Barney Frank and Ron Paul to Harness Both Parties' Awesomeness to Push Bill Legalizing Marijuana, Regain Sanity

Word is that Barney Frank and Ron Paul are set to introduce a bill today that would decriminalize marijuana and defuse a lot of the attendant fuckery that stems from its criminality.  I am not sure how far this bill will go - there was a similar bill brought by the same team in 2009 that fizzled big time - but I will never pass up an opportunity to support the work to decriminalize marijuana.  Marijuana's classification as a Big Bad in the universe of drug use is ludicrous and damaging, and allows the federal government to promulgate the demented and racist War on Drugs that keeps minorities in jails, gives excessive power to all kinds of law enforcement and creates a need (and supply) for private prisons which function for profit and on the bare edge of legality, all for the botanical equivalent of vodka.

Source: Jack E. Henningfield, PhD for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Reported by Philip J. Hilts, New York Times, Aug. 2, 1994 "Is Nicotine Addictive? It Depends on Whose Criteria You Use."  Source: http://drugwarfacts.org/addictiv.htm

I don't advocate for the legalization of all drugs - there is some genuinely horrid shit out there that is a pox on society and should stay illegal and buttressed by rehabilitation programs - but marijuana is such an innocuous, potentially useful drug that it's ridiculous for it to be illegal, much less stigmatized the way it is.  Not only does it give more justification to the War on Drugs, but it also limits the possibilities for pain management and medical treatment and keeps us from the chance to use hemp plants to make safer, non-petroleum-based plastics and fabrics.   There's really no reason for marijuana to remain illegal, and I'm glad that Reps. Frank and Paul are taking this step against idiocy.