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A good election night for marijuana legalization
The Volokh Conspiracy ^ | November 5, 2014 | Ilya Somin

Posted on 11/05/2014 9:11:15 AM PST by right-wing agnostic

The 2014 election was a successful one for marijuana legalization. Referendum initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana passed in Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia. Florida’s legalization amendment (which was limited to medical marijuana) failed, but only because victory required a 60% supermajority (it got just over 57% percent). A medical marijuana initiative did pass in the Pacific island territory of Guam.

Coming on the heels of the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington in 2012, this is a further sign of pro-legalization momentum, and perhaps of dissatisfaction with the War on Drugs more generally – even among some conservatives.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: 2014elections; cannabis; conservingdependency; marijuana; marijuanalegaltion; pot; wod
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To: ConservingFreedom
Alcohol and marijuana

Here we go again. Comparing the several thousand year old societal history and acceptance of Alcohol with the very short American history of Marijuana abuse.

Once again, your argument devolves down to: "Waaaaaaaaahhh!!!! They get Alcohol!!!! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!


41 posted on 11/05/2014 12:11:27 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: ConservingFreedom
Your Burke quotation establishes that marijuana legalization 'isn't "liberty"' only under the baseless assumption that all marijuana use is "intemperate."

The bulk of it certainly is, else you wouldn't need Mexican drug gangs sneaking it over the border for you.

42 posted on 11/05/2014 12:13:32 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: gdani
It's a shame more so-called "small government" conservatives fail to realize or simply do not care what the War On Drugs has done to the Fourth Amendment and prison budgets.

We care very much, but the abuses of our rights are a separate question from the need to keep drugs from doing to our nation what they did to China.

The Drug laws are being used as an excuse to enlarge government power, but so is air pollution, education, "gay" rights, Global warming, and so on.

EVERYTHING is being used to expand and increase government power, and by focusing on the single example of the drug war, you are missing the bigger picture and the threat that it comprises.

43 posted on 11/05/2014 12:17:20 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: gdani
It's evidence liberals and those conservatives really do not differ - they both want and welcome Government into their lives, just for slightly different reasons.

Rational people recognize that there is a specific quantity of government which is necessary to guarantee societal freedom. We must have a common defense. We must have common justice. Government is the only manner in which this may be accomplished.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The conservative recognizes that we need some government, unlike the Liberal socialist who thinks we need total government, or the Libertarian kooks who think we need none at all.

44 posted on 11/05/2014 12:23:37 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
We care very much, but the abuses of our rights are a separate question from the need to keep drugs from doing to our nation what they did to China.

No, it's not a separate question at all. The two are inevitably intertwined.

And your beef with China is opium. Marijuana is not opium.

EVERYTHING is being used to expand and increase government power, and by focusing on the single example of the drug war, you are missing the bigger picture and the threat that it comprises.

No, I'm concerned about the rest, too. But this thread is about marijuana legalization.

45 posted on 11/05/2014 12:25:02 PM PST by gdani (Ebola has exposed the U.S. as fearful, easy-to-manipulate weaklings)
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To: DiogenesLamp
now you are trying to manipulate quotes to make it look as though I was responding to him?

No. The 'that' in your 'that is the "let's destroy society because we only have our own short little lifetime of experience to call on" Libertarian position' was HIS text ... as I indicated but you buffoonishly misunderstood (or perhaps are deliberately misrepresenting).

There is nothing conservative about introducing a poison into society.

That introduction was made decades ago.

New people are introduced to these dangerous substances every day of the week.

That's not "introducing into society" - squirming away from your previous silly characterization, eh?

it is people like you who are seriously wrecking people's lives because you insist on making it easier for more people to make contact with this crap.

I insist on treating my fellow citizens like adults; it is people like you who are seriously wrecking people's lives because you insist on enriching criminals and removing marijuana from effective regulation (such as age limits).

46 posted on 11/05/2014 12:26:43 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Yes and as the morons killed themselves off, it would be a self correcting problem.

Giving adult humans addictive drugs is little different from giving loaded guns to children. Neither understands or appreciates the horrible injury such a thing is capable of rendering upon them.

It is a reprehensible idea that we should let innocent victims destroy their lives because we chose not to put up warnings and barriers to this pit.

47 posted on 11/05/2014 12:27:59 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: mbarker12474
In the case of drugs and alcohol and gambling, many Party A’s do indeed infringe on the freedoms and liberties of many Party B’s: their spouses, children, neighbors, communities by their use and abuse of intoxicants.

How does Party A's use or even abuse of intoxicants infringe on the freedoms and liberties of their neighbors or communities? (Spouses and children is a valid point - for those users who have them and who use to the point of neglecting their obligations.)

48 posted on 11/05/2014 12:29:56 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
It is a reprehensible idea that we should let innocent victims destroy their lives because we chose not to put up warnings

Illegal pot bears no warnings - legal tobacco does.

49 posted on 11/05/2014 12:31:41 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
PS So you would rather spend billions of dollars every year and take the rights away from the majority to punish a minority?

False choice fallacy. No, I would rather *NOT* spend billions of dollars every year on the war on drugs, but bad and stupid people make it necessary. As for taking away the rights of the majority, I say again that is occurring on all fronts of government, and is not the sole province of the necessary effort to stop poison from killing people.

