Posted on 12/22/2009 1:47:42 PM PST by AJKauf
A truly sad story about a 23-year-old Panama City man dying while being subdued by Bay County sheriff’s deputies has reawakened the debate about the legalization of marijuana. On December 11, 2009, Andrew Grande choked on a plastic bag full of marijuana as police attempted to arrest him on a violence charge. A video shows police valiantly trying to save his life once it became apparent that he was having difficulty breathing.
Two talk show hosts in Panama City have been discussing the case in the early morning hours — and revealing a divide on the right. Burnie Thompson of WYOO, the libertarian, has called Grande “a casualty of the war on drugs” and contended that because marijuana is illegal, Grande felt “compelled” to swallow a bag of it to avoid punishment.
Nonsense, says Doc Washburn on station WFLF. He invited former Congressman Ernest Istook from the Heritage Foundation and Tina Trent, who blogs on crime, to speak about the dangers of marijuana to the user and to society. Trent indicated that Grande had faced probably only a misdemeanor charge; she pointed to studies showing that the illegal drug trade flourishes despite the legality of marijuana in certain states and other countries. And legalizing marijuana will remove the freedom employers now have to test for the judgment-impairing drug.
The position on the legalization of marijuana provides the point of departure from the traditional libertarianism of Barry Goldwater. In abandoning the duty to enforce social order, today’s libertarians have made a devil’s pact with the pro-drug forces of George Soros and company.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Vices are not crimes.
read later
What part of the COTUS empowers the federal government to decide what I amy eat, drink, or smoke?
Another commerce clause rationalization, no doubt.
Can employers also test for alcohol impairment?? Alcohol is legal, yet you can't fly a plane right after having a martini.
Many employers, including mine, have in their policies a no alcohol policy. Consuming alcohol on company property and/or during work hours is grounds for immediate termination.
I don’t have major issues with legalization but I do have issues with selling out to the likes of Soros and the lying that surrounds the issue. With Soros its not a rights issue, its like all things with him, a control and influence issue.
Claiming that its a medicine, then running college courses on how to grow and grade it only makes them look like liars. Here in Michigan its a pretty standard ballot issue that has lost every time till this last election, then suddenly there was a wide swing in every single county that was questionable at best. (BTW I voted for legalization)
If my engaging in an activity does not deprive another of their life, liberty, or property through fraud or force, it should be legal.
You know how the Dims have smokes for votes? Well we could counter with doobies for drones. Give your urban Dim drone a doobie on election day and just tell them that the polling place is over at the local McDonald’s
Why, because someone choked on a plastic bag?
How about this.
If pot were legal, the guy would still be alive, and in jail for whatever it was he did to get arrested in the first place.
Grannies are getting arrested for innocently buying 3 boxes of antihistamines in Indiana within a week. F the “war on drugs,” free granny.
This is what we get when we criminalize vices , even a misdemeanor can easily cost any one of us our jobs, of course he felt compelled to defend himself in the only way he could, to swallow the evidence. The penalties are WAY out of whack with the “crimes” , especially when they follow you for life with our computerization.
It’ll turn you into a bat and make you have sex with jazz musicians. Just ask Henry Anslinger...
“And legalizing marijuana will remove the freedom employers now have to test for the judgment-impairing drug.”
Pure unadulterated BS.
And the pot didn’t kill him the bag/violence did.
Legalize it, tax it and control it just like it’s much more dangerous counterparts, alcohol and tobacco. The amount of police time freed up will be used to catch criminal pushers causing much more danger to society and killing young people (There are no elderly users of Crystal Meth, Angel Dust and PCP). Legalize heroin too, and let people get on a program leading to methadone and release from the deadly scourge of heroin.
Libertarians believe it best to criminalize only those causing a real danger to others.
..or not buying health insurance!
/s
Like anonymous males having sex in public restrooms?
This argument is utterly vacuous. "Employment at will" gives employers the freedom to test/fire for anything except for prohibited discrimination. And even those prohibitions should be ruled unconstitutional
There ought to be a law against plastic bags!
This should be a fun thread. All the Anti-Nanny State conservatives will rise to tell us how the State should be the Nanny in the case of drugs.
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