At a recent, well-attended and lengthy hearing held by the criminal justice committee at the state house regarding studying cannabis legalization, a state representative from Rockingham, Kyle Tasker, put his freedom on the line.
During his testimony in front of the committee, and in front of a state police officer, Tasker pulled out a bag of cookies, a vaporizer, and what appeared to be a bottle of cannabis tincture, which he claimed came from his “personal stash”.
The cop behind him didn’t seem to know what to do. After all, he likely wouldn’t hesitate to arrest Tasker for possessing cannabis in the streets. However, arresting him in front of the committee would only prove the point of the cannabis freedom activists – that people are arrested all the time for cannabis – something about which the police frequently mislead the legislators.
They like to claim that no one goes to jail for simple cannabis possession in New Hampshire, which is a lie. Even if it were true, people still get arrested and processed all the time, then forced into court and paying fines. It’s tyranny, over a plant, and everyone knows it.
While Tasker did admit that the cookies were actually purchased from the kitchen in the state house basement, and it appeared the vaporizer was for nicotine, he wasn’t so clear on what was in the tincture bottle, despite questions from the committee. Everyone, except the cop, seemed to be enjoying Tasker’s testimony, and multiple committee members took the opportunity to laugh and crack jokes.
Nearly everyone, including the multiple elderly members of the committee seem to be aware of the absurdity of cannabis prohibition, as well as its imminent demise.
I’ve attended a LOT of these hearings (on medical, decrim, legalization) over the years, and the committee members have become less-and-less hostile, to the point where the committee has become well-educated on the issue. In an exclusive interview with Free Keene, Tasker agreed, “Things have changed a lot since I took office in 2010. Edibles were something snickered about and jokes about brownies were the typical response, with less-enlightened reps bringing up issues like health consequences of smoking unfiltered joints…Before the legal marijuana industry was established no one had ever considered a personal vaporizer, or a drops placed under the tongue. It was not something that was taken seriously by a majority of the committee. Now that we are getting empirical data and the jokes have stopped its much easier to address the policy directly and analyze the pros and cons, the latter of which are few and far between.”
As the entertaining testimony and responses show, these days they’re downright friendly on it. All that stands in the way of meaningful cannabis reform in New Hampshire is the senate and governor. What will 2015 bring?
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[…] By Ian Freeman […]
Good job, Kyle! Right on!
Kudos to this guy. Cancer patients in all 50 states need safe, legal access to Medical Marijuana. Its wrong to keep things the way they are — I’m a Scientist with a strong interest in Cancer research. The evidence of the value of Marijuana as a life saving medicine is now so strong that the need to remove Marijuana from Schedule 1 has become a moral imperative. This weekend over 3,000 Americans will die, in pain, of Cancer. Every day after that, 1,500 more Americans will die, after suffering horribly, from it. Every single minute another American dies of Cancer.… Read more »
An honest politician who’s not afraid of making some noise. Kudos.
I just read a heart breaking article on the NYT web site from a woman with ALS who’s using CBD oil to help treat her symptoms. The immediate removal of Marijuana from Schedule 1 is one of the biggest moral imperatives ever. Please call the white house comment line first thing Monday morning and have all your friends to the same thing. Clarence Darrow said it best — “There’s no good way to enforce a bad law”
This is an example of leadership. Outstanding.
From 01 28 2015: Daily Marijuana Use Is Not Associated with Brain Morphometric Measures in Adolescents or Adults “No statistically significant differences were found between daily users and nonusers on volume or shape in the regions of interest. Effect sizes suggest that the failure to find differences was not due to a lack of statistical power, but rather was due to the lack of even a modest effect. In sum, the results indicate that, when carefully controlling for alcohol use, gender, age, and other variables, there is no association between marijuana use and standard volumetric or shape measurements of subcortical… Read more »
this is really nice to see someone stand up in front of the plague of illogical thought concerning cannabis. We have been asleep on so many issues and now that we are all waking up, the establishment is getting very nervous.
http://www.cannabistherapysolutions.com
I’m not surprised that Kyle (desperate for attention) Tasker lacks the courage to do any more than pretend cafeteria cookies have pot in them. But seriously, this is the Free Stater definition of “civil disobedience?”
no matter if you smoke pot used to smoke pot or never smoked and do not intend to. It is a waste of taxpayers money to put people in jail for using cannabis products however they are used! If i were taking chemo, which I never would, and this would make my life tolerable getting arrested for it is just ludicrous. Live Free OR DIe!!!