While I am no longer a user (personal choice), this plant can be beautiful at times.
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Beyond beauty, raw hemp production could make A LOT of things for us too. It's not ALL about smoking the damn thing.
Posted on 01/29/2014 2:38:49 PM PST by Kaslin
resident Obama says he opposes marijuana legalization but thinks Colorado and Washington should be able to try it. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who sought to run against Obama in 2012 as a Republican presidential contender, takes the same position.
You might call this policy federalism -- but not if you are Barack Obama. According to the president, he has the authority to enforce the federal ban on marijuana even in states that have legalized the drug. But he chooses not to exercise that authority, because he is curious to see how these experiments turn out.
In an interview with The New Yorker published last week, Obama said that "it's important for (legalization) to go forward, because it's important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished." A few days later, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney emphasized that Obama is "not endorsing any specific move by a state" but is instead "talking about the issue of the disparities in our prosecution of our drug laws that an experiment like this may be addressing."
As the Justice Department made clear in an August 29 memo listing eight "enforcement priorities" it expects Colorado and Washington to address, the Obama administration reserves the right to end this experiment. If it does not like the way things are going, it can use threats of forfeiture and prosecution to shut down those states' newly legal marijuana businesses.
To Rick Perry, by contrast, federalism is not just a good idea; it's the law. "I am a staunch promoter of the 10th Amendment," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. According to Perry, that amendment, which says the states retain those powers that are not granted to the federal government, means states should be free to set their own policies on matters such as abortion, gay marriage and marijuana, and "then people will decide where they want to live."
That vision has been all but obliterated by the Supreme Court's absurdly broad interpretation of the power to regulate interstate commerce, which nowadays means the power to regulate pretty much anything, including the plants in your yard and the contents of your dresser drawers. This is the power Obama has in mind when he views his willingness to let Colorado and Washington set their own marijuana policies as an act of presidential grace rather than a constitutional obligation.
The truth is that the federal ban on marijuana -- unlike the federal ban on alcohol, which began and ended with constitutional amendments -- has no basis in the powers granted by the Constitution, at least insofar as it purports to reach purely intrastate activities. But as a politician who routinely relies on the Commerce Clause to justify his initiatives (including his signature legislative accomplishment), Obama will never admit that.
Still, if Obama truly believes "it's important" that states have the leeway to try different approaches to marijuana, why not codify that policy? The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, introduced last spring by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., would do just that by declaring that the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act dealing with cannabis "shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with state laws."
By supporting this bill, Obama could show he is serious about letting states go their own way on marijuana without abandoning his broad view of the federal government's powers. Republicans could appeal to younger voters -- two-thirds of whom support legalization, according to a 2013 Gallup poll -- while remaining faithful to a principle they claim to uphold.
Several recent surveys indicate that most Americans favor legalization, while even larger majorities say the federal government should not interfere with legalization at the state level. We seem to have the makings of a national consensus on this issue: We do not need a national consensus.
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Nope. Sorry. Incorrect info.
Perry just said he was open to DECRIMINALIZATION. Not legalization.
I believe it’s the State’s business, not the federates.
My tagline.
You are correct. It's a police power not delegated to the feds, therefore, retained by the states.
/johnny
While I am no longer a user (personal choice), this plant can be beautiful at times.
Beyond beauty, raw hemp production could make A LOT of things for us too. It's not ALL about smoking the damn thing.
It’s a shame but we’ll never be able to shake the strong opinion that the federal government can control substances like Marijuana.
Nice pic, blueberry cheese?
I know what SVR4 means.
I know, or many here for that matter. This plant is out there no matter who stomps their feet.
The pic is purple haze; I never tried cultivating it myself, too difficult a strain (which begs the question, I wonder if many here even know how hard it is to bring up a worth while plant, not mexican ditch weed or cartel national forest crap).
At any rate, glad you know about my namesake; she’s dying slowly but it was great while it lasted over the decades.
Obama tried dope. Why not let Colorado and Washington try it?
I once knew a guy whose friend of an uncle’s sister’s cousin tried to breed hybrids~25 years ago (when he still did that kind of stuff). It is very difficult I heard.
The other problem is that, in his youthful wisdom, he did it in his apartment. Kinda hard to mask the bouquet of budding primo sativa. The apartment manager was kind enough to leave a note on his door telling him he had 24hrs to remove the offending houseplants or the Burbank PD would be making a visit.
I heard that guy cleaned up his act not long after that.
I think its time to get rid of the federal prohibition and leave it to the states. The cure is worse than the disease.
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