No one in Congress wants to legalize marijuana more than Rep. Barney Frank, co-sponsor of a new House bill that would end prohibition. However, Frank has annouced he'll be retiring from the Congress after his term ends this year.

H.R. 2306, which is co-sponored by Republican Rep. Ron Paul, would remove marijuana and THC from the Controlled Substances Act, essentially descheduling cannabis and hence making it legal.

In 2008 and 2009, Frank introduced the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Acts, which would have decriminalized the possession of 100 grams of marijuana. The bills were never voted on. He delivered the keynote address at the 2001 NORML Confrerence.

"I don't think it is the government's business to tell you how to spend your leisure time," says Frank, who claims to have never smoked pot. "I do not smoke marijuana. I don't know what the plants look like. I couldn't identify most plants." (However, he does like to chomp on cigars.)

Frank made this statement after his partner James Ready was arrested for growing marijuana in Maine in 2007.

"The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly," he told Bill Maher in 2008.

Born on Mar. 31, 1940, Frank grew up in New Jersey. He stayed in the Boston area after attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Frank has been a Democratic Congressman since 1981 in Massachusetts' 4th District. He came out of the closet in 1987. Frank and Ready are still together.

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