Former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s bipartisan Project Sam (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) is “taking aim at what he sees as knee-jerk support for marijuana legalization” among his fellow liberals. Conservative political commentator David Frum, a speech writer for former President George W. Bush is also on the Project Sam board.
Although SAM opposes legalization of pot for recreational use, Kennedy, 45, wants cancer patients and others with serious illnesses to be able to obtain drugs with cannabinoids, in a way that is overseen by the FDA. In addition,other Project proposals include increased funding for mental health courts and treatment of drug dependency, so those caught using marijuana might avoid incarceration, get help and potentially have their criminal records cleared.
Kennedy who admits to having smoked pot but also said that, as an asthma sufferer, he "found other ways to get high," including addiction to alcohol and the pain-reliever Oxycontin, is also states that part of the reason he is against legalization is because he is worried that his 8-month old son (as well as other children of substance abusers) “might be predisposed to drug abuse, due to a kind of ‘genetic trigger’,” and wants to “reduce the environmental factors that pull that trigger, such as marijuana use being commonly accepted.”
Kennedy has been continuously sober for two years now.
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