Posted on 01/23/2015 11:33:34 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
President Obama believes more states are likely to legalize marijuana following efforts in Colorado and Washington state.
"My suspicion is that you're going to see other states look at this," the president told YouTube blogger Hank Green.
Obama said that the federal government was "not going to spend a lot of resources" enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that had decided to legalize the drug. He also noted that the Department of Justice was examining how to shift policies for nonviolent drug offenders.
In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Obama appeared to tacitly endorse a Colorado referendum that legalized marijuana in the state.
The president said that it was important for it to go forward because its important for society not to have a situation in which a large portion of people have at one time or another broken the law and only a select few get punished."
In the same interview, Obama said he did not think pot was more dangerous than alcohol, although said he still saw use as a bad habit and a vice.
Last December, the White House said Congress should not interfere with local District of Columbia law that would legalize marijuana in the capital city as part of the so-called cromnibus. But Obama did sign the budget bill including those restrictions.
IOW, do you think government should honor the 10th Amendment?
What do the "health of society as a whole" and the identification of "what is driven by self indulgence" have to do with freedom? Nothing that I can see.
I know that it should be decided at the state level per the 10 amendment at the state level. No matter which states do pass it, IMHO they are in for a world of hurt with the eventual outcome. Ya sure they will have an increase in taxes and supposedly crime will fall since it is available, but druggies will still have to steal and rob to buy the now legal pot.
The problem with the over supply didn’t happen until after the election. It is actually quite recent. The supply was short over the summer and the producers were making lots of money, but once the state got their act together and started licensing more growers, the market became flooded and the growers are having a tough time finding outlets for their crop.
WA is a mostly rural state, and a lot of people who were already growing their own weed and either selling it or sharing it.
America does agriculture really well!
Your post was well written, very concise and to the point.
Marijuana reduces sex drive? Brother when I was a kid and smoked weed I wanted to screw every girl in sight.
"It's for the children" is the battle cry of liberals everywhere.
I don't endorse self inflicted retardation but I believe in liberty and freedom strongly enough to believe it senseless to outlaw a backyard weed.
Why don’t heroin addicts push for legalization? It’s just pot that’s ok, why not other drugs?
Other end of the spectrum from a backyard weed. I would support tripling the penalty for hard drugs, and death penalty for those knowingly selling to minors. The WODs is being fought half assed and has only made things worse. We need to s#!t or get off the pot, pun intended.
Thanks for the ping!
I beg people who call themselves Conservative, to deeply think about all the things they are trying to conserve. I would ask them to consider how many aspects are liberty oriented and how many only advance big and Bigger government to the determent of liberty.
Yes, we need an ordered and peaceful society. But the war on drugs is just as good an example as any. Who thinks it is a good idea that some young people will choose to be stoners or pot heads? I certainly don’t. But when we start down the road of trying to suppress drug consumption via the heavy hand of the law, and we end up with unbridled asset forfeit laws, we are shocked at how government can run amok. We are frustrated that it is so far impossible to get government to repeal this source of revenue.
Well, government is addicted to power and the money it takes to secure things that fund power grabs. In attempting to secure a better society, we enable all manner of government abuses that only destroy society.
The hard truth is that government has limits and even conservatives are tempted to use government to address failings in morality where government cannot have very much effect. Government is only power, and in the end, it only has its credible monopoly on the use of deadly force. Let us reserve the use of that power ONLY for things its is best suited for, such as protecting peaceful citizens from violent ones, so that people can be secure in their persons and property.
If a person wants to spend their day stoned, I am sorry for them, I want to help them, but I am not willing to threaten them with being shot or tasered if they will not sober up. If they get behind the wheel of a vehicle, they are committing a criminal act just as if they were driving while drunk or otherwise impaired.
Again, with all due respect, let us conserve the things that should be conserved, and shuck the aspects of “conservatism” that should not be preserved. Our goal must be to preserve liberty, not government! For too many conservatives, government has become a god and the end goal of their political lives. They would ask, “do I hate government”? My answer: only as much as George Washington or George Mason did.
Washington told us that government was a wonderful servant but a horrible master. We have a horrible master today, which is why we are are headed for and Article V convention of the States to clarify and refine the relationship between the people, the States and the federal government.
Well, there is water rationing in some of the WA agricultural areas. Weed doesn’t do well in the rationing process.
Amen!
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.