SMOKE TOBACCO - BAD
Posted on 06/25/2011 1:50:46 AM PDT by danielmryan
The federal war on drugs is coming under attack from multiple angles, most recently with the introduction of a bill in Congress by conservative Rep. Ron Paul and liberal Rep. Barney Frank that would end the national prohibition on marijuana and allow states to set their own policies.
The “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011,” or HR 2306, would not “legalize” marijuana. If passed, the legislation would simply remove the plant from the federal list of “controlled substances.” States would then be free to regulate, tax, or prohibit it without U.S. government interference.
One of the important issues the bill would remedy is an ongoing conflict between federal authorities and numerous states that have nullified U.S. statutes by decriminalizing the possession of marijuana or legalizing it for medicinal purposes.
The legal medical-marijuana industry has flourished in over a dozen states in recent years in spite of the federal prohibition. But despite promising not to squander taxpayer money pursuing the issue, the Obama administration has actually increased federal bullying of state officials and the industry as a whole.
The new legislation, said to be the first of its kind introduced in Congress, also touches on several important questions beyond whether or not marijuana should be criminalized. And it puts conservatives in Congress who support federal drug prohibition while claiming to support the Constitution in an awkward position.
As opponents of the federal drug war point out, the U.S. government does not have any authority under the Constitution to ban substances, harmful or otherwise. That’s why alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment. So, under the Tenth Amendment, regulation of drugs necessarily falls under the purview of the states or the people.
But beyond the obvious constitutional problems with the federal war, supporters of the new legislation also argue that the policies have been an expensive failure with atrocious consequences.
“The war against marijuana causes so much hardship and accomplishes nothing,” Rep. Paul said during an interview about the proposal, noting that marijuana is helpful to many cancer patients. “We knew prohibition of alcohol was very bad, so this is just getting back to a sensible position on how we handle difficult problems.”
The 2012 GOP presidential candidate also said a trillion dollars had already been spent to fight the war on drugs. “And it’s a catastrophe, just as prohibition of alcohol was a catastrophe,” he explained. “Kids today have an easier time finding marijuana than they can alcohol.”
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who introduced the bill with Paul, also blasted federal policies on the substance. "Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom," he told reporters.
"I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana. Neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco,” Frank added. “But in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.”
Introduced on June 23, the bill has already attracted several cosponsors including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.). “The human cost of the failed drug war has been enormous — egregious racial disparities, shattered families, poverty, public health crises, prohibition-related violence, and the erosion of civil liberties,” said cosponsor Rep. Lee of California, a state that has already used nullification to legalize medical marijuana. And outside of Congress, a broad coalition of supporters is also rallying around the bill.
“I don't have to tell you how historic and important this bill has the potential to be,” said executive director Neill Franklin of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of current and former law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges that advocates ending drug prohibition. In a message urging people to contact their congressional representatives in support of the bill, Franklin noted that, among other benefits, the legislation would free up law enforcers to “focus on solving violent crime rather than wasting their time on nonviolent marijuana offenses.”
The Marijuana Policy Project also encouraged Americans to support the bill and urge their Representatives to do so as well. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on marijuana prohibition over the past forty years. And for what? Usage rates don't change. The price of marijuana doesn't change,” the organization said. “All prohibition has done is ensure that profits have remained underground while marijuana itself has been unregulated and less safe.”
But several opponents of the bill — particularly among government officials and others dependent on the federal drug war for employment — are lining up to attack it. The Office of National Drug Control Policy, for example, issued a statement blasting the proposal. “Legalization remains a nonstarter in the Obama administration,” it said, despite the fact that the President himself publicly admitted to smoking and inhaling marijuana “frequently.”
Similarly, Chairman Lamar Smith of the House Judiciary Committee said he would not even consider the proposal. Rep. Smith’s refusal to address the legislation could prevent it from coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives.
But despite opposition, pressure is building nationwide to address the problems caused by the federal war on drugs. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, for example, recently adopted a resolution unanimously blasting the war as a “failure.”
Especially troublesome, the resolution noted, is the fact that the United States imprisons more people per capita than any other nation in the world — with just five percent of the global population, American prisons house a full 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The majority of them are in jail for non-violent drug offenses.
Earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, consisting of prominent world leaders, outlined the failure of the global drug war and called for an end to prohibition. The worldwide anti-drug regime, including the 40-year-old “War on Drugs” in America, was originally sparked by the UN “Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” treaty forcing governments to ban drugs.
Of course, many countries around the world have defied the UN drug treaty and approached the problem of substance abuse from other angles. Portugal and the Czech Republic, for instance, have both legalized all drugs. And studies show that the efforts have actually decreased problems such as addiction and use of drugs among minors — not to mention crime.
As The New American reported earlier this year, a coalition of top officials and lawmakers in the U.K. is also seeking to decriminalize drugs and treat the problem as a public health concern instead of a criminal matter. Around the world, the trend is similar.
The Associated Press predicted that the Paul-Frank bill to end the federal war on marijuana has “no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House.” But supporters of the legislation expect that it will — at the very least — spark a much-needed public debate about the issue.
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who introduced the bill with Paul, also blasted federal policies on the substance. “Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom,” he told reporters.
“I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana. Neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco,” Frank added. “But in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.”
Exactly right.
Translation: "If they ever legalize pot, I'm out of a job!"
Legalize ALL drugs.
Canadian law illegalizes the same substances that U.S. law does, but there’s little to no overkill in Canada. That’s because there’s been no erosion of civil liberties in Canada.
The cops searched my truck, searched my wifes purse, kept me there two hours trying to find something in my drivers log to ticket me for and could find nothing.
