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.
Agreed.
So you think you can convince these people, a majority of them to turn any clock back and make it harder?
Our best hope may lie in the apathy of the leeches.
Synthetic or natural substance abuse is a real issue nationally. Generally speaking the State takes the lead in regulating and law enforcement. This is federalism, this is good...It should be the way most all of this is handled..however there is a “but” in this situation.
Common sense tells me that many of these illicit substances are imported and often by international crime syndicates so that brings in the national enforcement operations, ie: the Fed.
Decades ago when The Fed gov decided to ban alcohol consumption nationally, they had to increase the size of their enforcement arm to enforce the law. Later when alcohol was reinstated the Federal gov taxed the heck out of it, and assumed responsibility for tax enforcement but this time just for the tax reasons (commonly called revenuers in the south
Fans of legalized marijuana seem to think that making it legal will keep the fed out of it, but that’s just not true..The state will obviously carry the biggest load, but the feds are going to want their cut and you will most certainly have Feds enforcing tax laws just as they do on alcohol.
So that’s the historical and present reality.
It’s a lot more than a tenth amendment argument. The Constitution gives congress the right to tax, and that comes with enforcement.
The constitution also gives congress under article 1, the power to make law for the general welfare of the country.
While I would love to see the government reduced in size to the point of having congress meet twice a year or less, we all know that governments’ never get smaller on their own and our representatives will not do it in spite of our urging because they have a vested interest in it. They don’t appreciate term limits for the same reasons and just give us lip service on the issue...just enough to pacify the rabble. That same rabble keeps re-electing them. It’s a fact.
The reason I say that the government would need to be dismantled to get back to federalism is because it will never be able to accept reduction in size unless it can no longer take from the economy or borrow and it has to downsize because it can no longer function.
For that to occur, government would by definition be dismantled. It would die. But if you feed it again it will take whatever you give it. It knows no other way. It has create a self fulfilling growth program and like a computer on a machine it will run automatically until it’s shut down or runs out of input product.
I know it’s difficult to accept, but I’ve been watching this stuff for a long time. Each successive generation comes to age and thinks they can fix it.
By the time they are my age, they have figured out that it’s fruitless to think it can be reversed, and at best you can only slow it down, or kill it...
That’s what I meant, if that helps.
And over imports the feds do have Constitutional authority - but not over pot grown, transferred, and consumed without ever leaving its state of origin.
Fans of legalized marijuana seem to think that making it legal will keep the fed out of it, but that's just not true..The state will obviously carry the biggest load, but the feds are going to want their cut and you will most certainly have Feds enforcing tax laws just as they do on alcohol.
I don't know any legalization supporters who say the feds won't tax it.
The constitution also gives congress under article 1, the power to make law for the general welfare of the country.
No, it gives power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises" in order to provide for a "general welfare" that the rest of Section 8 goes on to enumerate and thereby limit in scope. 'Father of the Constitution' James Madison addresses the misinterpretation you advance and debunks it with scathing decisiveness in Federalist 41.
Well take federalist 41 to the houses of congress and the SCOTUS and tell them, not ME!
Congress blew through that opinion nearly as fast as the first dollar was went into the treasury. That’s how far back you have to go.
I have already been through this shit.
Why don’t you get into your time machine, and go back the 1st day of the House of representatives, and ride herd on them, correcting them as they develop the customs and interpretations and 250 years body of law and precedents that are used today to justify what they do with the approval of SCOTUS who has done the same thing.
Call me or ping me when you get it fixed.
I have already made my opinion as to how to fix this in multiple posts on this thread.
In short and to repeat myself again, You have to kill it to fix it.
You make incorrect claims about the Constitution on FR, you'll get called on it.
Congress blew through that opinion nearly as fast as the first dollar was went into the treasury. That's how far back you have to go.
I have already been through this shit.
As close as you got to "evidence" for your claim above was a probably-fabricated statement from someone not a member of the first Congress.
Something else here that you paleo’s or whatever you self identify as never acknowledge.
Madison was engaged in a argument, so there are at least two sides to it.
In any argument there is a winner and a loser.
Madison obviously lost that argument.
If he had won it, we would still see Federalism in our government and we would not see constant attempts, many successful to destroy it.
We would have hundreds of amendments and not less than 30.
That argument was lost, probably in 1788.
It’s utterly foolish to believe for a single second that you can change that after 250 years by bitching about it as did Madison at the founding..at day 1.
