Posted on 10/16/2012 9:45:44 AM PDT by SmithL
DENVER (AP) — It's not all hippies backing November's marijuana legalization votes in Colorado, Oregon and Washington.
Appealing to Western individualism and a mistrust of federal government, activists have lined up some prominent conservatives, from one-time presidential hopefuls Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul to Republican-turned-Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.
"This is truly a nonpartisan issue," said Mark Slaugh, a volunteer for the Colorado initiative who is based in Colorado Springs, which has more Republicans than anywhere else in the state.
"States' rights! States' rights!" Slaugh cried as he handed out flyers about the state's pot measure outside a rally last month by Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. Quite a few passing Republicans took the flyer.
"It's fiscally prudent. It would be taxed, regulated, monitored. It makes a lot of sense to Republicans," he said.
Most Republicans still oppose legalization.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
LOL! Anyone who believes that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to talk to you about.
Marijuana backers courting conservatives
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They’re wasting their time. They may certainly win over libertarians. But not conservatives.
Its funny. My brother is a raving, DU-type, conspiracy theorist Lib who thinks Bush started the Iraq War to line his pockets. I’m conservative. Yet we both agree that pot should be legal. Personally, I don’t see it as any worse than drinking. Libs advocating legalization are their own worst enemies. They start off OK but then the argument turns to some conspiracy about how the CIA wants to keep pot illegal to fund its death squads.
Proving stupidity is genetic?
Neither do I.
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Libs advocating legalization are their own worst enemies. They start off OK but then the argument turns to some conspiracy about how the CIA wants to keep pot illegal to fund its death squads.
LOL! That's the main problem with libs. The longer they talk the dumber they sound.
I prefer to look at it as a Constitutional issue.
Does the Constitution say the federal government has the authority to tell the People what they can consume? No?
Then it's an issue for the individual States.
Unless, of course, one believes in a 'living' Constitution.
I can think of a million and one reason’s not to legalize/regulate it but it’s plain to me that the cure is worse than the disease.
Here in Arizona, they've already figured out ways around the above. It just ain't happening. If they want it legalized, just legalize it. They need to knock off the goofy charade.
Said it before many times to legalization libertarians— have several friends in the tobacco industry that told me and anyone who will listen, that there are warehouses of aging bales of marijuana in Central America. The warehouses are owned by RJ Reynolds, Lorillard,American Tobacco (the Dukes) and others.
So “legalization” for the benefit of a new taxable cash crop to support the continuing liberal socialist agenda..just like the demonrat controlled CA legislature is advocating to “save” CA.... is all ready to go.
Camels made with hashish, no filter. Great. More cancer causing natural ingredients in the crop then that found in natural Nicotiniana (or proprietary additives and flavors). Lord, save us from the pestilence of Progressives and Statists.
Libertarian and conservative thought intersects often. I want less government interference in my life. I support reform of marijuana laws to allow individuals to decide for themselves.
I oppose prohibition of alcohol, gambling, smoking and food in the same spirit of freedom for individuals. Regulations can be enforced to limit the exposure to nonpartakers and for public safety.
"What is the law against marijuana if it isn't the Nanny State telling you what you can do and what you can't do to your body and with your body?" asked Tancredo
The movement is fighting the last war, trying to adopt the pro-choice logic of the previous generation. But that logic no longer applies. Pro-choice is now pro-force.
When the federal government owns our bodies and is able to allow or deny medical treatments, why would they allow drugs to become legalized and harm their property? Why would a state accept a neighboring state allowing drugs and higher medical costs, which would be a tax transfer to the other state for higher drug abuse treatments?
If one is pro-pot, I think they have to be anti ObamaCare, which would have to be repealed before drugs could be legalized.
We conservatives are not potheads, just as conservatives were never feminists or other self-described “progressives.” Members of the socialist, political/regulator class...well, we know what they are.
Avoid buying anything that you don’t really need. Become more self-sufficient each month, and learn to manufacture something useful as a hobby for now. Starve the B.
There is a lot of libertarian in the Tea Party movement. Tea Party supports in general want the government to return to its consitutional role. That means:
1) smaller government
2) limited government
It’s very easy to make the case to a Tea Party supporter that drug laws are outside of the proper role of the federal government.
A MSM attempt to get libertarians to waste a vote and have Obummer take CO.
Colorado needs to see what legalizing Pot has done to CA and OR.
William F. Buckley Jr. - the founder of National Review when there was no Conservative magazine in the country and a leading Conservative thinker, in his own time and now - would be proud.
Social Conservatives need to re-authenticate their support for true Liberty; they must either committ to the ideal of small and limited government, for all, not just so big government only leaves them alone, or quit mouthing the position that they are against big government, only when it suits them, and then matching the Liberals tit-for-tat when they want big government themselves - for promoting their own social engineering agendas.
It is irrational to think that support for decriminalization of marijuana means support for “dopers” who are “high” on the job, on the road, or in the schools. It is irrational because it irratioanally suggests that anyone is asking for drunks to be accepted, on the job, on the road or in the schools. No one is.
Alcohol is legal, but it is not legal to be drunk while driving a motor vehcile, and not legal to be drunk while engaged in certain jobs, and not accpetable to be drunk on most any job and not acceptable to be drunk in most any school. Why would the same laws, and social prohibitions, be any different toward a “doper who was high” just because marijuana was decriminalized? The fact is, they wouldn’t.
The end of prohibition was not affected so is to encourage either public drunkiness or alcoholism. It follows that it is irrational to think the intent or purpose of decriminalization of marijuana is to encourage behaviorial abuse of, or addiction to marijuana.
Marijuana addicts and abusers of marijuana use are no greater portion of all marijuana users than are drunks and alcoholics to all those who drink alcoholic beverages.
Legal prosecution belongs to behaviors of abuse that threaten public safety, constituting an abuse of Liberty that threatens the Liberty of others.
Legal consumption of recreational stimulants, when not abused, are not a threat to Liberty. Creation of criminal syndicates, under the benevolent big government guise of controlling the consumption of recreational stimulants, has proven each time to be a great and expensive threat to Liberty; imprisoning millions for their personal vices and creating conditions that result in murder and mayhem by those engaged in the illegal trafficking of a legally prohibited substance.
Tax the trade and spend the tax revenue on public education concerning substance abuse and addiction - in the schools in particular.
until they include automatic license suspension to those using “medical marajuana” this is still just a pothead issue.
Remember, there are ALREADY drugs with the requisite ingredients that avoid the entire smoking BS.
Libertarian are libertarians, not conservatives.
They brought us gambling, why not drugs?
Many medications warn 'do not drive after using' - how many of them lead to automatic license suspension?
Remember, there are ALREADY drugs with the requisite ingredients
Really? Name them.
that avoid the entire smoking BS.
Marijuana can be consumed via vaporizer rather than smoking, and thereby avoid the harms the come with inhaling combustion products.
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