Posted on 01/05/2015 12:56:37 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
This morning on Meet the Press, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the city will "explore every option" in regards to getting Initiative 71 enforced in the city. Initiative 71, which would have permitted the legal use of marijuana for recreational purposes, was passed with overwhelming support on Election Day, yet was blocked by Congress. Bowser had previously been against legalized marijuana, but has since changed her position to align with the will of the voters of the District of Columbia.
Bowser also said that she intends on "forging a path" for increased autonomy in the District of Columbia.
Mayor Bowser makes good points. Like I've previously said, it makes very little sense that D.C. residents are unable to vote for their own laws without fear of Congress stepping in and undoing everything. If residents of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado can all vote to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, D.C. should be able to as well. It will be interesting to see which route the city chooses to take to ensure that their law is on the books.
Suing the Federal Nanny State PING!
D.C. to be the new homeless mecca.
I find these MJ threads to be most entertaining and revealing, the comments are amusing and often astonishing.
Btw, I think its been about 6 years since the media had its last homeless story, even with this long recession. Gee, I wonder why?
I would imagine that DC with all the federal money it gets and the blurred lines of federal agency employees and DC employees things could get even more troubling. For example if it were against federal law and someone was caught on say a federal park or monument, would they be housed in jail and prosecuted under federal of District courts?
Right now our state is struggling to get state laws and federal laws unscrambled into a workable situation. One point of contention is National Parks and lands within WA State and whose laws are to be enforced on federal lands.
A Constitutional Amendment is the only legal way to achieve "increased autonomy" for D.C. - apart from convincing congress to find a new Seat for the U.S. government.
Gee, I wonder why?
Indeed Denver made a stupid move by making weed legal now it’s a homeless mecca.
“Mayor Muriel Bowser”
She’s a dog!
If DC residents don’t like Congress exercising its constitutional authority over DC, then they can always move to a state of their choice which has legalized marijuana.
Other U.S. cities that Kansas City considers “peer cities” had varying homicide rates in 2014. Denver, which records far fewer overall homicides, had a similar reduction of 23 percent.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article5304384.html
And all the other crime rates are?.
Let's see you adhere with the US Supreme Court ruling in that landmark case you lost 'DC vs. Heller', first.
Hell, let ‘em smoke pot for all I care.
So all those govt workers riding the train to work would now fail their drug tests after inhaling the second hand smoke.
The dope issue isn’t the subject, it’s the fact Congress ignored the will of the people. Such action must not be allowed to stand, or they’ll just ignore us completely.
A new seat for our Federal gov’t would be fine by me
I am tired of the rest of the country sending its unskilled, lack of ability to be employed in anything else to my hometown and paying them 174k a year.
You guys can keep these bums
Congress has the power to legislate for the District “in all cases whatsoever”.
I’m not sure this phony DC “government” is unconstitutional (as long as Congress has the last word), but the notion of voters who reside in the District having any legitimate role in legislation is ridiculous.
“it’s the fact Congress ignored the will of the people”
The term “in all cases whatsoever” had a clear and specific meaning to the authors of the Constitution.
The people (if you mean DC residents) have no role in legislation and their will only has meaning to the extent that Congress agrees.
If they don’t like that, tough. They can move.
Colorado has a very low unemployment rate and most people in the shelters are saying that they're coming for the work.
A shelter that was seeing an average of 75 more homeless people per night than usual, as cited by the Denver Post then, didn’t mean that people were flocking due to the state pot business, Radley Balko opined for the Washington Post at the time.
“[A]ccording to an informal survey, one in four of those 75 say they’re in Denver for reasons related to legal marijuana,” he wrote. “That’s about 19 people. At one shelter, 19 people self-reported that pot was a contributing factor to their homelessness. That hardly seems newsworthy, much less anything resembling a crisis.”
You now another state that's having a terrible problem with homelessness? North Dakota. (No legal pot there)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/11/us-homelessfinal-north-dakota-idUSBREA1A1OT20140211
It's the unemployment rate that's drawing people in. The housing shortages are preventing these workers from finding a place to live.
One of the cases profiled in a 'Colorado is attracting homeless people so they can get stoned' articles, focused on a man with terminal cancer. He had a job, but it wasn't enough to afford the fantastically overpriced apartments. He was on medical MJ and he was terminal.
A dying man who has a full-time job. Hardly the 'stoner' stereotype that people love to hate.
Whenever there's a 'boom' economy, it's the same story. People flock to where the money is. Local prices rise way out of proportion to the rest of the nation. Colorado's economy is doing better and they're attracting workers and the medical marijuana patients. Yes. I'm sure that legal pot has something to do with it, but a LOT of it is that legal pot is contributing to the economy. Many dispensaries have gone from 4 to more than 30 workers. That's a big jump.
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