Posted on 10/23/2006 5:03:34 PM PDT by JTN
Nevada is known for gambling, 24-hour liquor sales and legal prostitution. Yet the main group opposing Question 7, an initiative on the state's ballot next month that would allow the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 or older, is called the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable.
In Colorado, opponents of Amendment 44, which would eliminate penalties for adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, are equally certain of their own rectitude. "Those who want to legalize drugs weaken our collective struggle against this scourge," declares the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "Like a cancer, proponents for legalization eat away at society's resolve and moral fiber."
To sum up, smoking pot is less respectable than a drunken gambling spree followed by a visit to a hooker, while people who think adults shouldn't be punished for their choice of recreational intoxicants are like a tumor that will kill you unless it's eradicated. In the face of such self-righteous posturing, the marijuana initiatives' backers have refused to cede the moral high ground, a strategy from which other activists can learn.
The Nevada campaign, which calls itself the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, emphasizes the advantages of removing marijuana from the black market, where regulation and control are impossible, and allowing adults to obtain the drug from licensed, accountable merchants. To signal that a legal market does not mean anything goes, the initiative increases penalties for injuring people while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The "regulate and control" message has attracted public support from more than 30 Nevada religious leaders. The list includes not just the usual suspects -- Unitarian Universalist ministers and Reform rabbis -- but also representatives of more conservative groups, such as Lutherans and Southern Baptists.
"I don't think using marijuana is a wise choice for anyone," says the Rev. William C. Webb, senior pastor of Reno's Second Baptist Church. "Drugs ruin enough lives. But we don't need our laws ruining more lives. If there has to be a market for marijuana, I'd rather it be regulated with sensible safeguards than run by violent gangs and dangerous drug dealers."
Troy Dayton of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, who was largely responsible for persuading Webb and the other religious leaders to back Question 7, notes that support from members of the clergy, which was important in repealing alcohol prohibition, "forces a reframing of the issue." It's no longer a contest between potheads and puritans.
The Colorado campaign, which goes by the name SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation), emphasizes that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and asks, "Should adults be punished for making the rational choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol?" This approach puts prohibitionists on the defensive by asking them to justify the disparate legal treatment of the two drugs.
So far they have not been up to the task. Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger has implicitly conceded marijuana itself is not so bad by implausibly linking it to methamphetamine. In a televised debate with SAFER's Mason Tvert, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers insisted "the only acceptable alternative to intoxication is sobriety."
That's fine for those who avoid all psychoactive substances as a matter of principle. But since most people -- including Suthers, who acknowledges drinking -- like using chemicals to alter their moods and minds, it's reasonable to ask for some consistency in the law's treatment of those chemicals, especially at a time when police are arresting a record number of Americans (nearly 787,000 last year) for marijuana offenses.
Despite a hard push by federal, state and local drug warriors who have been telling voters in Nevada and Colorado that failing to punish adults for smoking pot will "send the wrong message" to children, the latest polls indicate most are unpersuaded. Perhaps they worry about the message sent by the current policy of mindless intolerance.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.
How exactly can ignorance (a void) be twisted? Or did that just sound good to you?
You haven't even a clue what it meant for Christ to be the annointed. You are simply an ignorant puritan zealot seeking dominion over others when you haven't even achieved true self awareness, sought peace and become one of the children of God, a peacemaker.
Again thank you for your continuing posts. Had I just created a fictional example like you, everyone would have dismissed it as silly make believe.
If there's a pot flavored Kool-Aid, you've cornered the market on it.
You still haven't figured out that I'm arguing process. Perhaps you could pull yourself out of your desire for a religious state run by you, to think about the secular government issues of the almost 300 million people that don't belong to your cult.
K E E P P O S T I N G I T ' S G O O D F O R Y O U
Koestler was correct, as was Hoffer, as was Orwell, as was Solzhenitsyn.
Are any of these authors accessible to the lefty elites who think they know how to run the world better?
Orwell might as well have stayed in bed as write Animal Farm and 1984 for the benefit of his socialist pals - the very ones who betrayed him.
The tragedy of contemporary American politics is that public-schooled Americans are oblivious to the socialist nature of so much American law and public institutions. None of this legislation had to be translated from some original German or Russian or French - Americans are fully capable of imagining their own distinctive brand of socialism.
Whatever its provenance, the socialist impulse is simultaneously murderous and suicidal.
More Kool-Aid equals more answers. Keep posting please.
And if the 'majority' can be convinced that the storage of gunpowder/ammo next door is 'harmful'? What then? Defacto gun control?
But our disagreement serves a purpose. You have chosen a level of harm that prevents your neighbor from running a bomb factory. I've chosen a level of harm that would prevent you from storing those bombs next to me. Another may choose a level of harm that prevents me from having any guns at all in my house.
Are all but one of us unconstitutional? I'd say no.
Yep, there we have it. You admit that majorities can control/prohibit the storage of arms. This discussion did indeed serve its purpose.
My argument that keeps getting shoved aside, is that the People and not the judiciary are the only ones that should be deciding what's reasonable. Because even when they [the majority] are wrong, it is better than the alternative of picking a man in robes to decide for us, who is no less likely to do the right thing and has no where near the motivation to do the right thing or to correct mistakes.
Majority rule is not "better" than judicial fiat, and no one here is advocating fiat rule; nor has anyone shoved aside that argument.
