Posted on 01/30/2003 6:38:26 AM PST by MrLeRoy
America's war on drugs is costly, ignorant and doesn't work, a federal judge said Tuesday.
Denver U.S. District Judge John Kane Jr., who has been speaking and writing against the nation's drug policy for about five years, won a standing ovation from a packed City Club luncheon at the Brown Palace Hotel.
"I don't favor drugs at all," Kane said.
"What I really am opposed to is the fact that our present policies encourage children to take drugs."
Ending the present policy of interdiction, police action and imprisonment would eliminate the economic incentives for drug dealers to provide drugs to minors, Kane said.
He said the government has no real data and no scientific basis for its approach to illegal drug use.
Since the policy began in the early 1970s, drugs have become easier to obtain and drug use has only increased, he said.
Last summer, Kane said, a friend in his 60s was being treated for cancer. The man joked to his family that he wished he knew where to get marijuana to help him bear the effects of chemotherapy.
The next day, the man's 11-year-old grandson brought him three marijuana cigarettes, Kane said.
"Don't worry, Grandpa - I don't use it myself, but if you need any more just let me know," the judge quoted the boy as saying.
Although officials vow zero tolerance for drugs, even children know that's not reality, Kane said.
"Our national drug policy is inconsistent with the nature of justice, abusive of the nature of authority, and wholly ignorant of the compelling force of forgiveness," he said. "I suggest that federal drug laws be severely cut back."
The federal government should focus on keeping illegal drugs out of the country and regulating the manufacture of drugs transported across state lines.
Each state should decide how to regulate sales and what should be legal or illegal, he said, and the emphasis for government spending should be on treatment.
All flowery rhetoric, hiding behind the skirt of the 10th amendment when the true cause of the marijuana lobby is to make pot legal nationwide. Some of pot's biggest boosters on FR stated to me that they "use" medical marijuana as a cover for the cause, basically calling medical patinets, "useful idiots".
You may see a 10th amendment issue, I see stopping the spread of the drug culture in which marijuana use is a big component. You may say you are winning but look at last years election results and the pro-drug lobby lost big time. I know you don't like those facts, but they are the facts.
You can write all the pompous "holier than thou" rhetoric you want but the fight against drug abuse and validation is a here and now issue and considering last year's drubbing the pro-por intitatives took last year, looks like you lost.
Huh if reason means accepting a tenet of the modern American left, drug validation, then you can count me out.
Kane eschews being labeled a liberal or conservative, seeing the core issue as a struggle between the rights of the invididual versus the state. "Nine times out of 10, I'll come down on the side of the individual," he said. "That makes me a libertarian, with a lower-case 'L."'
No wonder Dane hates his guts.
Huh I guess Scalia isn't on Kane's side when it comes to medical marijuana and drug validation.
There was that 2000 decision where the Supreme Court voted 8-0 against a California "medical marijuana" club.
I care about nationwide legal marijuana about as much as I care about dry counties in Utah---very little. Dane, do you support states' 10th Amendment rights to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference or preemption?
And Kane according to his rhetoric would probably throw out any partial birth abortion ban that crossed his desk.
Please demonstrate where the marijuana lobby such as NARAL, let alone individuals acting on their own accord and conscience, have lobbied for national legislation mandating that states cannot prohibit the use or cultivation of marijuana. Heck, seven decades after the repeal of Prohibition, there are still myriad dry counties scattered about the Repubic. So your straw man is weak even by the limited architectural standards of that craft, and your claims of a grand marijuana conspiracy carry about as much validity as the claims of Arabs and DUers that Bush knew about 9-11 - and for the exact same reason - a complete lack of proof.
All flowery rhetoric, hiding behind the skirt of the 10th amendment when the true cause of the marijuana lobby is to make pot legal nationwide
Dane, Dane, Dane. The 10th Amendment is coming back to life, and it means a lot of sacred cows are going to have to work for a living instead. If your arguments are so pervasive, they will work fine on the state level (as it appears they have with some states). That's the way it should be under the 10th. But you can't have it both ways if a state defies the feds (although, like the hypocrite you are, you will want it that way).
Better sane than Dane...
The WOD is NewDeal/Great Society liberalism.
It is based on an expansive view of the General Welfare Clause and Commerce Clause, which is is the same basis for Federal control of education, health care, the environment, welfare, and health care.
Supporters of the WOD are of the same constitutional philosophy as Algore's living, breathing Constitution.
Please demonstrate, Dane. Please research his comments and rulings and show where he has indicated such. Oh, that's right, you're DANE - you don't need to, your opinion is sufficient.
Better sane than Dane...
Exactly. But somehow our position is the liberal one.
Better sane than Dane...
Uh no, if someone is going to state publicly that,
Kane eschews being labeled a liberal or conservative, seeing the core issue as a struggle between the rights of the invididual versus the state. "Nine times out of 10, I'll come down on the side of the individual," he said. "That makes me a libertarian, with a lower-case 'L."'
That a core "principle" of his would be to protect a woman from the state, "on her right to choose".
Hardly. Little "l" libertarian Ron Paul has written a compelling anti-abortion argument based upon the same starting philosophy, because in his view the fetus is also an individual and therefore deserving of protection under the law. So you need to do better than that, Dane-boy. I did some research, now you need to do the same, or just admit that you pull all your material from a place normally visited only by doctors with flashlights.
Better sane than Dane...
Are the 60's a lost decade to you all? That was the decade when the drug validation cause was taken up by such rabid leftists as Abbie Hoffman and others of such politcal persuasion.
Wow it must be so convienent for you all to lose all recollection of a decade that contradicts your world.
Interesting that you have to reach all the way back to the 1960s to make your point, whereas I can name all kinds of modern-day conservatives from all ranges of the conservative spectrum. And, once again, please show where I have tried to advocate or validate drug use, Dane. Hint: I haven't, but that doesn't stop you from lying about my positions and motivations.
Better sane than Dane...
He'd have to read the Bible first, that involves research, and he doesn't want to set the precedent of backing up his opinions with facts.
Show where Judge Kane said anything remotely like "drugs are benign"; that appears to be merely your baldfaced lie.
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