I will point out that Singapore has far less drug use, at a far less cost. They solve the problem by killing the drug dealers. Our problem is this. Though we keep calling it a "War", we never fight it like it's an actual war.

If the drug production facilities in Columbia and Afghanistan were reduced to smoking piles of ashes, then we could be making the argument that we are fighting it as a "war."

50 posted on 11/05/2014 12:32:43 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
So marijuana legalization will lead to widespread opium use? Why should we believe that, since that was not the outcome of legalizing the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol?
51 posted on 11/05/2014 12:33:36 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: tacticalogic
Do you really think the State governments were incapable of it?

Banning Cocaine? How is this going to work if the adjacent state doesn't? I point out to you how this same idea is working in New York as regarding their cigarette taxes.

It isn't.

Beyond that, it ignores the fact that much if not most drug production involves foreign nations, which is the sole domain of the Federal government.

52 posted on 11/05/2014 12:34:55 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Rational people recognize that there is a specific quantity of government which is necessary to guarantee societal freedom. We must have a common defense. We must have common justice. Government is the only manner in which this may be accomplished.

With regard to the War on Drugs, your "specific quantity of government" has resulted in:

* Asset forfeiture with no finding of guilt
* The PATRIOT ACT being used far more for drugs than anything terrorism-related
* A prison system that incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on the planet
* Drug/narcotics checkpoints

And, of course, no knock raids, police corruption, increased organized crime and a whole host of other things courtesy of a "specific quantity of government".

Meanwhile, illegal drugs are every bit as available and cheap as they have always been since the farcical War On Drugs was announced.

When will clear-thinking people admit this has been a 100% failure?

53 posted on 11/05/2014 12:36:20 PM PST by gdani (Ebola has exposed the U.S. as fearful, easy-to-manipulate weaklings)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Alcohol and marijuana are not heroin. (underlined text omitted from DL's reply)

Comparing the several thousand year old societal history and acceptance of Alcohol with the very short American history of Marijuana abuse.

Obviously not, just noting that neither one is heroin. Manipulating quotes - pretty low class tactic, that.

54 posted on 11/05/2014 12:38:10 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: gdani
And your beef with China is opium. Marijuana is not opium.

It's the difference between strychnine and arsenic. One just kills you more slowly is all.

Apart from that, the philosophical underpinnings of marijuana legalization are open ended. As with "Gay" Marriage, if you accept those principles, you will have no defense against more offensive things which will be coming later. (Polygamy, Incest, and lowering age of consent, or in the case of drugs, Crack, Meth, and Heroine.)

Marijuana is just the key to unlocking this door.

55 posted on 11/05/2014 12:40:45 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Your Burke quotation establishes that marijuana legalization 'isn't "liberty"' only under the baseless assumption that all marijuana use is "intemperate."

The bulk of it certainly is, else you wouldn't need Mexican drug gangs sneaking it over the border for you.

All use of illegally obtained substances is intrinsically "intemperate"? Including a guy smoking a smuggled Cuban cigar?

I guess once marijuana is legal and not smuggled, its use will no longer be intemperate - sounds like an argument for legalization to me.

56 posted on 11/05/2014 12:41:17 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Your Burke quotation establishes that marijuana legalization 'isn't "liberty"' only under the baseless assumption that all marijuana use is "intemperate."

The bulk of it certainly is, else you wouldn't need Mexican drug gangs sneaking it over the border for you.

All use of illegally obtained substances is intrinsically "intemperate"? Including a guy smoking a smuggled Cuban cigar?

I guess once marijuana is legal and not smuggled, its use will no longer be intemperate - sounds like an argument for legalization to me.

57 posted on 11/05/2014 12:41:17 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
stop poison from killing people.

Nobody ever died from the proximate cause of smoking too much pot (unlike the toxic legal drug alcohol).

58 posted on 11/05/2014 12:44:13 PM PST by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: ConservingFreedom
I insist on treating my fellow citizens like adults; it is people like you who are seriously wrecking people's lives because you insist on enriching criminals and removing marijuana from effective regulation (such as age limits).

Drug Usage in the US is about 2% currently. By 1900 in China, in the province of Manchuria, it was about 50% of the population.

Even accepting your seriously deluded argument as fact, you are bitching about ruining the lives of 2% of the population in favor of a policy which will ruin the lives of 50% of the population.

Do you not understand simple math? 2%<50%, and by a factor of 25.

So on what planet is 25 times the damage an improvement? (Not to mention the 100 Million people murdered as a result of the COLLAPSE of Chinese Society.)

59 posted on 11/05/2014 12:46:32 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
>>> And your beef with China is opium. Marijuana is not opium. It's the difference between strychnine and arsenic. One just kills you more slowly is all.

It is these types of Reefer Madness-type statements that cause pro WOD/Big Government folks such as yourself to lose credibility and not be taken seriously.

There's a legitimate debate to be had. But not when one side breathlessly exclaims that marijuana kills people.

When you do that, tens of millions of Americans who have managed to use marijuana without killing their spouses, gunning down their children or drive into crowded shopping malls tune you out.

60 posted on 11/05/2014 12:46:52 PM PST by gdani (Ebola has exposed the U.S. as fearful, easy-to-manipulate weaklings)
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