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Why the Cory Booker/Rand Paul Medical Marijuana Amendment Is Right
Townhall.com ^ | June 23, 2014 | Cathy Reisenwitz

Posted on 06/23/2014 12:17:27 PM PDT by Kaslin

On Friday, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Corey Booker (D-NJ) offered a medical marijuana amendment on the floor of the Senate. The bill is a massive win for states’ rights, as it outlaws the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from undermining state marijuana laws and prohibits the DEA from interfering with the production of hemp in states where it is legal.

There is simply no reason the federal government should be trampling over state laws to perform armed SWAT-team raids on state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Destroying property and hauling entrepreneurs off to jail is not the proper role of the federal government.

In addition, these federal laws get between patients and their medicine. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin has written for this site about why she supports legal medical marijuana:

More than 15 years ago in Seattle, while working at The Seattle Times, I met an extraordinary man who changed my mind about the issue. Ralph Seeley was a Navy nuclear submarine officer, pilot, cellist and lawyer suffering from chordoma, a rare form of bone cancer that starts in the spine. He had undergone several surgeries, including removal of one lung and partial removal of the other, and was confined to a wheelchair.

Chronically nauseous from chemotherapy and radiation, weak from a suppressed appetite, and suffering excruciating pain, Seeley turned to marijuana cigarettes for relief.

Contrary to cultural stereotype, Seeley was far from "wasted." While smoking the drug to reduce his pain, he finished law school -- something he couldn't have done while on far more powerful "mainstream" narcotics, which left him zonked out and vomiting uncontrollably in his hospital bed after chemo.

And she describes what’s at stake when the feds ignore what states want to fight the costly and ineffective War on Drugs (which is actually a war on patients).

When you get past all the "Rocky Mountain High" jokes and look past all the cable-news caricatures, the legalized marijuana entrepreneurs here in my adopted home state are just like any other entrepreneurs: securing capital, paying taxes, complying with a thicket of regulations, taking risks and providing goods and services that ordinary people want and need. Including our grateful family.

Nothing about the way the War on Drugs has been prosecuted passes the small-government or, for that matter, common-sense test.

Jailing small business owners who are operating according to the laws in their state? Fail. Distorting police incentives to ignore violent and property-related crimes to go after petty drug possession? Fail. Creating the world’s largest prison population, which is taxpayer-funded? Fail. Justifying laws which allow police to steal people’s property, including their cash and cars, without ever charging them with a crime? Fail. Allowing the DEA to work with the NSA to comb through phone, email, and social media records to find low-level drug dealers without ever needing a warrant? Fail. Arming police departments with tanks, machine guns, and SWAT gear which are used mostly to bust casual pot users and shoot their dogs while they’re at it? Fail. Fail. Fail.

Rand Paul and Corey Booker are doing great work by reining in the overgrown DEA and putting a check on federal power. Ultimately, the DEA needs to be disbanded and the entire War on Drugs needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history. But this is a good first step.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: corybooker; homosexualagenda; kentucky; libertarians; libtardian; marijuana; medicalmarijuana; medpot; paultardation; paultardnoisemachine; randpaul; randpaulnoisemachine; randsconcerntrolls; senate; warondrugs; wod
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To: Mr. K

Libertardians want ALL DRUGS legal for everyone

Pot is many times more potent than in the 60’s and you think it’s just “harmless fun”? Pass some out to the kindergarteners then.


21 posted on 06/23/2014 12:50:14 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

To: ConservingFreedom

As Reagan once alluded, the things we stand for and the direction we choose - whether we hold and value the Constitution as the rule of law and the protector of our God-given freedoms - are ultimately not questions of Left or Right but Up or Down.


23 posted on 06/23/2014 12:55:18 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: GeronL
legal drugs, open borders and sex with kids

If you're saying the only way these things will be corrected is by federal enforcement which the Constitution does NOT allow, rather than the states as the people of each state see fit, then it looks like big socialist government tyranny and the despotic rule of man is for you.

24 posted on 06/23/2014 1:00:50 PM PDT by PapaNew
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The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

That’s the text of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. Now, it’s up to you. Please show me the section, clause or amendment of the Constitution that grants the federal government the power to regulate what substances citizens put into their own bodies. I am betting that you cannot do so. If not, it would seem that the Tenth Amendment would apply.