Thank you for being candid. You can join the ranks of Roscoe & nameless, with pride. --- They openly admit that States should have the power to infringe on arms keeping.
I have allies? Who would that be? I've yet to hear anyone making the argument that I am. You are confusing the argument that drugs should be illegal with my argument that the decision should not be taken away from the People.
'We the People' do not, and never have had, the power to decide/prohibit what drugs/guns/property our neighbors can keep. -- One of the objects of our Constitution was to stop such infringements on our liberties, as you can read in the 2nd.
I've yet to hear anyone making the argument that I am. You are confusing the argument that drugs should be illegal with my argument that the decision should not be taken away from the People.
Pikes:
I withdraw the needless aspersion. Your point is, indeed, distinct from those of the prohibitionists.
Reverse the order of his points. In effect he claims that:
"-- the decision should not be taken away from the People --- ; --- that drugs should be illegal --"
We see a fine example of word gaming type sophistry.
I've yet to hear anyone making the argument that I am. You are confusing the argument that drugs should be illegal with my argument that the decision should not be taken away from the People.
Pikes:
I withdraw the needless aspersion. Your point is, indeed, distinct from those of the prohibitionists.
Reverse the order of his points. In effect he claims that:
"-- the decision should not be taken away from the People --- ; --- that drugs should be illegal --"
We see a fine example of word gaming type sophistry.
[[And the second group believes its none of their business if someone does and that government is to here protect our freedom, not tell us what we can or cannot ingest.]]
And, That would be me ...I hate the stuff, but I'd like to know I live in a county that would protect my right to do it.
I did not read his distinguishing statement as camoflaging an impulse to control.
Sample has made pretty clear that he believes the current drugs regime is injudicious, so I am prepared to believe that he is not being disingenuous or sophistical in this instance.
If the People are determined to install a tyrant, launching Constitution-based lawsuits will not stop them.
Indeed, it is my point that launching such lawsuits might be the means to an unanticipated installation of a tyrant. If we give away our legislative right to decide to the judiciary, what is then the appeal process when the judiciary makes decisions contrary to the Constitution? And how is that different from having a king? I prefer a process that is not only Constitutional (even if the outcome not always is), but also self-correcting. e.g. My lesson from the O.J. trial was not that we should get rid of trial by jury in favor of Roman Law, despite the fact that Roman Law would most certainly have found O.J. guilty.
Although I would not call them your allies, there are equally some real nut jobs arguing for legalization by any means. Should tpaine think that's a reference to him, its not.
How exactly can ignorance (a void) be twisted?"
Because one may choose to ignore not just be unknowing.
Therefore it is the twisting of the mind so that they may
ignore the other and their rights to which I was referring.
I've yet to hear anyone making the argument that I am. You are confusing the argument that drugs should be illegal with my argument that the decision should not be taken away from the People.
Reverse the order of S-mans points. In effect he claims that:
"-- the decision should not be taken away from the People --- ; --- that drugs should be illegal --"
We see a fine example of word gaming type sophistry.
Pikes:
Sample has made pretty clear that he believes the current drugs regime is injudicious, so I am prepared to believe that he is not being disingenuous or sophistical in this instance.
His words are clear in that he believes that the decision to make drugs illegal "should not be taken away from the People".
S-man:
If we give away our legislative right to decide to the judiciary, what is then the appeal process when the judiciary makes decisions contrary to the Constitution?
Our legislators & executives, indeed ALL of our officials, are duty bound to ignore "decisions contrary to the Constitution". -- As per the unconstitutional 18th, we first ignored, then repealed prohibition. We are in the process of now ignoring the 'war on drugs', with the exception of those who insist in believing that the decision to make drugs illegal "should not be taken away from the People".
-- there are equally some real nut jobs arguing for legalization by any means. Should tpaine think that's a reference to him, its not.
Thanks for the faint praise, and for realizing that I am not making a personal attack on you either. -- This debate on governmental prohibitional power ['states rights'] has been going on since the Constitution was ratified. -- In effect we fought a civil war about it
Human sacrifice in the form of abortion is a sacrament to your oligarchy of doctors. However, the right to life being paramount your hypothetical is ridiculous.
"think about the secular government issues of the almost 300 million people that don't belong to your cult."
The government was established to protect the freedom of religion not
to mandate any particular heresy as a secular cult lorded over by DEAmen
who hide in black masks and black armor to protect themselves from the people.
LOL!
Give it up, Pax. Smoking pot is a sin, and your attempts to use scripture to justify smoking pot is a sin. You're a loser on two counts. If you truly care about what God thinks of you, now would be a good time to pray for forgiveness.
LOL!
Do you think the USSC erred in finding the VAWA unconstitutional?
Telling a lie is a sin, Sir. Repent now, or post the Biblical proscription of any herb.
Proverbs 15:17
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Does the Supreme Court have authority to rule? Sometimes its not a matter of if the decision was correct, but whether the right entity is making it. I'd be unhappy if O.J. had been pulled out of his car and hung on the side of the road after his trial. Despite the fact that I think he was guilty and deserved the death penalty. Process matters.
You seem very intrigued by the color black. Is that also part of your cult? And the "people" you are talking about are quite often murderous thugs. Is it just as sinister for you if the FBI wheres black and a ballistic vest, during a bank robbery stand-off? If the DEA wore white would you be happy.
Although I love your posts, you might want to see if you can concentrate a bit harder on the real issues.
Who am I fooling. Keep posting and don't change a thing. Please.
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