CPAC Audience: Legalize It!

Breitbart ^ | 03-07-2014 | John Sexton

[PaulCruz2016]

There are things you expect to see at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and there are things you don't. One of the things you probably don't is an audience cheering and applauding arguments for legalizing pot and bemoaning the war on drugs.

A panel titled "Rocky Mountain High" held Thursday afternoon started out as a debate between Mary Katherine Ham of Fox and Hot Air and Christopher Beach a staffer for former Drug Czar William Bennett's radio show. But as the debate wore on it became clear the real disagreement was between Beach and the overwhelming majority of the audience.

The Q&A portion of the panel lasted well over an hour. Person after person stood up to challenge Beach's position on the war on drugs or the dangers of pot. Toward the end of the 100 minutes it had become a kind of joke. After one tough question by someone who clearly favored legalization, Beach turned to Ham and said "I guess that one's for me."

[steve86]

Lung cancer, throat cancer, oral cancer..

Most people in Colorado now seem to be buying product for vaporizers or purchasing edibles. If you have a link showing increased cancer incidence for those methods of administration please post it or PM it to me. I would never smoke it myself.

[Balding_Eagle]

I live in CO. I hope you’re eventually proven right, but so far it looks like you’re terribly wrong.

[Iron Munro]

The subject was pot...

here you go:

Only dopes and dopers do dope.

[OneWingedShark]

I get the idea most people here who are strongly opposed are a little older than me (59).

The more I look into it, the more I'm convinced that the War on Drugs has no legitimate authority — some of the decisions from the USSC that justify it are terrifying in their implications (Gonzalez v. Raich and Kentucky v. King spring immediately to mind) and many of the laws are contrary to the constitution (the asset forfeiture acts, and so forth).

[heye2monn]

I share your concern about the Bill of Rights in general. But I do think that federal government has a role to play if hard drugs are pouring over state and federal borders along with hordes of cartel thugs.

And don’t tell me that legalization will make cartels go away. As the quasi-legalization of drugs in the Netherlands proved, some things will always remain illegal and cartels and organized crime will always be there in the shadows.

[heye2monn]

It was true. Soon after that, Assyria collapsed.

[flaglady47]

Excellent analysis.

[ansel12]

I get the idea most people here who are strongly opposed are a little older than me (59).

The people who most represent traditional, conservative America, the people that JFK wanted to replace with his immigration law, and the people that the left can't wait to die off.

Conservatism is dying and is being replaced with what will be a short lived transitory, conservative/libertarian lite, short lived because social liberalism leads to liberal voters and decreases the number of conservative voters.

[ansel12]

Libertarianism offers the transitory vocabulary and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism.

[Chickensoup]

I get the idea most people here who are strongly opposed are a little older than me (59).
The people who most represent traditional, conservative America, the people that JFK wanted to replace with his immigration law, and the people that the left can’t wait to die off.

Conservatism is dying and is being replaced with what will be a short lived transitory, conservative/libertarian lite, short lived because social liberalism leads to liberal voters and decreases the number of conservative voters.
_______________________________________

I am old. However I care not if people decide to eat drugs. I do think that any drug related illness..etc. needs to be cared for by any sort of charitable agency, not the usual insurances or state aid. So If the Salvation Army opens charitable hospitals to aid the drug/alcohol addled, great, but no detox, etc. on the taxpayer dime. I am that cold.

[fabian]

/the title refers to pot...and the legalization that is going on in our nation. I don’t know what a good answer is, but to put rape, heroine, etc...into my comment...as a question, is sort of silly and way beyond the point that I made.

[MinuteGal]

Your comment #89 on my post #32.....hammer meets nail!

Leni

[ansel12]

However I care not if people decide to eat drugs. I do think that any drug related illness..etc. needs to be cared for by any sort of charitable agency, not the usual insurances or state aid. So If the Salvation Army opens charitable hospitals to aid the drug/alcohol addled, great, but no detox, etc. on the taxpayer dime.

Don't even bother to post such fantasies.

Social liberalism and drugs create more big government, more liberal voters, we don't legalize drugs and gay marriage, and social liberalism, and then get more conservative voters to repeal welfare and government programs out of it, so don't let libertarians try to sell such a silly notion.

