Posted on 12/22/2009 1:47:42 PM PST by AJKauf
A truly sad story about a 23-year-old Panama City man dying while being subdued by Bay County sheriff’s deputies has reawakened the debate about the legalization of marijuana. On December 11, 2009, Andrew Grande choked on a plastic bag full of marijuana as police attempted to arrest him on a violence charge. A video shows police valiantly trying to save his life once it became apparent that he was having difficulty breathing.
Two talk show hosts in Panama City have been discussing the case in the early morning hours — and revealing a divide on the right. Burnie Thompson of WYOO, the libertarian, has called Grande “a casualty of the war on drugs” and contended that because marijuana is illegal, Grande felt “compelled” to swallow a bag of it to avoid punishment.
Nonsense, says Doc Washburn on station WFLF. He invited former Congressman Ernest Istook from the Heritage Foundation and Tina Trent, who blogs on crime, to speak about the dangers of marijuana to the user and to society. Trent indicated that Grande had faced probably only a misdemeanor charge; she pointed to studies showing that the illegal drug trade flourishes despite the legality of marijuana in certain states and other countries. And legalizing marijuana will remove the freedom employers now have to test for the judgment-impairing drug.
The position on the legalization of marijuana provides the point of departure from the traditional libertarianism of Barry Goldwater. In abandoning the duty to enforce social order, today’s libertarians have made a devil’s pact with the pro-drug forces of George Soros and company.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Do insurance companies do that with people who use alcohol?
They don't go out to eat.
If restaurants nationwide adopted a mandatory drug testing policy, almost every restaurant in America would shut down while they searched for new staff.
Treat it like beer. People are allowed to brew a certain number of gallons a year tax free. Should be able to home grow up to a certain amount tax free as well.
1000's of people a year are killed over drugs. Directly because of drugs. Yes, of course it's called murder. But the motive is drugs.
Just so we're clear: You want to legalize pot, coke, meth, crack, heroine, ecstacy, and all the rest. Right? Because that is what you just said.
So Budweiser and Vodka are the same as crack and meth and cocaine and ecstacy. Legalize them all! Wonderful.
What you people do not see is good old human ingenuity. When weed doesn't work anymore, people invent crack, heroine, meth, etc...
Booze is booze. You cannot make new alcohol products that make you drunker for longer amounts of time. But modern chemisty will keep inventing new narcotics cocktails that cost more and will keep you higher for a longer time.
And if you think all the corner drug dealers will go out and get jobs at Burger King because you make weed legal, then you really got some issues.
Pot should be decriminalized. It’s a plant that grows everywhere.
Or, of course, if you have 6 pounds of it in your car. Then you're a drug dealer and you go to jail.
You get it.
Here is something else that folks should keep in mind. If weed is legalized, regulated, taxed and sold at retail venues, which I believe it will be, people who used to sling weed will not be able to compete with the retail prices. This will force them to sell something else. This creates more competition. In the drug game, you don’t buy out the competition, you rub out the competition.
For those that argue, what about me growing at home? Ok, lets say your plants yield say five hundred dollars of product a piece. You have a grow of hundred plants. Would you agree or disagree that you are now a prime target of burglary or home invasion because of the amount of potential income you have in your house? Sure you got guns and dogs, but an enterprising crook waits till you are gone or unaware and they would come in numbers.
Something to ponder.
A full third of all burglaries I ever wrote were dope dealers who got hosed by customers or competition.
The problem with conservative “drug warriors” is that they don’t have a problem with expanding the size and scope of the Government, particularly at the Federal level, except when that same Government is turned around and used on them.
The correct solution to America’s social ills is to rebuild the Churches and other social institutions (e.g., schools) that can address the problem of improper drug consumption. Unfortunately, most of these social institutions are held in a vice grip by, you guessed it, the Government.
The ‘’employment at will’’ clause always ticked me off whenever I worked for an employer who had this stipulation. I turned the tables on one when given the offer of a better job, I just up an quit. The company HR person wanted to know why I hadn’t given ‘’notice’’. I said ‘’At will works two ways’’.
A person could die from having a five ton crate of marijuana dropped on his head from seven stories as easily, so what?
The "War on Drugs(TM)" has to stop. It causes fifty times more harm than the drugs do.
Alcohol is absorbed/expelled from the body fairly quickly, say 12-24 hours & it is undetectable. Pot, OTOH, collects in body fat & is detectable long (days-weeks) after consumption.
Furthermore, the alcohol test can give a reasonable indication of impairment, but the marijuana tests I am aware of only test for the presence of Pot & not the level of impairment nor whether the pot was smoked today or 2 weeks ago.
IMO, the employer's concern should only be about impairment on the job, not whether an employee uses either drug or any other drugs. All the pot & alcohol testing on the planet will not detect an employee high on numerous other intoxicants. Only thru supervision & familiarity can a boss PROPERLY tell if an employee is impaired & unfit to be at work.
2 short stories:
I shared an office with a guy who kept a pint of whiskey in his desk. He kept a good buzz going all day & apparently management was unaware or they ignored it.
I also shared an office with another guy with severe back pain. One day he took so many pain pills that he passed out at his desk. Feeling bad for him, I transferred his phone to mine so he could sleep.
Neither man should have been at work, but only one of them deserved to be fired, yet they were both “shiite-faced” at work.
If your employee, whom you directly supervise, kills or injures someone while impaired on the job, then I blame YOU just as much as I blame your impaired employee. It is your job to see that your employees are fit to do the job - every day. Only a fool would rely on a drug test to do this. Fitness to do the job is way more than whether the employee likes to smoke pot or use any other tested drug.
As for the Article, the idea, that because George Soros is for decriminalization of marijuana Libertarians should therefore reject it, is ludicrous. I imagine GS likes water, too, but that will never influence my drinking habits. If something is right or wrong, it is irrelevant what personalities support it or reject it.
Libertarians rightly reject the Drug War as a gross intrusion into the privacy of the people. The gov't has NO right to tell you what you can & cannot consume. To believe otherwise is submission to slavery & I hope you like breadfruit. That's not just a Libertarian idea, it is a very Conservative idea.
They results surprised the hell out of me. I am curious as to what someone in law enforcement would think about these results. The full paper on it is here on the CATO website.
Straw-man argument. In no case would companies be 'disallowed' to test for the use of marijuana. Just as companies can require employees to remain sober as a condition for work... the same would/could be instituted for marijuana.
Well if it's legalized, everybody can do that and make $K50/crop and nobody would have to work.
...If you’ll pardon the pun, you got me “hooked”. What is your criteria for someone that is “too high to really understand what is going on”?
No true conservative would ever support the war on drugs ...
Unfortunately many on this site claiming to be "perfect conservatives" are full of themselves ... especially lately ...
The reason for that is because drugs are illegal in the first place ...
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