Posted on 11/11/2015 11:22:02 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
Another day, another controversy. Medical marijuana activists are rightly upset over comments DEA head, Chuck Rosenberg, made to reporters last week.
During a Q&A, he talked about his stance on medical marijuana.
"What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal because it's not. We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don't call it medicine -- that is a joke."
Right, so you want to have an intellectual debate prefaced with medical marijuana is a joke. Want to clarify that bit a more?
"There are pieces of marijuana -- extracts or constituents or component parts -- that have great promise," he said. "But if you talk about smoking the leaf of marijuana -- which is what people are talking about when they talk about medicinal marijuana -- it has never been shown to be safe or effective as a medicine."
I'm with the activists who point to study after study showing it helps with chronic pain, muscle spasms and other ailments. In fact, here's an analysis of 79 studies from JAMA pointing to "moderate-quality evidence to support the use of cannabinoids for the treatment of chronic pain and spasticity."
Damn, here he is making a blanket statement and along comes science...
No. I get the frustrations of medical marijuana activists. They have turned to change.org demanding his resignation. As of today, the petition has gathered nearly 16,000 signatures.
Nothing wrong with voicing frustration at the DEA head, but it's empty. The DEA works like every other agency in the executive branch. It enforces the law. Well, sometimes...
23 states and DC have passed some form of marijuana legalization. Specific medicinal uses all the way to recreational. One problem, none of the state laws trump federal law.
And yes, the DEA is a federal agency. Chuck Rosenberg isn't a fan of marijuana. Even if he was on the side of legalizing it for everyone, he can't do anything. His job is to enforce the law as directed by the President.
Notice the raids have quieted down on dispensaries across the 23 states? Rosenberg may think it's a joke, but the latitude given to the states is telling. Politicians make bombastic statements, but state after state is flipping green.
The FDA is moving to give researchers more room to study the drug. The JAMA study above? 79 studies. That's it. In 2013, 16,000 people overdosed from opioid painkillers. How many died from overdosing on marijuana? Oh right... Zero.
Other studies have shown a decrease in painkiller overdose deaths when medical marijuana was accessible.
It isn't just pain where marijuana plays a significant role. Seizure disorders have been treated with various strains. Who knows what researchers could unlock in the future?
Is it time to open the doors and make it legal? For medicinal use? Definitely. Recreational? Soon, but it needs tight regulation to prevent a wild west of potent strains and no oversight. In Colorado and Washington, the results are still early, but you cannot call it a failure.
Is it a joke? Maybe to Chuck Rosenberg and others. Should he resign or be fired? Of course not.
To the people medical marijuana helps? They aren't laughing. And it's a shame they get targeted. But, the tide is turning. The American people are with them. State governments are increasingly with them. The Federal government? One day you'll wake up to a simple voice vote that finally ends the debate.
Well Ken.....I will tell you that one is a tenth amendment case and the other is not.
Guess which one.
If it’s a drug regulated by the FDA, then it’s legal and regulated.
one is a tenth amendment case and the other is not.
Where in the body of the Constitution is authority over either matter explicitly granted to the federal government?
That would be an improvement over the current status of DEA-banned and therefore unregulated.
Neither does assisted suicide. Are you now on board with that?
Yeah, well my FR friend, Obama care is not a tenth amendment case either, or at least not totally. One aspect is and that is the so called fine/tax.
Taxes must go through congress but originate in the house. As you recall a SCOTUS case was decided that it was a fee.
So that blew the case out of the water. Coincidently they are now back to calling it a tax, (because that is what it is) But that a matter for the chief justice to take to his grave. Forcing people to buy something is indeed not in the federal ball park.
States generally regulate new drugs and do today with these designer things, largely because the distribution is localized initially. If the distribution becomes national, the feds come into the picture.
Marijuana went national a long time ago and there is a large body of law where every legal aspect of this has already been probed. The fed could back out of it but I doubt they would unless it was a dem admin with a bullet proof majority. It would be done only to pander.
You can pretend it’s a 10th amendment case, just like I can pretend the fed taxes are voluntary, but it falls flat in the court of law. ie: it’s not gonna happen unless some president decides to ignore the law and one apparently has.
There is plenty of data that shows long term effects. There is data that says no long term effects. Until all the data is on the side of safety, I don’t see a winning argument at any level.
I have already said that I don’t care much about this. I also told you why I don’t. So until something relevant happens in nonsense, I am done with it.
I thought so, but that not what the user want. They want weed to be as legal as milk.
Neither does assisted suicide. Are you now on board with that?
Going by the World Medical Association definition of "knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs" I believe that should be legal.
So abortion is a right because the courts say so - and for conservatives to argue otherwise is a "pretense"?
That’s the reality.
I’m not saying I like it or agree in principle with anything.
Here’s what I think....
One of the requirements to be a Conservative, (and it’s not a litmus test) is to be a thinking human being.
Realities, right, wrong or indifferent, are the current reality we deal with day to day.
I am 65 years old, and there are a lot of things that we as a society must deal with and don’t always deal with correctly or fairly.
