Posted on 09/12/2004 12:38:01 PM PDT by cryptical
SALEM, Ore. -- A measure on Oregon's Nov. 2 ballot to expand the medical use of marijuana is drawing fire from state district attorneys and the White House drug czar, who says it would turn the state into a "safe haven for drug trafficking."
Measure 33 would make it easier for ailing people to obtain marijuana and allow them to possess more of it -- up to a pound at a time. It also requires that indigent patients be given free marijuana.
But White House drug czar John Walters, echoing criticism by Oregon's district attorneys, calls Measure 33 a fraud on Oregon voters and a back door attempt to legalize marijuana.
"People are being played for suckers," Walters said in an interview from Washington, D.C. "Their compassion for sick people is being used to do something that's destructive for the state."
Proponents say, however, that Oregon's current program is too restrictive and that Oregonians already have shown they support allowing ill people to have the drug by overwhelmingly approving the 1998 law.
The chief petitioner for the measure is John Sajo, a longtime marijuana activist who sponsored an unsuccessful 1986 ballot measure to legalize marijuana. But he said that isn't the issue in Measure 33.
"Our opponents don't have any good arguments against medical marijuana, so they call this a legalization measure. That is nonsense," Sajo said.
Measure 33 would represent a significant expansion of Oregon's medical marijuana program, which was approved by the state's voters in November 1998. Oregon is among nine states with medical marijuana laws. The others are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada and Washington state.
Under Oregon's current law, qualified patients are allowed to grow and use small amounts of marijuana without fear of prosecution as long as a doctor says it might help their condition.
The measure on the Nov. 2 ballot would create state-regulated dispensaries authorized to supply up to 6 pounds of marijuana per year to qualified patients, although they could possess only 1 pound at any given time.
The current possession limit is 3 ounces, an amount that advocates say is too low and often leaves patients scrambling to find enough marijuana to ease their suffering.
The initiative also would expand the number of health care professionals who can recommend marijuana for their patients. Right now only physicians and osteopaths can do that; the measure would give licensed naturopaths and nurse practitioners that authority as well.
The Oregon District Attorneys Association opposes Measure 33 mainly because of the provision allowing patients to possess 6 pounds of marijuana a year plus 10 mature plants. That would give patients enough pot to smoke a joint every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, said Benton County District Attorney Scott Heiser.
The Oregon Medical Association, representing more than 7,000 physicians statewide, has paid for a page in the state Voters' Pamphlet to urge Oregonians to vote "no" on Measure 33.
"It is a thinly disguised effort to legalize the use of marijuana without any medically scientific justification," it said.
Also, one is usually shared between two-three people no more than a few times a day and on weekends at that.
Same old tired argument, I see. Everything goes back to prohibition because you don't have a logical defense for legalizing additional carcinogenic drugs.
Prohibition failed because a legal industry that had a long-ingrained heritage in our nation's history became criminalized. As a consequence, everyday citizens outside of the temperance movement thought the Volstead Act was a joke (which it was).
Apart from the "elixirs" of the 19th century (most of which were comprised of alcohol mixed with opium or cocaine), no such history exists with respect to the illicit drugs of today.
But as I said from the start, I think people should be able to fry their brains any way they see fit...so long as they sign away any claims of benefits or special treatment from society and its aid programs.
Your right to be an irresponsible doper ends where my tax bill begins.
Now that I've answered your question, answer mine: Would you prefer to be a passenger in a plane with a pilot who abstains from all mood-altering drugs, or a pilot who smokes dope and shoots cocaine?
Catchy, but not true.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The "people" have the "retained" right to ingest the chemical of their choice, in the quantity of their choice.
And if you do not believe this to be true, well wait until the subject of ingestion changes from chemicals to food.
Just because an irresponsible and stupid public policy law subsidizes with tax dollars abusers of that right does not invalidate the right.
It is the public policy law that is wrong and should be changed. It is the public policy law, not the retained right to ingest, that drains the treasury of tax dollars
Also ask yourself the following question:
If it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol, why does it not take a constitutional amendment to prohibit other ingestible chemicals?
Conservatives have a problem with "conserving" the covenants of the Constitution.
Catchy, but not true.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
And if you do not believe this to be true, well wait until the subject of ingestion changes from chemicals to food.
Reducto ad absurdum. You need food to survive. You don't need mood-altering drugs to survive (unless you're a brain-addled moronic junkie). Since when was getting wasted on another man's dime a "right"? Sorry, it doesn't wash.
Agreed....
I am responsible member of society.. I have a good job which I've had for many years, pay my bills, pay my taxes.
Even though I choose not to, if I wanted to come home from work and smoke a joint that's nobody's damn business but my own.
Keeping drugs illegal is what COSTS all the money, it's not saving any.. it flushing BILLIONS down the toilet with zero gain and so much loss (beyond the money spent.)
What I say is, 'someone's determination to interfere in other people's lives ends where my tax bill begins'... it also ends where my FRONT DOOR begins, as well as my personal person and property.
I don't want my tax dollars going to put pot smokers in jail, I can't think of a more ignorant, thick headed philosphy than doing that. I would disand the DEA in a heartbeat. (I'd lower taxes with some of the money saved and put more into NASA and the space program)
Bones
Correction. that last post was supposed to be To: Prime Choice
My bad.
Bones
You're right. Back in my bad old days (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) I only smoked about 10 or 12 in a day. %-)
I haven't gone near that stuff in a very long time. I still don't think that there is any reason for it to be illegal though.
I was speaking with a LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) representative at last year's hempfest, and he said, "I've never had somebody smoke a joint and then try to beat me up. I wish that I could say the same for alchohol."
If your concerns were based in fact, it might be other than tendentious.
As it is, alchohol does far more damage that all drugs.
Start advocating against alcohol and how it messes up people's lives. That would help more people than railing against pot.
I read a book by a former mob hitman and he said the only thing that would stop the drug trade is legalization. It would put the mob out of business. Why do you think we have so much crime in this country? People are NOT going to stop taking drugs. Give people what they want and you can control it more.
As explained in a previous post, you have the inalienable "right" (Amendment IX) not to be prohibited by your government from ingesting the chemical of your choice, in the quantity of your choice. (You have a headache, you take all the aspirin you wish)
The only reason the exertion of this right becomes a taxpayer question is when the taxpayers foolishly decide through their representatives to provide tax money to those fellow citizens who become "wasted."
Rights cannot be suspended, denied, disparaged, nullified, etc., because of poor public policy choices made by the citizens.
If they could, then the Constitution and its mandate to protect rights would be meaningless.
"You need food to survive. You don't need mood-altering drugs to survive..."
Have you not heard of the "obesity" epidemic?
Fellow citizens are "getting wasted on another man's dime" daily when they eat food.
By your logic, ("Reducto ad absurdum") it is only a matter of time before your government would be able to mandate what food and how much food you can consume.
Is there any evidence that drug criminalization is having any more success than Prohibition had?
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