Posted on 02/25/2005 10:22:10 AM PST by nyg4168
"States' rights" has always been anathema to liberals--a code word for the Southern racism that embraced slavery, and later segregation. Nowadays, however, in an era when Red America controls the federal government and pushes things like a national ban on gay marriage, progressives are embracing states' rights: the founding fathers' idea of Federalism, in which states cede a few key powers to D.C. while maintaining robust sovereignty themselves.
So, what's the latest group to make the case that states' rights should determine policy? Try the flaming liberals at the King County Bar Association (KCBA), who on March 3 will release a radical proposal urging Olympia to reform local drug laws. And by "reform," the KCBA means make certain drugs legal so they can be yanked off the street (a hotbed of violent crime and addiction) and placed in a tightly regulated state market. Regulation could allow for things like safe injection sites, be used to wean addicts off drugs, and sap a black market that gives kids access to drugs.
The mammoth proposal (www.kcba.org/druglaw/proposal.html)--which includes extensive academic research on the history of drug laws, conspiratorial details about the successful efforts of corporations like DuPont and Hearst to squelch hemp production in the 1930s, and dispiriting facts about the failed drug war--is anchored by a 16-page treatise titled "States' Rights: Toward a Federalist Drug Policy."
This states' rights manifesto is the KCBA's rejoinder to the inevitable question: How can Washington State get away with regulating (i.e., legalizing) drugs, like heroin and pot, that the federal government has outlawed under the Controlled Substances Act? It's also a direct challenge to the feds.
"[If our proposals are adopted] we would expect that the U.S. government would seek an injunction in federal court," Roger Goodman, director of the Drug Policy Project of the KCBA, says enthusiastically. Goodman's idea is to force a legal standoff that, he hopes, will eventually set the precedent for states to buck the feds' misguided "war on drugs" by giving states control over the production and distribution of drugs like pot.
The Constitution grants the federal government the right to regulate commerce, which is the cornerstone of the Controlled Substances Act. The KCBA report, which Goodman put together, outlines a couple of states' rights arguments that could be used to trump that authority. The report points out accurately that states have exclusive rights to protect the health, welfare, and safety of their citizens, which includes regulating the practice of medicine. "Recent case law has limited federal authority to meddle in the states' regulation of medical practice," the report says, "particularly limiting the use of the federal Controlled Substances Act to override a state's decisions." This is a reference to a 2002 decision in Oregon v. Ashcroft when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stopped the feds from using drug law to upend Oregon's Death with Dignity Act where drugs are used in assisted suicide.
The KCBA also argues that when a state becomes a "market participant" by running drug-distribution outlets, the activity would be beyond the scope of federal commerce power. "[C]annabis availability for adults through exclusive state-owned outlets, for instance, would render Washington immune to federal intervention…" the KCBA's states' rights manifesto argues.
Obviously, these legal arguments are just that: arguments. The KCBA readily admits as much. "Whether Washington could now promulgate its own regulatory system… of substances that are currently prohibited under federal law is a critical open question," the report allows. However, raising that question is an important first step in itself. According to Goodman: "That's always part of the reform process."
I see marijuana as damaging as alcohol. What are you views?
Do you support prohobition of Alcohol? It has been proven to cause addiction, disease and acts of violence.
It would be interesting to have state LEO's arresting Federal LEO's for attempting to arrest the state's citizens, wouldn't it?
How would you substantiate that we are "winning the war on drugs"? And, with the recent Supreme Court decision on drug sniffing dogs, we are being told that if you have something that is illegal, regardless of what it might be, you have no right to have "it", therefore no rights whatsoever?
Cannabis Becoming A 'Minor' Offense In EU, Study Says
February 17, 2005
Lisbon, Portugal: A growing number of European nations are amending their laws to treat the possession of small quantities of cannabis and other drugs as "minor" offenses punishable by non-criminal sanctions, according to a report released this week by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon.
"In the EU Member States, notwithstanding different positions and attitudes, we can see a trend to conceive the illicit use of drugs as a relatively 'minor' offense, to which it is not adequate to apply 'sanctions involving deprivation of liberty,'" the report concludes.
Among EU nations, the Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, and Spain have laws forbidding the incarceration of defendants found to be in the possession of small amounts of cannabis or other drugs, absent aggravating circumstances. Several other countries - including Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - have enacted similar policies specific to cannabis possession.
"Isn't that what a war is all about? The winner kills or captures more than the other side and wins."
Looks like the drugs are winning then.
Is that a proper use of our tax-funded jails: keeping adults from self-harming "crimes"?
People who circulated dissident literature in the Soviet Union were criminals.
Legalizing it won't make them legal.
People are not legal or illegal; actions are.
You do nothing for the police by making drugs legal other than increasing the level of violence they face.
No, by taking inflated profits out of criminal hands you decrease the level of violence they face.
Legalize drugs and you will have health care costs shoot through the roof as hospitals have to cope with drug related visits.
Government should stop paying those costs.
Finally, there is the misery associated with drugs. It eats people alive. Look at alcohol, it is legal and look at the misery it causes.
But we learned that the cure of criminalization is worse than the disease.
Perhaps other states should have a say, as they did when passing the 21st amendment, taking the power to regulate alcohol from the federal government and returning it solely to the states?
The states could do the same for segregation, too, barring blacks from certain schools, business, neighborhoods, etc.
But one wonders, in both cases, how long the federal government would allow such practices to continue.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, similar in wording to the 21st, would be the best, and fairest, approach to turning the regulation of drugs over to the states.
Cocaine consumption is way down. Like half.
Need a cite? You know I got one.
Well, not quite alone. Our current policy is perfectly in line with those shining bastions of freedom and good government, Sweden and the UN.
All right! Welcome to our side!
I would be interest in seeing one.
Exactly.
Why should my federal tax dollars flow to the State of Washington to pay for a unilateral decision they made?
Drug use in England changes a lot. Marijuana is always popular but among hard drugs consumption changes. Putting aside the heroin addicts and crack heads you have the social users who make up a great deal of "swing" demand.
At the turn of the Millenium Ecstacy was the most popular weekend drug, this gradually began to lose useres to Ketamine and similar drugs before cocaine use rocketed.
Why, so that Congress can use your money to "regulate commerce among the several states", of course. Buy the premise, buy the bit.
Look at the chart at the botton under "Cocaine". Consumption has fallen about 60%.
Interesting. Thank you for the link.
OMG!!!!!! You can't b serious! So you wanna just line us up against the wall & have us shot, huh? For simply SMOKING A JOINT??? C'mon!
I've met brainless half-wits before, but this takes the cake...how dare you have such a Gestapo-like attitude towards those of us who are no threat to you? Where will it stop, once this idiotic idea of yours is carried out?
Look, buddy...it's time you get your head out & realize that your unconstitutional federal Drug War is LOST. There's NOTHING you can do to stem the tide of the re-legalization movement. We're not going to stop, the American people are slowly beginning to understand what an expensive joke the Drug War really is, & your efforts are futile. GIVE UP!
This [marijuana] bud's for you! :-)==
This is the 3rd time I've asked you: what are you going to do once marijuana is made legal again? What country will you move to once you know that responsible potheads like me are not gonna face imprisonment: Saudi Arabia? Malaysia?
Quit hiding under your desk...it's a very simple question to answer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.