Then, at the end of the day, our legislatures sit back with a stiff scotch and water to toast their accomplishments of how safe they've made the American people.
Hypocrites.
Well said. Drug addiction is the work of Satan & at it’s root is spiritual warfare. The last thing the U.S. needs is to condone more evil.
ML/NJ
“Is our country going to be less dysfunctional and less dependent on big government if the states decide how to control addictive street drugs?”
Errr...uh...hmmm...yes.
A Federal Ban on Marijuana? That’s not law. No matter how pat the argument, well-dressed the arguer, well-beroped the Judge, or how well-armed and numerous the police.
Why? Well ...
Only trouble is gee whiz ... NOTHING in something known as the Constitution of the United States of American as ratified into law on 21 June 1788, and as afterwards amended gives the Federal Government any such authority.
Moreover the necessity of the 18th Amendment (since repealed by the 21st Amendment to giving the Federal Government the authority to ban alcohol is itself a mighty REAFFIRMATION AGAINST any Federal Authority to ban a item of trade.
Why would we want that?
I don't want fellow employees legally stoned so they can jeopardize workplace safety and the performance of the company.
We also don't need more parents stoned so they cannot take care of their children.
Children don't need the OK of the government to go ahead and begin using drugs by following the example of their own legally-stoned parents.
How could it not be?
Maybe Dr. Ron Paul could also enlighten everyone as an obstetrician on the dangers marijuana presents to the reproductive system during pregnancy.
He could cite a history of more than 2,000 year's use to ease labor.
Legalization on dope won’t make the dopers happy. They will find that employers can still randomly drug test them and fire them for what they do in their off hours?
Why? Because they did NOTHING to fight the demonization of tobacco and alcohol and in fact cheered it on. There are employers that prohibit tobacco use by ALL employees even when not at work.
You have age and place restrictions on alcohol and tobacco use and even restrictions on which days of the week and what hours you may buy it.
The ATF is a tax enforcement agency and will be just as likely to barge into homes of pot growers who still want to grow at home rather than pay through the nose on sin taxes for government regulated pot.
What a non-issue this should be for 2012 but it’s sidetracking all discussion of the real problems this nation faces.
No one starts from the right place on these arguments.
Start with the right of people to live in freedom, despite the fact that freedom is messy. If you want to outlaw the possession of a wild-growing plant, how can you argue that possessing a gun should be legal? Because some piece of paper says so. That piece of paper can be amended.
That’s why in America the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. At least, that’s how we once thought about such things, before some us decided we should run other people’s lives.
There will always be some people who will use substances, guns, vehicles, tools, etc. in an irresponsible manner. That fact is not grounds for making the said substances, guns, vehicles, tools, etc. illegal to possess or use. In a free society that fact is ground for setting boundaries for the responsible use of said articles, and penalties for their misuse. Said boundaries are set due to the concept of “My right to swing my fist stops at your nose.”
You are free to have your drink. You are not free to drive drunk. You should be free to possess pot or any other drug.
You should not be free to drive stoned, or operate machinery, etc. while impaired on ANY substance, just as you have a right to a gun, but not to shoot it at signs along the roadway, or within ncity linits, etc.
Some so-called conservatives have a need to control others’ behavior for their “own good” and/or the “common good”.
Some so-called conservatives are nothing of the kind. And Carry Nation was no conservative. She was a busybody liberal determined to run the lives of others.
Contary to the dominant narrative, the War on Drugs is a great success - it has kept the retail price of drugs high, and thus allowed the entire criminal distribution chain to be adequately paid including the various police authorities who are supposedly curtailing this business.
As is well known, regulatory authority is always employed to increase the margins of established interests and to raise market entry costs for new competition. This is the bedrock of crony capitalism, which replaced the free market about a century ago.
If the War on Drugs were not serving that established interest, it would have been strangled years ago. There is nothing new under the sun.