Rep. Nancy Mace: Cannabis Congressional Rookie of The Year?
by Rico Lamitte
Like it or not, South Carolina Freshman Republican Congresswoman, Nancy Mace is out here playing to win.
She shocked the world last November by introducing the States Reforms Act, a bill that would essentially end federal prohibition on cannabis.
She enlisted one of the most powerful conservative groups in the world to back her cause: Charles Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.
But now, after being somewhat quiet the last month or so- she’s swinging for the fences yet again with another absolute corporate cannabis banger- getting the online giant and one of the most powerful companies in what WORLD join her team of corporate cannabis colonizers: Amazon.
AS we reported on SOCNH back in June, Amazon announced they’d be scratching cannabis from employee drug testing, first saying it was a hiring necessity and they had no interest in actually participating in the industry.
Just 2 months later in August, they began publicly supporting legalization and revving up their lobbying engines to join the fight because it was “the right thing to do”.
Now, according to this Forbes article, Amazon met with Mace 6 months later to make their support for her States Reform Act official.
“They don’t want to sell it,” Mace says, “It opens up the hiring pool by about 10%.” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, added: “This bill offers comprehensive reform that speaks to the emergence of a bipartisan consensus to end the federal prohibition of cannabis.”
Bullshit.
Amazon has no plans of long-term hiring as they’ve successfully stomped out all unionization efforts to date despite shitty workplace track records across ALL verticals and they’ve already begun to replace all humans in their supply chain with robots and drones.
Full automation is amazons future.
Not hiring good cannabis consuming humans.
Mace’s bill is just the latest effort to end the federal government’s ban on marijuana, but the first to come from a Republican.
Koch’s AFP is ALL in on the bill and will spend millions to lobby “to make this the most highly resourced effort in the history of this issue,” says the group’s chief government affairs officer Brent Gardner
Mace’s pro-business bill admittedly looks pretty good from the outside… (She proposes a 3% federal excise tax — compared to Chuck Schumer’s 10% tax — which would generate an estimated $3 billion in annual tax revenue by 2030.)
It would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act
The federal government would impose a nationwide 21-year age limit for cannabis consumption, with an exception for medical use, allow for states to make their own rules and laws around cannabis, including banning sales and use within state borders.
Her broader goal is to get as many Republicans as possible on board with cannabis reform and show the GOP that legalization is a good campaign issue in 2022 and beyond.
“It’s American, it’s uniting,” Mace said. “There are three things that really bring people together — animals, Britney Spears and cannabis. Those are the three things I’ve found that have struck a chord with the American people and that can bring people together at the dinner table — just like apple pie.”
Hmmmm…
I know I don’t speak for ALL black people, but I don’t really give a damn about Brittney Spears.
Christina Aguilera was better.
Fight me.
Animals… It depends on what animals you’re talking about.
Pretty sure I know you’re not speaking on certain breeds at the very least…
We can, however, agree on cannabis.
One of three ain’t so bad, right?
Mace’s bill also claims to address inequities of the failed racist war on drugs, estimating if it passes, 2,800 federal prisoners incarcerated for non-violent cannabis crimes would be released and another 1,100 or so people who get put in prison for similar crimes each year are not incarcerated, the government would save nearly $600 million over five years.
But we know that ain’t gonna happen.
Republicans won’t release prisoners back into society en masse.
They’ll this to drum up swing support, and that’s it.
Let’s keep it a buck here.
Mace knows the States Reform Act is unlikely to go forward before the midterm elections, saying her goal is to show “proof of concept.”
But there may be a little blockage along the way.
The real Republican leader, former president Donald J Trump’s recently called on supporters to look elsewhere after she called his policy awesome but rhetoric problematic.
But according to Forbes, when asked what it means that cannabis is now more popular than Trump in red states — 74% of Mississippians, for example, voted for the state’s medical marijuana ballot initiative while nearly 58% of Mississippians voted for Trump — she says it’s a signal to Republicans that they need to get on board with legalization.
“It means that if you don’t do it, you’re full of shit,” Mace says. “There’s no reason not to do this. And if you are anti-marijuana, this is not forcing you to do it. It’s not forcing your state to legalize it. But if it is legal in your state, then we’re going to tax it and regulate it.”
I think it’s clear as day what’s going on from a top-down point of view here and folks should take notice and adjust accordingly.
2022 will be interesting, to say the least.
RL