25 posted on 06/23/2014 1:01:14 PM PDT by stremba
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To: GeronL
Pot is many times more potent than in the 60’s

That's a good thing: it means less harmful smoke inhalation to achieve the same high.

26 posted on 06/23/2014 1:01:14 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: NormsRevenge

The Cartels hate legalization efforts in the states. It devalues their product, it creates competition from small growers. It’s lose lose for them as they know they can’t get licenses to peddle their skunk weed.


27 posted on 06/23/2014 1:13:52 PM PDT by aft_lizard
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To: PapaNew

I’d dismantle 95% of the federal government and the pot-head NAMBLAtarians still call me a despot tyrant-loving socialist.

Simply amazing view of conservatism you have.


28 posted on 06/23/2014 1:17:06 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: stremba
Didn't see who you addressed that to, but I'll bet you don't get a straight answer.

Prohibitionists avoid the Tenth Amendment like the plague.

29 posted on 06/23/2014 1:17:44 PM PDT by Ken H
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

To: Kaslin

There seems to me to be a superb solution in permitting large scale hemp production.

First of all, hemp grows in marginal farmland, so it would not be like the ethanol disaster, displacing quality cropland.

Second of all, known products made from hemp, especially paper and cloth, would be worth billions to the US economy every year. The paper industry could adapt to hemp paper production, instead of wasting valuable lumber in making pulp. This would drive the price of lumber down which would stimulate construction. Hemp paper is pH neutral, and can last hundreds of years, not just decades.

Importantly, the quality of marijuana is based on the quality of the pollen used to fertilize female plants for seed. But when female plants only are grown, their growers do not want them to be fertilized, because they then stop emitting the resin that contains the drug.

So a profusion of hemp pollen impacts marijuana production in two ways: it fertilizes female plants, ending their production of resin; and then they produce inferior seed that makes much less potent marijuana.

The bottom line is that hemp production is terrible for marijuana production. Over the course of years, unless the marijuana is grown indoors, its quality will continue to decline.

So what’s not to like? A new industry that makes lots of jobs, while reducing the potency of marijuana.


31 posted on 06/23/2014 1:23:18 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: GeronL
exactly, there is nothing unconstitutional about giving crack to children and sexing them up when they are high!

Wow, three strawmen in one sentence.

32 posted on 06/23/2014 1:24:27 PM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Kaslin

Great! Rand Paul agrees with Obama on foreign policy, amnesty, gay marriage and dope. Definitely a non-partisan type of guy. And that’s exactly the vote he will get.


33 posted on 06/23/2014 1:49:18 PM PDT by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!!)
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To: Kaslin; sickoflibs; NFHale; AuH2ORepublican; fieldmarshaldj; BillyBoy; GOPsterinMA

Far out, man. Rand Paul is a stone groove!


34 posted on 06/23/2014 2:01:21 PM PDT by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN)
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To: Kaslin

This kind of crap is not welcome here on Free Republic. We Freepers stand for small government. Small enough to lock you up for smoking a plant, and no smaller. Which is pretty big, actually.


35 posted on 06/23/2014 2:13:22 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: GeronL

I KNOW that the laws that allow the government to steal your property on the merest suspicion that your property was acquired with drug money would be obsolete. I know that the laws that prevent you from taking large sums of cash outside the US would be equally obsolete. I know that we will be better off without hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers whose primary job is to stop Joey from smoking a doobie, watching cartoons and eating Cheetos. I know it will be cheaper to treat drug offenders than jailing them.


36 posted on 06/23/2014 2:15:39 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Haven't you lost enough freedoms? Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

“Joey”?

Does that imply a kid?


37 posted on 06/23/2014 2:17:57 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: GeronL

I don’t defend “conservatism” becasue I don’t know what “conservatism” is. I only know what the Constitution is and I defend it because Constitution is the only legal barrier between us and tyranny.


38 posted on 06/23/2014 2:18:45 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: Kaslin

What’s interesting is doctors could lose their license over prescribing scheduled pain killers. I know many doctors who no longer prescribe them due to that threat. So now politicians want doctors who are cautious of prescribing pain medicine to prescribe marijuana!


39 posted on 06/23/2014 2:20:11 PM PDT by RginTN
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To: PapaNew

lol. Whatever that means.


40 posted on 06/23/2014 2:27:27 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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