Posted on 01/01/2006 4:26:38 PM PST by JTN
Assuming this is true, so what?
Yeah! Dope is more important than society!!!
Hemingway's Ghost:
"In a federal system such as ours, the power to do just that is given to the states, is it not?"
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Paulsen misinforms:
Yes. The states have always retained the power to prohibit under their police powers. But given that the federal government has chosen to regulate the interstate commerce of these substances, they also have the power to prohibit.
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THE EVOLVING POLICE POWER: SOME OBSERVATIONS FOR A NEW CENTURY
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1549905/posts
---- What is the Proper Scope of the Police Power? ----
The principle established by these cases is straightforward. State legislatures and local governments have a police power to enact laws for the benefit of public safety, health, welfare, and even morality.
But those laws are subject to judicial review as to whether the legislation is reasonably related to those purposes. And the purposes, while broad, are not infinite.
Even absent specific prohibitions (e.g., free speech), the legislature is without power to regulate entirely private conduct that poses no risk of harm to others.
Majoritarian disapproval of the private conduct (Robert Bork's "moral anguish") is not a cognizable form of "harm" for the purposes of this analysis.
More ice over here, please!
Yeah! Dope is more important than society!!!
Nope, our rule of Constitutional law is more important than a dopes support of societies 'war'.
Assuming this is true, then people are NOT smoking pot in the privacy of their own home. Saying they are (as in post #43) would be disingenuous, at best.
That in order for the Gateway Theory to be legitimate, the majority of those who smoke marijuana must graduate on to using harder drugs, like cocaine? I'm not making that up at all. Since the Gateway Theory is the primary reason marijuana remains criminalized, it must be accurate in order to make this criminalization legitimate.
After all, the Gateway Theory explains marijuana's great threat to society, does it not? Isn't that why it remains a Schedule 1 drug?
What else could be the logic for criminalizing the use or sale a substance less harmful to humans than the perfectly legal drug alcohol, or the perfectly legal product tobacco?
Perhaps, but I don't know that it substantially changes anything. If people are outside their homes smoking marijuana and hurting no one else, then what is the real difference?
Does this babble have a point?
Well, now I know you're making this up as you go along. First, it was "most" must go on to using harder drugs. Now it's only "a majority".
"Since the Gateway Theory is the primary reason marijuana remains criminalized ..."
Where do you get this stuff? I've never read that. I'll need a cite on that one, please.
"Isn't that why it remains a Schedule 1 drug?"
No. The reasons are given in the Controlled Substances Act.
I was simply pointing out that people are NOT smoking pot in their homes.
Doper babble only has one "point". Dope.
Says who?
I'm not making that up at all.
OK. Source please.
Most, majority, whatever you prefer.
Do you claim if only one person "graduates" from pot to coke, pot is therefore a gateway drug?
No. The reasons are given in the Controlled Substances Act.
So then marijuana:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
Mysteriously, the term "abuse" is not contained in CSA's Section 802. Definitions. "Potential for abuse" is talked about frequently, but "abuse" itself is never specifically defined in the section containing every other definition. What, then, is abuse? Does use alone constitute abuse? If not, at what point does use become abuse? Can it be identified, and measured?
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
Eleven states say otherwise. Or is it twelve, now, including Rhode Island?
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Not one person in recorded history has died directly from an overdose of marijuana, and marijuana's so unsafe it should be considered a peer to the most dangerous addictive artificial drugs known to mankind? Please.C'mon, Robert. Do you really believe marijuana is in the same league as LSD?
Common sense.
To prove the use of A leads to the use of B, would one not study carefully the use of A, and note how often users of A use B? And if after studying this, controlling for external factors which lead to the use of B, one discovers less than half of those who use A eventually use B, could a reasonable man then conclude the use of A directly leads to the use of B? Of course not.
Let's get a grip, shall we?
Translation: Strawman.
Translation: Roscoe's running out of things to post.
You attack a theory that you can't quote or provide a source for. Classic strawman.
What, exactly, do you need to know about the Gateway Theory? Haven't we covered this ground before? This isn't your first Free Republic War on Drugs thread, Roscoe. Just the same, here are some Gateway Theory links for you:
Gateway Theory, Wikipedia.
(If a third variable or set of variables is causing the correlation, then current policy based on the simple correlation would be inappropriate.)
Gateway Theory, Drug War Facts.
(In March 1999, the Institute of Medicine issued a report on various aspects of marijuana, including the so-called, Gateway Theory (the theory that using marijuana leads people to use harder drugs like cocaine and heroin). The IOM stated, "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.")
Cannabis and the Gateway Hypothesis, Drugscope.
(The vast majority of cannabis users never progress to more harmful drugs. The Gateway Hypothesis takes as its starting point the user's environment and behaviour rather than any properties of the drug itself. )
"...so called, Gateway Theory..."?
C'mon, QUOTE the theory, CITE the source.
Do you mean to make this a Google Using match? I gave you three links. Your browser broken?
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