Posted on 02/28/2009 8:55:36 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
GLENN BECK, HOST: Marijuana brownies, anyone? This is the worst the people in our green room, I'm happy to say it's clear they've never been high.
I'm going to ask you what's wrong with this picture. Chicago is trying to fix $50 million budget their budget gap by taxing car rentals in suburban areas. And now, California is talking about legalizing marijuana and taxing marijuana to solve their budget problems.
Rob Kampia is the executive director for the Marijuana Policy Project.
How are you doing how are you doing, Rob?
ROB KAMPIA, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT: Doing well.
BECK: All right. Do you smoke marijuana? Do you have any those marijuana's...
KAMPIA: Occasionally.
BECK: Occasionally?
KAMPIA: Yes.
BECK: It's against the law, you know.
KAMPIA: Yes. So, is speeding, a lot of people do that, also.
BECK: Wow. OK. You used to work for NORML, did you not?
KAMPIA: Yes.
BECK: Yes?
KAMPIA: Fourteen years ago.
BECK: Fourteen years ago. And is it true that you quit working with NORML because they were stoned all the time and that's all they really wanted to do was get high? They weren't serious about changing the laws?
KAMPIA: No, everyone there is very serious about changing the laws.
BECK: Really? OK.
KAMPIA: And the reason that the reason that I left and started up the Marijuana Policy Project because I wanted to focus almost exclusively on lobbying and ballot initiatives.
BECK: OK. So, tell me because look, I'm a libertarian. You want to legalize marijuana; you want to legalize drugs that's fine.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I can’t argue with that, I live in Oregon so I know what you are talking about. However, legalizing it will make it so much cheaper that it will no longer be profitable for the Cartels to bother with. The exact same reason bootleggers went out of business when prohibition ended.
“I am for legalizing Marijuana (a plant that needs no chemical conversion) but not for legalizing drugs.”
Plants aren’t necessarily more healthy than synthetic drugs. Marijuana is a drug, or at least it contains drugs. Some plants can kill you. Opium doesn’t necessarily require conversion, although the sap or whatever you call it can be easily converted into a more potent form that can be smoked.
As to the essence of legalizing marijuana, I am against it- my reasoning being always the same- One gets more of what one endorses, and secondly, in moving the goalposts at all one only sets the precedent for moving them again.
But my Libertarian FRiends have legitimate issues with how this "war" is being executed, with much individual freedom and state sovereignty being sacrificed in it's name to an overweening federal authority- An authority which doesn't really endeavor to to win, but to perpetuate- else that damnable border would be doubly guarded, and would have been so for many, many years.
Amanita phalloides, the death cap mushroom, causes 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide, but its not illegal.
Well, it is a drug as are booze and cigarettes, and meth. Some drugs are just a lot more dangerous than others. They all have different properties.
There's no market for them either.
First of all, it is considered polite to ping a freeper when talking smack about him, as you should well know by now, and especially JR when you are picking bones. You are cruising for a good zotting.
Secondly, Libertarians had a rightful place at Reagan's table. It is unthinkable to define Conservatism without them. So if JR is kind enough to give them extra leeway it is probably out of respect in regard to their rightful chair.
It is more likely that Republicans hereabouts have grown so cold to the tenets of Conservatism that many of them now find those tenets offensive. If that is your case, perhaps another forum would be more to your liking.
That is *not* true. Holland is now moving to make drugs and prostitution illegal. Their society is out of control.
*snort*
It takes but the barest of observational skills to see the truth in what he says. Runaway divorce rates, runaway teenage pregnancy rates, thievery, assault, drug use, rape, child abuse, spousal battery, corruption in government, lack of social justice, literacy rates... Anywhere you would care to measure it, it is off the scales compared to 100 years ago.
We don't need more laws - we need fewer laws.
I believe that if the Founding Fathers could have foreseen the Federal Gov’t of today, there would have never been a USA or a Constitution.
I also believe the fundamental flaw of our system is the unlimited ability of our legislators to legislate. Most legislation today is political & partisan in nature, with little regard for what is actually good or necessary for the people & the country.
The Pubs are the Hatfields & the Rats are the McCoys; and way more time is spent on the feuding than on the families. The result is poverty & oppression for all but those in power.
Every time a law is passed we lose more of our rights. Laws rarely grant rights to the people, but most often take them away.
So when you support the revocation of your neighbor's rights, don't be surprised when he supports your loss of rights, too. Your BBQ pig might just disgust him as much as his pot smoke does you. And sure enough, people are being harassed by neighbors & police because of their BBQ.
As for the War on Drugs, a true story:
My friend's ex wife has been a junkie for years. Every day for years she went to a gov’t sponsored “clinic” to get her daily dose of Methadone. Finally, her doctor told her the Methadone was killing her, so she quit on her own.
If those bureaucrats had wanted to help her kick the habit, they could have easily cut the dosage a tiny bit every day until she was drug free. But freeing their “patients” of addiction would have put them out of business, as their support from gov’t was based on how many dosages were given out.
Where do you get the idea that legalization of drugs will lead to any significant increase in usage, abuse, and/or crime?
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Are you for real? Why not ask....
Where do you get the idea that legalization of alcohol or gambling will lead to any significant increase in usage, abuse, and/or crime?
....am totally against the FAILED WAR ON DRUGS.
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Defeatist attitude.
Who said it is a failed war? Just maybe a bunch of surrender monkeys.
The way I see it - we are winning.
Maybe you see the WOT as a failure too?
Now. (j/k) Now you may return to your bong.
You're right. Alcohol is a drug so it's not an analogy.
To me the war on marijuana is asinine and harmful to this country. I do think that we as a people will be a better off when we legalize marijuana. We will probably have a few more people smoking pot but that is a small price to pay for putting a stop to all the problems the ban is causing.
I assume you are conservative.
What do you see as the role of government, and how does making Marijuana illegal apply to that role?
....perhaps another forum would be more to your liking.
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As I said in post # 1. Libs rule on Free Republic.
But no thanks. Until Jim zots me and my moral views to kingdom come, I will continue to speak my mind.
And good luck on pinging the Big Guy. He won’t respond. Not on this issue.
As for Reagan? You are sadly mistaken on using Reagan as a role model for Libertariansim.
Try Goldwater. Whith his pro-abortion and pro-gay attitudes; Goldwater is your hero.
What I wrote is a fact. Holland has a big problem with “drug tourists” from the surrounding countries which is why cities close to the borders want to (or already did) further regulate the selling of cannabis. Weren’t small border villages swamped by thousands by German/French/Belgian youths each day, the “legalization” would be an enormous success.
Prostitution is another matter. I have no problem with it here in Germany :).
I will rise to defend this point to a degree. Some of the greatest, most imaginative minds I have ever known have been dope smokers their entire life. Like alcohol, some folks have a natural propensity to handle it's effects without any real addictive traits, beyond a certain jittery shortness of temper if denied the opportunity to imbibe...
By the same token, I have known plenty of people who have been the epitome of the "stupid pothead" stereotype. One of my good friends was such a pothead. He could barely keep his life together, and lived for getting high. He died at 50, broke and out of luck. I won't say pot killed him, but it sure as hell didn't help.
A bit of evidence as to your misguided opinion:
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. -RONALD REAGAN, Reason Magazine, Jul. 1, 1975
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