana has fallen so much that dealers can hardly give it away.
Another way to apply the logic is that if someone in California has a registered medical card for insomnia and they come to New Jersey, which currently has much more stringent laws, they should be able to bring and procure cannabis in Jersey as well.
“This issue really is less about what one thinks about the Second Amendment and far more about what one thinks about federalism,” said Khanna.
As Khanna pointed out, republicans have traditionally been on the side of state rights, even when they don’t agree with what the people have voted in. Let’s just hope that state’s rights win out and the only thing changed on the federal level is the scheduling of marijuana.
