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 governments 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 ...
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The one with the blood on the hands is the liar who is pushing drugs on America.
I call BS.
I love the smell of fear.
Really? I didn’t choose it. It’s what I’ve been unwillingly saddled with.
Okay, so you do have a problem with prioritizing? We could strip all the unconstitutional junk all at once, I’m for that, but it won’t happen. Barney Fwank would fight to the death to keep that from happening. Philosophical arguments aside, do you think our country would be better or worse if we just legalized drugs without bringing down the whole nanny state? It’s a rhetorical question because I know what you really think, though you might not admit it.
You’re point is not stupid put when taken in broader philosophical context. But it is stupid when placed in the reality of where we are as a people. That’s my point. Why do drugs, porn, prostitution, gambling and other sins have to be the first things deregulated? Because those are the ones the liberals will give us? I wonder why that is...
You are aware that there is not a town in the country that marijuana isn’t present in, right? The drug war isn’t preventing usage at all, the only thing it’s doing is clogging up the prison system and creating a black market (like Prohibition did).
An increase in the demand for health services from marijuana is not a reason to push for keeping it illegal. Alcohol and tobacco actually kill you and kill you quicker, so make them illegal, if that’s your logic.
Anybody who supports the federal war on drugs doesn’t support the 10th amendment and states’ rights.
I would of course like to do both. But I don't think it makes much difference what the priorities are.
I could live with returning to the status quo of a few decades ago, where drugs remained illegal but the whole SWAT team, IR vehicles looking for grow lights, asset confiscation regime goes away.
You see, it's not the fact that "drugs are illegal" that bothers me nearly so much as the whole (utterly failing) NKVD style enforcement regime that has metastasized in recent years.
How would you know if he does or doesn’t?
Now we are going to have 7000 people who never smoked a joint in their lives comment on this. Liquor good, weed bad.
IT’s ABOUT STATES RIGHTS and NOT ALLOWING the FEDS to interfere. It’s none of their damn business what we consume.
We are big boys and girls. We don’t need a nanny.
I can see how you, being from Ohio, would have a hard time knowing stuff like that. People from Oklahoma are more difficult to fool. We’re the reddest state in the country because it ain’t easy fooling us. I’m half joking.
Come on, I’ve heard people say this a lot but I’ve never met a pots smoker who wasn’t also a loser. Have you?
“What you cant do is curb free will”
But you can curb the creation of new drug habits in kids. Yes, you really really can. And it’s working well.
then you really woudn’t like how my response to that issue of NR was the largest printed reader response back then, either
Some specific brain pathways are implicated in marijuana use in relation to the development of schizophrenia. Note that marijuana is not going to cause schizophrenia in individuals who don't carry any of the schizophrenia genes. I think that the only definitive answer is to set up a study in which the marijuana usage habits are compared between sets of individuals who carry the gene mutations normally associated with schizophrenia, and to determine if more of the marijuana users become schizophrenic than those who don't.
In my whole life, I have only known two schizophrenics; it is not a common disorder.
Hey, can’t you pick on Massachusetts or New Jersey or even Pennsylvania or Michigan. They’re all to the left of my beloved Ohio. Even Oklahoma makes an occasional mistake. I mean, Brad Henry over Steve Largent, c’mon. Granted, Henry easily beats Dick Celeste and Ted Strickland. As for your question, yes I have. However, most of them don’t do it on a regular basis. The ones that do, don’t really broadcast it. Most of the stoner losers we know would be losers without pot, albeit probably less so.
How do you know they weren’t losers before using the drug? I absolutely agree with your first preconditon, but the second is a bit extreme.
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