Interestingly, a larger proportion of Republicans than Democrats supported legalizing the medical use of marijuana when voting in Alaska, California, Colorado, and Nevada.
Legalization is a CONSERVATIVE issue, folks. The national Republican Party needs to wake up and realize it.
The entire marijuana legalization argument in a nutshell.
Hey, drug warriors, this is the National Review talking here. Not some hippy-dippy special interest group. Come on in and tell us how this guy just wants pot to be legal so he can smoke it. Tell us how marijuana is so evil and pernicious that we need to shred the Bill or Rights to keep it out of people's hands, when any objective observer can see that it's no worse than alcohol or tobacco.
Tell us why one of the most prominent conservative publications in the world believes that keeping marijuana illegal is stupid, pointless, damaging, and wasteful, but nevertheless is wrong while you and your jack-booted DEA thugs are right. I'm waiting to hear it.
Considering recent developments in the MEdicare Bill, CFR, and spending, why are you under the impression that the national GOP is interested in conservative issues?
WRONG! The U.S. Supreme Court recently let stand a lower court ruling barring Uncle Sam from punishing doctors who prescribe recommend medical marijuana.
Marijuana cannot be prescribed.
If the above is referencing the 1990 Doblin-Kleiman survey, the correct figure is 48%, not 70%.
The survey is so flawed as to be laughable. It was only mailed to some members of ASCO and less than half even responded.
Also, the survey was sponsored by the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics (ACT), a pro-marijuana advocacy group. Moreover, Mr. Doblin (who's taken so many LSD trips he has a passport), the senior author, is the president and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), whose main purpose is to help researchers secure federal approval and funding of studies of psychedelic drugs.
Hardly a fair comparison. An overdose of aspirin can severely injure or kill you. No such danger exists with Cannabis useage.
If the Federal government can tell a man and his physician what they can and can't use for pain medication what part of your life will they not have the power to control?
Sounds like the same sort of "rules are more important than people" decision Sargeant Puppy Killer is so reviled for; wouldn't you say so, Pets?
The use of Cannabis is federally banned to all people for all uses yet doctors can prescribe opiates and other incredibly powerful and highly addictive drugs to be taken home from the pharmacy and self-dosed by the patient.
If we were talking about government restriction of firearms ownership this would be equivalent to a complete ban on BB guns (no production or research allowed, not even the police or military could possess them) while at the same time your psychologist could sign a permit for you to check an RPG out of the town armory because it would help reduce your anxiety about alien abduction.
But the Bush administration has taken an entirely different stance.
An otherwise superb article; this is probably an unfair indictment of the President's administration. Pres. Bush stated that this was a State's matter and so far that contention has proved true. Those cases the States have brought forward have been upheld in the State's favor by the courts.
This criticism has been laid at his door using an alleged hypocrisy as the vehicle to carry it. To wit; the Bush administration Justice Dept. has challenged those court decisions yet candidate George Bush criticized the Clinton administration for the same thing. But it isn't the same thing.
As Pres. and Commander in Chief Mr. Bush has a duty to advocate for the enforcement of Federal law. The President is not supposed to pass judgment on the law itself. His opportunity to do that is when bills cross his desk.
He is supposed to represent the people, through the law, as the Executive Officer. As long as a law is on the books it is appropriate for everyone in the Executive to presume it is the will of the people. The President's opportunity to alter that presumption is to write, promote and garner support for a bill of his own. It also exists in his opportunity to appoint justices.
It is entirely appropriate (and in fact a responsibility and duty) for agents of the Executive Branch to submit a counter argument in court to any challenge of a current law. The Bush administratin has done this and the courts, so far, have sided with the States thus fulfilling the due process of Constitutional law and thus validating candidate Bush's assertion that it is a State matter.
(As a candidate he wisely never said "it's not a President's job to strike down laws; there's nothin' I could do about it. I plan to execute the powers of office as if it were my job to." But I could hear him say something like that nonetheless.)
But what of his criticism of the Clinton administration? That criticism was not about Clinton's Executive office seeking to uphold and defend Federal law as a legal advocate. It was about efforts to sabotage, by intimidation and political string pulling, the lawful rights of States to form their own laws and have them stand or fall through due process in the courts. It was the usual quasi-legal, corrupt and backhanded approach to wielding power that characterises nearly everything Bubba and HildeBeast do. In this case it fit the Wretched Duo well since it also characterises the history of the WoSD's which has been conducted by agencies who have had little respect for the administration of the day.