Posted on 06/23/2011 3:46:24 AM PDT by lbryce
Congressmen Ron Paul, Barney Frank and others will introduce legislature Thursday that aims to end a major part of the war on drugs -- namely the battle against marijuana.
Reps. Paul (R-Texas) and Frank (D-Mass.), though technically on opposite sides of the aisle, have often spoken out against the war on drugs and will propose a bill "tomorrow ending the federal war on marijuana and letting states legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana without federal interference," according to a statement from the Marijuana Policy Project via Reason.
The bill would allow the individual states to decide how they want to deal with pot. Currently the federal government bogarts U.S. law, oftentimes arresting owners and employees of medical marijuana facilities, for example, who thought they were operating legally under city, county and/or state laws.
"The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal," according to the MPP statement.
The legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), is the first of its kind to be proposed in Congress that would end the 73-year-old federal marijuana prohibition that began with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.
Although Frank insists that this "is not a legalization bill," it will be an excellent test for those in Congress who claim to be for a limited, smaller, federal government -- one that gives more power to the states whenever possible as Paul and the "tea party" have rallied for over the last few years.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
The only thing this issue demonstrates, is how easy it is to divide conservatives. No wonder liberals win or swiftly recover from a their losses.
Not only should they legalize it, they should allow people to grow it if they want to. The war on drugs has been a waste of money. This bill has no chance. There’s too much money and power for the government to lose. Marijuana should never have been illegal in the first place. The big boys used that to take hemp out of the picture. Hemp is a great crop and it has unlimited uses. There’s no difference whether you use alcohol or smoke a joint. I still think it’s sad how all these limited government people get all fired up over this stuff. Any time we can reduce government I’m happy.
“On the one hand, I really don’t care what people do to themselves. On the other hand, I don’t want to have to be around those people or to deal with the consequences.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I don’t really want to be around idiots who thought Obama was going to be a great improvement over George Bush and in my case that includes one immediate family member but I don’t want to have the idiots locked up.
Well, maybe on a bad day I want to see the idiots locked up.
First Barney said he never really knew what mj looked like when one of his gay lovers houses was raided a few years ago.
next, Barney will want to legalize running gay hooker rings out of people’s basements..
He doesn’t need to legalize the hooker rings the police would never bother barney at least in massholechusetts.
Few people are locked up for drug possession alone. Its either trafficking large amounts or other crimes that get them.
I’ve toked my share back in the day. And, I have close friends who still do. I run my own business (much more successfully before the One was enshrined) and my friends are middle aged, successful business owners and/or professionals.
MJ should be controlled like alcohol: a legal age to buy and use, penalties for abuse, and heavily taxed.
People on this board who say mj is the precursor of failure or heroin use are simply wrong.
Marijuana has widespread harm in society because of increased accidents, increased incidence of violence, crime and other substance abuse by users, and harmful effects on children. The media have suppressed this information to help their criminal overlords, but if the US government relents, and lets drugs take over, the overall effects will devastate this country before the average person realizes and can react.
There are some very interesting comments here, some informed, some of y’all ain’t got a clue.
People who do smoke pot or at least have smoked pot come from every economic and social class there is. They come from the “best” families and those who could be hardly called a family at all.
Many of the leading citizens in every community in America have smoked pot as well as the residents of the streets and back alleys of those very same communities. Some of those people are predisposed to addiction and were born with a problem dealing with pot, booze, crack, coke, what have ‘ya got? Some of those people are and will continue to be perfectly normal.
I guess what I see from the comments here is that many of you just don’t get it. Other than being a matter of convenience, the vast cross section of people who regularly smoke pot could care less whether or not it is ever legal to smoke it or not, they will continue to buy it, grow it,or otherwise procure their smoke no matter what the government does. They live that part of their lives outside the control of government.
At least you recognize that there is no utopian pot of gold at the other end of the rainbow. Those folks are headed for a world of disappointment.
We rushed the medical marijuana law into existence here in Michigan and now things are catching up with us. We now have “patients” selling their “medicine”. Robberies of dispensaries. Prescriptions being handed out for everything from headaches to mosquito bites. Now dispensaries are figuring out that pulling on the ear of city councils is a good way to help eliminate the competition. In fact I read about a dispensary owner who opposes legalization because it would put him out of business.
I guess I’m more in favor of decriminalization than outright legalization. Give a guy caught smoking on the street a $25 fine. Impaired driving laws would still apply. Let people grow and smoke as much as they want in the privacy of their own home.
From my little corner of the world and casual observations over the past 40 years or so I have concluded alcohol is much worse than pot. Personally, I like beer and drink it several times a week, haven’t been drunk since the day I got married 20+ years ago. I have several good friends that smoke pot that are in their ‘60’s and I suppose have been doing it for 40 years. They appear to handle it ok but I’d rather not be around some of them if they decide to drink alcohol. I work with a guy in his 40’s that has destroyed his liver, another coworker passed away from alcohol abuse several years ago, I know several people that got caught drinking and driving, I know of many that lost their lives in alcohol related crashes, I could go on.
I don’t smoke anything, tried cigarettes once and pot once, ingesting smoke is just not a pleasant experience for me. But I am certain if I wanted to get some pot I could find it easily, the war ain’t working and never will, no different than prohibition.
Leave it to the States. Employers will still be the ultimate policing authority.
On a side note, I saw a beautiful tree last week that I fgured out was called an Angel’s Trumpet. I did some research into where I could get one and if it would survive the winter temps around here. Very interesting plant that according to the reasoning of many on here should be banned.
I can't think of a single issue on which I don't have a commitment to small government. Can you say the same?
Please identify for us the section of the US Constitution which permits the federal government to send a citizen to jail for having the leaves of a plant in his possession.
This is straight Liberal Dogma. 'And EVERY Tea Party supporter is a white, racist exploiter.' And, this is A TOTAL lie!
Some how, this country limped along until the 1930's without anti pot laws, and we seemed to do fairly wall. Then came Harry Anslinger and his crusade against pot, (Actually a drive to increase the power and authority of his Federal Narcotics Bureau.), in 1937.
How many thousands of laws have been passed to control pot, how many thousands of these laws directly violate the Constitution, and tap dance on the Bill of Rights? How many HUNDREDS of Thousands of worthless federal workers, stupid relatives and useless democrat functionaries have padded the government in an effort to control marijuana? The whole concept of "no-knock" 'dynamic entries' was created to stop a teen-ager from flushing a nickel bag. Look how well THAT'S worked out.And you're good with that?
When the commies realized they could destroy the Constitution by passing anti-drug laws "for your own good," the door was kicked in. They could pretend to be Law and Order, while federal authority exploded. Power crazed socialist "reformers" created this mess, and you want to make it worse. Turn in you Smaller Government decoder ring. You failed the Freedom Test.
Thank you for bringing out a drug warrior premise that is often left unspoken.
Most drug warriors believe that if drugs are decriminalized, or even if we step down drug war enforcement from its current NKVD-like levels, that suddenly tens of millions of hitherto clean Americans will immediately run out to acquire and use as many drugs as they possibly can, and every main street in every American town will within weeks look like a mix of Haight Asbury 1966 and 152nd street in Harlem.
I'm not buying that fear. Not at all.
During the run up to Prohibition, the anti-alcohol movement portrayed the world as divided into (a) the virtuous cold-water drinkers and (b) the gutter-crawling rummies.
They HATED the respectable men and women who drank in moderation because those folks subverted the message, which is the same as your message.
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.