Posted on 11/02/2015 11:48:31 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Sen. Bernie Sanders brought marijuana into the national conversation last week, calling for legalizing and regulating the drug. Under his plan, people in possession of the substance would be treated no differently than people smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.
By removing marijuana from the list of dangerous drugs, Sanders' move would allow states to legalize the marijuana without Washington having a say.
Beyond campaign speeches meant to appeal to young voters, a host of state ballot initiatives on marijuana will be greeting voters next November. In California, which became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, residents may vote to legalize recreational use of the drug.
With so many members in Congress, California could become the catalyst for changing federal law. Massachusetts opened its first medical dispensary early this year. A referendum to end cannabis prohibition has been filed, and voters are expected to approve full legalization.
In Nevada, a legalization initiative has already qualified for the 2016 ballot. Vermont's state legislature could become the first in the nation to end cannabis prohibition and replace it with tax-and-regulate policies, directly challenging federal law rather than using a ballot initiative. In Maine, where state legislators rejected recreational pot this summer, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said it would put its organization behind a ballot initiative submitted by Legalize Maine, which had by then already collected about 40,000 signatures. It needs only 61,000 by January to place the measure on a statewide ballot.
A Gallup poll released Oct. 21 found that 58 percent of U.S. residents believe marijuana should be legal. â Joana Suleiman
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Don’t bogart that Nanny State PING!
I don’t believe ANY polls LOL
I don’t believe in obtrusive nanny states. Its an odd country though where you can smoke pot but you can’t smoke a cigar.
/johnny
[[Under his plan, people in possession of the substance would be treated no differently than people smoking cigarettes]]
so in other words they will be treated like crap, arrested, and fiend for smoking anywhere in public?
Marijuana us will become common. The basis is the worship, by the American people, of the philosophy of eating, drinking, drugging, copulating, evacuating the bowels and snoring.
Ok, we relax laws on substances believed to be hazardous and addicting.
I’d say this: if we remove barriers to the use of these substances, we should also reduce government money spent taking care of these “victims” of the substances.
With more freedom must come more responsibility.
I’m not really interested in whether or how we prosecute marijuana use.
I do point out that a drugged citizenry is not the raw material upon which you can build a republic.
Its not the thing that will sink the republic by itself, its just one more data point.
Its not the thing that will sink the republic by itself, its just one more data point.
I'm of the considered opinion that a prohibitionist police state is a greater peril to my rights, my taxes, and my republic than marijuana.
Limited government and police states are incompatible, which do you want more?
I understand your point.
My point is separate. Eliminate drug laws and you eliminate all kinds of police abuse.
You can’t build a republic upon the foundation of a police state, which is your point, and it is correct. You also can’t build a republic upon a drugged citizenry. You can’t build a republic upon the foundation of a citizenry that can’t and won’t govern themselves.
Your point, which is correct, is a legal one. Mine is a moral one.
So let the states decide and get fedgov out. Agreed?
That’s fine. Private foundations, charities and businesses could probably do much better in treating addictions, anyhow.
I agree. I hate it, watching “Cops” for example, when they start digging through someone’s care “with permission of course” and then the guy goes to jail for a joint.
My point is moral. We have a system of government that is fit only for a moral people, and no other.
By the way, are you OK if a bar owner decides to allow cigars in his bar? I don’t smoke, but its a weird country where you can’t smoke in a bar.
Has marijuana prohibition, which was nonexistent in the US until FDR, made us more moral?
By the way, are you OK if a bar owner decides to allow cigars in his bar?
Hell yes!
You might find this interesting.
Bernie Sanders is marxist scum, IMO.
But on this ONE issue ONLY, I think he is correct.
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