The Canadian drivers would come in and all kinds of things were found wrong in their drivers logs but all they did was to lick the boots of the cops and then be on their way with a little scolding like they were little kids.
My last time in Canada.
“With the growth of Federal laws and regulations, we will simply have more criminals.”
As intended.
“Ron Paul is a NUT! This “law” would prove destructive to the very moral fabric of the nation and would result in the destruction of multitudes of lives and untold misery resulting in further lawlessness, wickedness and ungodliness”
Civilization is under threat not from pot smoking, but from a proliferating police state.
The vast majority of libertarians do NOT want marijuana available to children or child rape. They want the Government out of *adult’s* business.
I have no idea what the average libertarians want with the borders, but I do know that abolishing welfare, ending the practice of ‘anchor babies’, and stopping the war on drugs will go a long way to stop illegals from coming here.
Don’t forget that the War on Drugs has become a War on Chronic Pain sufferers.
You cannot allow pain sufferers access to pain medications without some of it falling into the hands of addicts. So what happens is that nobody gets relief.
Is Sarah Palin a ‘nut’, too?
***************
“If somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society.”
Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin: Smoking Pot Is No Big Deal
Sarah Palin says recreational pot smoking is “relatively speaking a minimal problem” in America.
In an otherwise uneventful appearance on the Fox Business Network with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, Palin said that while she doesn’t believe marijuana should be legalized, the country has bigger fish to fry.
“I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts,” she said. “If somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society.”
Allen St. Pierre, the director of NORML, which supports liberalizing drug laws, said Palin’s position on pot is perfectly in line with her identity as a politician.
“If you’re a populist as she appears to be, it’s maybe not that surprising,” he told AOL News in a phone interview today.
But has the former Republican vice presidential candidate ever lit up a joint?
You betcha. In Alaska, it was legal to smoke small amounts of marijuana until four years ago, and Palin has said that she’s tried it but didn’t like it.
“I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled,” she told the Anchorage Daily News in 2006.
Will be hard to legalize any kind of dope. It would put all the drug dealers and three fourths of the cops out of jobs. Big crimp in the prison industry, rehabilitation clinics, local government budgets, etc.
Have a little mercy, jackbooted thugs got to live too.
I think legalizing this particular drug would benefit the country in many ways. Taxation, freeing up courts, etc
It has little more effect on someone than alcohol.
I am not in favor of harder drugs, but this one can be regulated like cigarettes with sales to minors with safety.
It will also take away billions of dollars in drug cartel activities. Stemming the flow of violence all along the boarder.
SMOKE TOBACCO - BAD
what a ridiculous statement
Have a little mercy, jackbooted thugs got to live too.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Can you even begin to imagine how many people would be out of prison if marijuana were legal? Heck, if the WoD were ended half of our crime would disappear.
Then, maybe, cops could focus their energy on actual crimes like rape and burglary. I wish that there was as much energy focused on internet child predators as there is on the WoD.
Any poster decrying the effect of pot on the “moral fabric” of our nation must first consider the effect on the moral fabric when government proceeds to clearly exceed its enumerated powers.
The “moral fabric” is degraded every single time government tramples on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. What signal do we send to young people when we teach them the Constitution but they are increasingly unable to reconcile what government allows itself to do with the plain words of the text.
It says that government is corrupt and what it says has nothing to do with morality. In may cases, such as federal drug laws, those laws themselves have no basis in the enumerated powers.
The various States do have police powers according to their own Constitutions. However, when some of them legalize pot and the federal government then almost gives them a pass, what message is sent? That the law is pliable and subjective.
Corrupting the rule of law is a far greater sin because it affects everyone, including Turbo-Tax Timmy. Pot only affects those who want to get stoned to such an extent that they ruin their lives.
It’s possible Jmouse007 forgot the /s tag.
As a former user, would like to see the day when we might partake of this substance in small quantity in our own homes without breaking the law. They talk about how the substance causes paranoia. Maybe the prospect of prosecution has something to do with that. There is much political common ground to be gained if the drug war types would give up their penchant for control over other people’s lives. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to hanker for smaller government and a war on drugs at the same time?
I think a lot of people mischaracterize libertarians with libertines or anarchists. Most libertarians I know believe there is a role for the government to protect our civil liberties and defend the nation against military attacks.
For me, I think that if a law lacks is so cavalierly broken and commands as little respect as it does, we should evaluate whether the law is proper. The amount of people I know who smoke shows to me that even though it is against the law, no one really respects the law.
In my case, I am against Interstates having a speed limit. If the thought is “as long as Im only 5 or 10 over the limit, the cop wont stop me” then what is the effect of having the limit?
I dont think opening the border or abolishing citizenship is in keeping with the role of government protecting the rights of the citizens, so I dont fall into that camp.
And we dont have a national age of consent law. Each state has its own laws, and some of the more conservative states like Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina have the lowest age, of 16. I wouldnt call those states “libertarian.”
YES. Social conservatives are all about personal responsibility and liberty until it comes to behavior that *they* don't approve of. They don't understand that liberals do the exact same thing. (gun control laws, spanking, how much water is in your toilet, what kind of light bulbs you can use)
If we're going to have true liberty, we need to have liberty for all.
WITH THAT SAID, we also have to take away the social 'safety net' that encourages self-destructive behavior. As long as we have *that*, people will continue to fail in large numbers.
And one more thing: I am not and never have been a user of marijuana.
I hate the WoD because it’s expensive and it kills our civil liberties.
I hate the WoD because it reaches into doctor’s offices and causes people with severe, chronic pain to suffer. (me!)
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