Marijuana V. Heroin

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, today on our calendar we have got about 10 bills dealing with a very serious issue in America: opioids and heroin. This is an awful problem we have in our Nation. There is more and more use of opioids and heroin and death resulting from it than at any time that I can recall in the past.

I had a young friend a few years back who died of a heroin overdose. I have known of other promising young people in Memphis who have died of heroin overdoses. This is a problem all over the country, but predominantly in the northeast and predominantly in Caucasian areas. It has become an issue, as it should, of importance. But none of the bills that we are going to deal with today--all of which are good, and all of which I will support--deal with the real problem; and that is, the recognition in our country that we treat all drugs as a law enforcement problem, a criminal problem, and not as a health problem; and that we treat most all drugs on the same level and give law enforcement the same incentives to arrest dealers and/or users for any drug and not encourage them and give them reasons--besides public safety--to emphasize their enforcement on opioids and heroin.

In the drug schedules which we have in our country that lay out the order in which we think drugs are the most serious, Schedule I is at the top; and in that classification are heroin, LSD, ecstasy, and marijuana.

I ask you each not to answer reflexively which of those four don't fit. Marijuana does not fit.

Our laws should show that heroin is a serious problem and that marijuana is not as serious a problem; that users should be dealt with in ways that don't put them in jail and, in the case of marijuana possession, don't cause them to lose scholarship opportunities, housing opportunities in Federal facilities, or jobs later on.

We also shouldn't have law enforcement, through asset forfeiture, get moneys from people they arrest; fund their activities by making arrests; and have it be presumed in law that moneys and/or properties that are involved in the transactions of those drug deals are involved and that law enforcement gets to keep those items. It gives law enforcement a reason to go after marijuana--which is easier to find and make money--rather than heroin.

We need to study marijuana to see what its medical uses are. We don't need to use it to incarcerate and cripple for the future jobs for young people. We need to encourage young people not to do any drugs at all, not to do alcohol, not to smoke cigarettes, and to take their time as youths to be youths, to be young, to learn, and to fill their minds with knowledge for a better life later. But if, as a youth or as an adult, they should use an illegal substance, they should be dealt with as having a problem and not be given a scarlet letter that stays with them for the rest of their lives.

So my work has been and will continue to be to try to make more sense of our drug laws; to see that the scheduling is smarter, that heroin and opioids continue to be at the top, and that marijuana is not in that listing; and to do things that encourage law enforcement to arrest people that are dealing in and selling heroin and opioids, which cause death and cause people to be addicted to the point where they will commit crimes to secure moneys to keep their habit going, and to not have equal incentives to go after marijuana that does none of those things.

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