Posted on 08/13/2014 11:13:55 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
A few decades ago, marijuana was a topic that relatively few people, mostly counterculture musicians and comedians, spoke about in public. The comedy team of Cheech and Chong made films such as "Up in Smoke" that extolled the pleasures of smoking pot at a time the subject was still taboo.
"When trouble times begin to bother me," they sang, "I take a toke and all my cares go up in smoke." On the fringes of American society, it was usually possible to find activists who wanted to legalize it, as the reggae artist Peter Tosh famously sang. Efforts to legalize the substance in the mid-1970s failed.
Now marijuana has gone mainstream. Twenty three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. Colorado and Washington have legalized pot for recreational use. The media has featured lively debate over the issue.
Joining other media outlets that have run articles supporting this cause, The New York Times editorial page published a number of high-profile pieces that call for making pot legal at the national level and outline specific steps that should be taken to ensure that the industry evolves in a safe manner.
How did we reach this point? How have we come to the brink of ending the national prohibition against a drug that has been roundly condemned for years as a grave danger to health and a gateway to drugs that can be devastating over time?
Here are eight reasons: [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
You are right if you stop there. We would live in a very different American all right. We would have 100 million more dead people and our country would be ran by a Dictator.
How do I know this? Because that is exactly what happened in China when THEY didn't fight a drug war.
I am so tired of listening to IGNORANT people who believe we would be better off if poison was killing an ever increasing quantity of people every year.
You simply have a naive and childish view of what would happen if drugs were legalized. It is completely disputed by the available history on the subject.
I know quite a few people who died from illegal drugs, and apparently you don't. Anyone that has seen lives destroyed would know better than having such a childish idea.
People who advocate drug usage hurts Free Republic. I wish they weren’t allowed here, but it isn’t my call.
I agree. Besides the overall libertrarian/anti-conservative image of FR these pro-dopers get away with, it also hurts FR in the pocketbook.
I know MY contrubution to FR would be more if JR took out the trash more often.
Other drugs probably yes. Age of consent probably not. I’ve never seen a libertarian complain about that. Only complaints I’ve seen have to do with how adulthood phases in: 16 to drive, 18 to sign contracts and join the military, 21 to drink. Which is valid, multiple ages don’t make any sense, and if we must backload joining the military should be last, just because should be allowed to enjoy every other aspect of adulthood. Not really sure anybody could make the case that age restrictions are unconstitutional. Since the presidency is age restricted in the Constitution you can make a pretty solid case that restrictions are implicitly allowed.
But I have a question for supporters of the Controlled Substances Act (1970): If Congress and the People in 1917 realized that the Constitution had to be amended to grant Congress power over alcohol usage in the States, what changed to give Congress the identical power over drugs in 1970?
You need to be stoned for constantly bringing up this same worn out topic.
The other pot head with whom I've been arguing with for six years WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT EITHER!
There are people being murdered in Iraq, there are riots in Missouri, we've got the stupidest person in charge of the country at the most dangerous time in the last 50 years, we got Transgender Transvestites prancing out of the closet demanding recognition and Iranian centrifuges cooking up destruction, and all you stupid stoners can talk about is how all our problems would get better if we just made it easier for people to get high.
You are like a jackass on the Titanic arguing about the position of the deck chairs while the rest of us are trying to figure out how to survive. The only F**ing thing you care about is those D*** Deck Chairs, and everyone else would like to pitch you over the side for not shutting up about it.
Find something more important to talk about!
China wasn't a republic. Your argument carries an implicit assertion that if the federal government doesn't do it, it can't and won't be done.
That mindset is what's allowed powers properly reserved to the States in the Constitution to be usurped by the federal government and handed over to beltway bureaucrats.
Stop it.
I fought the law and the law won!
Oh, I expect normal people to not know about Wickard, but as far as the pot heads are concerned, "Wickard" is part of the Gospel of the Green Weed.
Discostu is about the first stoner I ever saw that didn't know about Wickard. Most of them beat it to death.
As far as i'm concerned, Drug interdiction falls under the defense clause, not commerce.
Wrong. The drug war itself is what has made drugs so rampant in the society, and has caused the police in a democratic Republic to metamorphose into storm troopers and SEAL wannabes AND has injected a heretofore unknown level of corruption into the government and the society. You like the idea of the Total State? It is coming pretty fast and DEA and AFT in its drug enforcement responsibilities have hastened it mightily. I suppose a theoretical drug free totalitarian state is preferable to you over one with some drugged out zombies in the corners. But, alas, your totally controlled state will not be drug free. Usage will be pretty heavy as alcohol use was in the USSR.
“multiple ages don’t make any sense”
yes they do make sense in many cases
Can you producing anything supporting that as being "original intent", or is that from somewhere out there in penumbra and emanation land?
I'm not a stoner (nor stupid).
can talk about is how all our problems would get better if we just made it easier for people to get high.
Wrong: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:conservingfreedom/index?tab=articles
I don’t think any of us are advocating for drug usage. We’re advocating to end a war on the Bill of Rights. The simple fact is the WOD has shredded basic liberty in this country. Thanks to the WOD if you have a coffee maker in your house and allergy medicine you have a drug lab. Sounds crazy right, but all you need to be a drug lab is a beaker, a heat source, filters, and a starter. Basic drip coffee maker and some sudafed. That’s just plain wrong, that’s not how things should work in a free country.
Add no knock raids, often to the wrong address. Militarized police. “Probably cause”. The Omni law. The simple fact of the matter is that at this point in American history the WOD is much more of a threat than drugs ever could be. Which isn’t saying drugs are good, or people should do them. It’s saying that unrestricted federal power is BAD, and the WOD (and now WOT) has been a massive lever for dramatically increasing federal power.
” And that is about as much of this crap as I can put up with for one day”
Same here. Take care
His best argument is to accuse his opponent of being stoned. It’s quite a laugh to see him accuse others of posting only on this subject when it seems to be a major preoccupation of his. lol
Believe it or not, my county's sheriff was quoted about a year ago in a local morning paper that the "suspect" in question was all "hopped up on Marijuana". I blew coffee out my nose in laughter when I read that one. Not a fan of legalization, but I wonder how much of the mania around MJ is perpetuated by certain dupes in law enforcement.
No they don’t. Just think it through. Why is it you can:
have sex
get married
drive a car
join the military
buy a house
All without being able to drink. That’s really the dumb one. Drinking age of 21 is stupid. You’re legally an adult at 18, that should include drinking. I can kind of make an argument for some stuff being before 18, but there are no valid arguments for stuff after 18. And I think that has a lot to do with delayed maturity in this country, we keep finding ways to tell people “nope you’re not an adult yet”, and then wonder why they don’t act like adults.
On the other hand there are lot of those on the internet who are attempting to refute recent studies on the negative impacts of marijuana by siting studies done in 1971.
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