To give you a recent example, I am currently as I type, listening to a I-Heart radio station in Louisiana as I am following the Vitter/Edwards race and they have Limbaugh on right now. The news at the break spoke about a young man who was arrested last weekend, I did not catch the reason but that not what cracked me up about the story.
The young mans father is trying mightily to bail him out, and the State has forbid him to do so, at least until now...
That’s a pretty bad deal right, as the court has set the bail and yet the boys father can’t bail him out..
The reason is that Louisiana has a law that forbids attorneys from bailing out suspects.
The Boys father is a attorney!
I laughed for a 5 minutes on that one and I’m still grinning.
Realities are very frequently absurd.
Coloradans running about with joints hanging out of their mouths is absurd.
Californians going to a MJ doctor for a prescription so he can get high and share it with his buds is absurd.
Young people going to prison for 3-5 years for selling weed is absurd.
Forcing people to buy medical insurance is absurd.
Killing babies in the womb is absurd.
Preparing for flooded coastal areas and spending billions to eliminate CO2, due to global warming is absurd.
Life is full of absurdities, oddities, and senseless things of all kinds. Some of them we can and should deal with, but the reasons it is never dealt with are generally political and even that is absurd.
So abortion is a right because the courts say so - and for conservatives to argue otherwise is a "pretense"?
That's the reality.
I'm not saying I like it or agree in principle with anything.
Will you say you dislike that the federal government has - with court acquiescence - exercised authority over intrastate pot policy contrary to the language of the Constitution?
Okay, then. At least you are consistent, although I disagree with your position.
We are talking past each other here.
Let me try one more time in a way you might understand regarding the Tenth amendment.
The 10th simply says (paraphrasing) that all things not specifically mentioned in this document are the purview of the States.
What that means is that initially, the 10th limits government to those things mentioned, but we also find in the document the creation of legislative branch and the other two branches. We set up the House of representatives to be a direct representation of the people of a State, and Senators were to be appointed by the State legislature making them representatives of the state government who is representing the people of a State.
When the people of a State through their representatives create a new law, the Supreme court recognizes that law as a legitimate request of the people. Therefore it supersedes the 10Th amendment language. While the law it’s self could be viewed as unconstitutional for other reasons mentioned in the Constitution, it does not violate the 10th.
10th amendment arguments, therefore, are not always successful. and they generally fail if the Congress has either participated in making the law, or ceded that responsibility to a government agency. The court recognizes that Congress did this, and that congress is a representative of the people, therefore the people approved it and it’s constitutional, assuming it passes all other constitutional tests whatever they are.
That’s how it works, and why Marijuana is illegal or any other substance that the government justifies as harmful, dangerous or whatever..
It’s why the 10th amendment arguments are often mute and without standing in a court of law, particularly the supreme court.
In a second amendment argument, where congress has acted to restrict guns, the 10th also does not apply but 2nd does...for example...
That’s how we do things...not saying it’s right in all cases,,
The Ceding of power and responsibility by Congress in some cases is difficult to justify, but if they don’t act for whatever reason and a case ends up in SCOTUS, then whatever the 9 robes decide, we generally must live with as our representation has failed to deal with it.
It’s not rocket science...and yes, it’s all a mess that has existed over a long period of time. One can pick it apart and then say it violated the 10th, but if you defend on those grounds, and congress is involved or was silent, SCOTUS becomes the arbiter. And you can plainly see what the result is.
From George Washington's Farewell Address
"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield. "
If all that is necessary for the federal government to assume and exercise a power is for Congress to pass a law and delegate the exercise of that power, what is the purpose of the process of amendment?
You know the answer to that.
Amendments clarify and guide the Fed gov. They are essentially a restriction or negative right, as some call it.
For example...If you were to submit to congress a grievance through your representative that tells Congress that it no longer has any power over government agencies, ie: creation and oversight. And the people approve that, then that's what happens.
So agencies then would be the sole responsibility of the executive branch and oversight would be from the courts.
Just a stupid example for you.
Currently, Congress is the only branch with oversight of fed agencies.
To change how MJ is handled and viewed by the agencies of government you must petition congress to reset the way in which agencies deal with it, and do this through their oversight responsibility. This could happen if, there is strong enough group of people with enough political power to make this happen.
I would think it unlikely, as Congress pretty much punts the ball to the agencies, but anything is possible.
"The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments. "
That would imply a premise that the federal government is granted all powers not explicitly denied to it in the Constitution, and that is dead nuts wrong.
Something I seem to be having difficulty explaining to you, or you simply don’t want to understand it.
Congress is you.
All power is given to congress by you.
The 10th amendment does not restrict Congress from making law, or creating agencies to enforce it. Ceding responsibility is also in their ability to do, either through action or inaction.
If the 10th restricted Congress in the way you apparently think it does, then congress would be no more than a social club, with a bar. “how ya doin Ohio!, fine said Nebraska, How’s the kids...”
In other words, they would be useless...
Now you are jumping into the Commerce language...
If you want to challenge that, then you had better have a case that you will eventually take to SCOTUS where you will likely lose.
But you have every right to try.
Have at it...But I think it’s already been done..or tried. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t have access to case law going back decades. if I was a lawyer, I would start with that.
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