Posted on 04/04/2003 8:18:29 AM PST by Wolfie
GOP Leaders Press Ehrlich To Veto Medical Marijuana
The Bush administration and other top national Republicans are heavily pressuring Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to veto a proposal that would drastically reduce penalties for terminally ill patients who smoke marijuana to ease pain.
In recent days, several Republican officials have urged Ehrlich to reconsider his longtime support of medical marijuana, which has become one of the few issues that divide the state GOP.
Rest of article here.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunspot.net ...
Hang tough against the Lie Brigade, governor!
"We stand in the city that I believe has suffered more from drug abuse and addiction than any city in the United States," Walters said while attending a drug-prevention conference downtown. "It is an outrage that, in this state, the legalizers would come here to try to put additional people in harm's way."
Marijuana is less addictive than alcohol---or even caffeine.
If Maryland doesn't wait, Walters said, it could face lawsuits from those injured by marijuana, such as victims of car accidents caused by users of the drug.
Obvious rubbish---not even distillers have been successfully sued for DUI accidents, much less the makers of incapacitating medicines.
Shame on them. This sort of thing is the reason I must hold my nose every time I pull the lever to vote Republican.
On the cannabis issue, the GOP has been hijacked by extremists---much like the Dems have been hijacked by extremists on many issues. Political success does not lie that way.
Another paper is the Chicago Tribune.
Agreed. The fear of cannabis bugs me to no end. But the Dems are no better. The one thing I thought we'd get from Bill Clinton he didn't bother to do. Good think I never voted for him.
A letter to the editor I sent last October:
The ballot that voters will use in next month’s election will list only Republican and Democratic candidates for many public offices. Several other races, however, will offer voters the opportunity to choose a “third-party” candidate. These candidates, although sometimes propelled by nothing more than vanity, more typically campaign as the only genuine alternative to major-party contestants who have few meaningful differences between them.
Many voters agree about the deficiencies of the Republican and Democratic offerings, but nonetheless reject the idea of choosing a third-party candidate as “throwing away their vote.” A third-party vote, in this view, is wasted on a challenger who has no realistic chance of winning---while that vote is denied to the “lesser of two evils” major-party contender, thus making likelier the victory of the least-favored candidate. This view is seriously misguided.
In voting districts that, at their smallest, include tens of thousands of voters, statistics dictate that it is extremely unlikely for any race to be decided by a single vote (and for a statewide race, this possibility can be completely ignored). So each voter must realize that their vote will not by itself tip the scales.
A common response to this point is, “What if everybody voted that way?” The implication of that question is that third-party voting can, in the aggregate, swing the election to the least-favored candidate. However, the question has a straightforward, and obvious, answer. In these times of increasing dissatisfaction with political “business as usual,” if everybody voted for the candidate whose platform they most believed in, the stranglehold of the major parties would be broken and the victory of third-party challengers would become a real possibility---as it became reality in Minnesota when Jesse Ventura was elected governor.
Is this a likely outcome in the short term? Perhaps not. But until that day comes, the only practical significance of one’s vote is to send a message---to the eventual winner, to that candidate’s party, and to all those who may seek that office in the future. What message do you want to send?
Related Publications in the LAT/WP vs Free Republic Settlement Agreement
Damn straight. It's not enough that these people are dying, and are in pain. We need to incarcerate them, and take their money too. That will teach them. < /sarcasm>
Once again, never in the history of human civilization has the policy of prohibition been effective. In this case, it appears the reluctance to aid and assist with pain management is based in superstition, and obstination than any resembelance of fact. Using this same logic, let's remove Morphine and the entire family of Opiates from the MD's pain management arsinal, as these may also be addictive, and 'bad people' use them.
The only difference is that the opiates are a product of Big Pharmaceuticals, while marijuana is a plant. Hmmmm ....
Even the straight kind?
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