Marijuana Ballot Issues Have Little To Do With Drugs

Shout Bits Blog ^ | 07/30/2012 | Shout Bits

[ccmay]

Phelps did his part in the relay last night. Lochte lost it for them.

[MileHi]

No, my humor is intact. Didn’t think I needed a sarc tag to pull ‘gunners chain.

FReegards

[tacticalogic]

You can SAY you're only lighting your field on fire over on your side of the boundary, but should I object because of the possibility that your fire won't STAY on your side of the boundary?

It should be implicit that living in a republic means that people in other states may be allowed to do things you, and the people in your state disagree with. If you and the people in your state want to make it illegal it is then your responsibility to enforce that prohibition in your state. That's how it was designed.

[humblegunner]

Be a man, humblegunner, shibumi, and whatever else you call yourself.

Myself calls me and myself and I all manner of names
and it's for the English to toss the frauds in the Thames.

[humblegunner]

You are the same poster under two different screen names, at least. Many know that you do this already, most do not.

This should be reported to the authorities forthwith.

[Darksheare]

Yuppers, a blog pimp.
And a skunk weed fan apparently.

[Liberty Valance]

LOL!

[Darksheare]

LOL.
Paranoid much?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Marijuana has, of course, been proven to be medically benign.

Lost me on this lie.

[Darksheare]

Next up, he’ll hear that I Am Not A Mod actually IS a mod.

[DiogenesLamp]

I’m thinking your guess is wrong.

I am firmly for the pro-drug agenda. Legalize all of it.

Every argument you make sounds to me like the arguments made by the anti-gunners - return to the Wild West, blood in the streets as cartels take over, etc.

The difference between us and them is, this experiment has already been done before, and we have the results. They are not good for your side.

Chests of Opium imported into China.

By 1900, 90 million Chinese were addicted to opium.

[DiogenesLamp]

We can do either one, but the question of what we should do is a different question than which division of government is legitimately authorized to do it under the Constitution.

As I have pointed out above, Both State and Federal governments are legally empowered by the Constitution to declare drug usage illegal. Not under commerce, but under defense.

[DiogenesLamp]

So do you support the Tenth Amendment authority of states to regulate intrastate mj - yes or no?

I am of divided mind on the issue. I would agree that an appeal to the tenth amendment is the best argument I have heard regarding the legalization of Marijuana. The question is, would the same argument apply to heroin or cocaine? I think not. Where to draw the line? and How?

[TheOldLady]

[giggles!] FReegards to you too. I admire your straight-faced reply, in that case. [smiles]

[Bubba_Leroy]

In Obamaland, it is okay to smoke marijuana but if you smoke a cigarette in public you will go to jail.

[tacticalogic]

As I have pointed out above, Both State and Federal governments are legally empowered by the Constitution to declare drug usage illegal. Not under commerce, but under defense.

Source, please.

[shibumi]

I didn’t make any argument at all.

I made a guess as to how his ideas would be received.

As it turns out, I was only half right on that.

A lot of people have commented on what they think I meant, but I didn’t take any position one way or another.

I did get a lot of people to express their opinions. Isn’t that nice?

[DiogenesLamp]

Nothing in the Constitution, or the New Deal interpretation of the Commerce Clause makes that distinction. The standard is the Congress can regulate anything it "finds to have a substantial effect on interstate commerce". That is the basis of their claim of authority to conduct the drug war, and the reality is that the price of accepting that is accepting everything else they do under that claim of authority.

That may be the section of the Constitution THEY cite as authorization for the Drug War, but I will point out that "Wars" are fought by the Department of Defense, not the Department of Commerce, and I do indeed regard the pursuit of the drug war to be defensive in nature.

When China tried to ban the importation of opium, it was their fighting men and ships that confronted the British. Now no one can deny that they regarded their version of the drug war (which they lost) as being an ACTUAL war, one that would have consequences such as the enslavement of their citizens should they lose. Well they lost, and their citizens indeed did become slaves to their drug importing masters.

My point is, Just because Congress and the authorities are pointing at the wrong authorization for waging the War on Drugs, that doesn't mean they do not have a correct authority backing them. They do. It is the requirement by the constitution for the Government to defend the nation from attack.

If we want federal government to wage a domestic drug war, then we need to enumerate the power for them to do that.

It is their primary power. The power granted them to defend the nation from attack by enemies foreign and domestic.

[DiogenesLamp]

It should be implicit that living in a republic means that people in other states may be allowed to do things you, and the people in your state disagree with. If you and the people in your state want to make it illegal it is then your responsibility to enforce that prohibition in your state. That's how it was designed.

I am not concerned that they will do things which I merely don't like, I am concerned only that they may do something which constitutes an injury to me and mine. Pollution drifts across the border. At that point it becomes MY problem.

[tacticalogic]

All that does is make a mockery of Congressinal war powers.

There was no declaration of war, there is no discernible "enemy". The "war on drugs" is as much a real "war" as the "war on poverty".

In your mind that rationalization might justify the drug war, while de-legitimizing all the other abuses of the Commerce Clause, but in Washington and in the courts it will not.