[prairiebreeze]

Most news stories show the typical joint in their coverage of the advancement of marijuana into society. I’m sure that edibles and paraphernalia have their place in the new industry but not nearly enough time has elapsed since these legalization laws have been passed to evaluate cancer rates within those methods of use.

Smoking it and associated increased cancer risk should speak for itself to the open and unbiased mind.

[Iron Munro]

How can I have a rational debate on the issue with someone who believes the sinister purpose of the “War On Drugs” is to create work for prison unions?

[fabian]

Oh boy...that is not what I wrote. You are the irrational one here. The war on drugs is noble in its motive, but things always get corrupted in the institutions of most men. There is something obviously all screwed up with America having the largest prison population in the civilized, where also criminals get more hardened. Brubaker is a great movie you should see about prison corruptions. And please stop continuing to twist my valid points.

[highball]

I’m 58 and strongly opposed. Texas.

Lung cancer, throat cancer, oral cancer.....all topics carefully avoided on these threads I note.

If that's your logic, then surely you believe we ought to make Lucky Strikes illegal, too? Marlboros can give you cancer, so the government has the right to ban them?

In a free society, men are allowed to make choices that aren't always good for them. And while I'd never smoke either kind of cigarette, tobacco or weed, the Constitution does not give me the power to force everyone to make the choices I'd like them to.

[Iron Munro]

Oh boy...that is not what I wrote.

YOUR EXACT WORDS:

really? just because people are sick of the drug war that works real well for prison unions?

[SierraWasp]

From my perspective, this whole CPAC thing is turning into nothing but a big sick joke!!! It’s going dopey and gay!!!

[OneWingedShark]

How can I have a rational debate on the issue with someone who believes the sinister purpose of the “War On Drugs” is to create work for prison unions?

How can I have a rational debate with anyone who asserts that opposition to the War on Drugs (WoD) means I'm a druggie, or endorse drug use.

Look at how the WoD-supporters label it: legalizers &mmdash; this indicates a huge and fundamental deficiency of understanding on the issue. This deficiency is encouraged by the [federal] government precisely because it gives them more power, but let's look into it.

First, let's start with precedence (and I hate precedence because it all too often means the judiciary cherry-picking what they want) — the 18th Amendment was required to allow the federal government the ability to prohibit alcohol; no such amendment exists with respect to drugs.

Second, the WoD is justified as valid congressional regulation (via the interstate commerce-clause) by holding that congress may regulate intrastate commerce because of its impact on interstate commerce (see Wickard v Filburn). This view of congress's regulatory powers was further expanded by holding that congress may in like manner regulate noncommerce (see Gonzalez v Raich) — the first paragraph of Justice Thomas's dissent reads:
     Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has
     had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can
     regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

Third, many of the [federal] agencies tasked with the WoD are aiding the cartels. (See U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels for a NY Times story on it, or any of the Fast & Furious threads.)

Fourth, the WoD has had a directly detrimental effect on 9 of 10 Bill of Rights Amendments. (This alone should make one question the wisdom of the WoD.)

Fifth, given items #1 and #2 the legitimacy of the War on Drugs is seriously compromised — to assert otherwise is to assert that the constitution is whatever the supreme court says it is… in so doing you assert that the USSC is of greater authority that the very constitution that established it, and declare that the sent is greater than that which sends.

Sixth, the War on Drugs is arguably Treason as defined by the Constitution:

• Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
• The interstate commerce clause is the same clause by which foreign commerce is regulated, thus the two are literally the same power:
  To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
• If congress were to assert that it could regulate commerce inside a foreign nation like it does inside the several states such would be considered an act of war.
• To enforce the above would be either to wage that war, or the result of having had victory in that war.
• Thus, the War on Drugs is Treason.

Seventh, given items #3 & #6 — and that the Mexican Cartels are definitionally terrorist groups, the aiding of which is illegal by our own laws and thereby state-sponsored terrorism… which members of our own government have cited as impetus for forced government changes.

So there's seven big points of failure, both moral and legal, in supporting the War on Drugs.