Sure, I would like to see a return to Federalism. Not convinced how you could possibly do that by argument. As I have tried to explain, I believe that one day will come a opportunity to rebuild from scratch. It would be only a small community of people, perhaps as small as the original population...I don’t know how many will survive the starvation, disease and chaotic violence.
I expect the global populations to be reduced by more than half.
If you live through it, you may get your chance to remake it. (The Fed Gov) but make damn sure you burn every piece of paper that comprised the body of law and congressional record that we work from today. Destroy it all.
I’ll be long gone, but that will be the only chance you will get to fix it.
Did he?
He warned us what would happen if we abandoned those fundamental principles, and it sure looks to me like he had it right.
Non sequitur.
We would have hundreds of amendments and not less than 30.
Supposing that's true - so what?
I need no evidence for my opinion. I have history and I have my own eyes and ears. I have today's reality.
Your counter argument falls just as flat as Madisons. You don't even have proof that Federalism as you would have it, ever worked, because you can plainly see that it was never really tried. They abused the Constitution from the start!
The reasons are pretty simple. They had to get everyone on board and accepting of what they had created...
As with any deal made between parties with different opinions, each of the parties agreed to it but like Congress, they made reservations and believed that they could correct it later.
That correction process began almost immediately with different interpretations...and it continues today.
Guess what? That's politics. I can explain how the Constitution was bastardized, but I cannot think of a single way to reverse a process that has gone on for two, going on three centuries.
One interesting anecdote that is fairly new, is the European Union. There you have several small countries, some of them no bigger than some of our States who are now trying a European form of federalism. The trouble they are having is that there is too much water under the bridge regarding their interlocking histories, much longer that ours.
But it's yet another aspect of the impossibility one would face if one would seriously try to reverse 250 years of government.
So my statement is quite true about the general welfare wording...Both Congress and the SCOTUS use it to justify this or that, plus a bevy of other little bastardizations created over the last 200+ years.
Oh.....but that's a violation of the 10th amendment!
It's pitiful, historically speaking, but you cannot change it. For me to say it is so now, is correct. For you to say it was so then, is correct. It depends on what perspective of time you have. Therefore I will not accept your criticism. Not now, not tomorrow, or ever..
So you keep claiming - while refusing to provide evidence. Your unsupported claims are worth every penny I paid for them.
Yes....he did..
As president, he would have the power to direct agencies to essentially leave it alone federally. But Ted’s a bit different then Obama.
In the case of laws enacted by congress, should there be one or two that might interfere with the States in this narrow topic of Marijuana, I don’t believe that Ted would do it in the way Obama has by ignoring Fed law. Ted would use his legitimate powers but not usurp the powers of Congress.
If necessary, the way this is supposed to work is that the Executive branch would work with congress to get a minor revision done on the language.
There is more than enough evidence that Congress spent money from the treasury for the aid and comfort of citizens and for other purposes. They began making law and ignoring the 10th nearly immediately.
That evidence exists in the congressional record and much more. I don’t have it at my fingertips...one certainly could research it. Much research has been done, but not for that particular question, that I am aware of.
In any case I am not going to do the research.
I don’t care to win this argument.
It is patently obvious that Congress never took much of the Constitution seriously except in rhetoric, and like all of government, saw it as hindrances.
If they had taken it seriously, we would not be where we are today. These violations are not all recent. There never was a purist time of American governance.. It’s a myth.
Off topic!
Check out whats going on in paris france...
This is pretty bad...
I need to run out and get some dinner for tonight.
I won’t be back to argue this further, because I don’t have anything more to add to what I have said and I don’t care about the trials and tribulations of MJ smokers. I still believe it to be harmful to youth. If they change the laws/regs/whatever I don’t have a dog in the fight. I have grandchildren however..
What drew me into this was a argument about the tenth.
I don’t see where that amendment is even functional any longer, and has not been for my lifetime or those that preceded me. Pre depression, I believe it still had some relevance but since it seems to have become just words on paper.
I don’t advocate this.
I don’t relish federal power over my existence. I find it irritating and often intimidating. In fact it has affected my life in several ways.. but I digress..
CU
"Pre depression"?! Just a few posts ago you said "Congress began ignoring the 10th nearly immediately."
I was wrong - your unsupported opinions are worth even less than what I paid for them.
Enjoy your dinner. :)
If you had, you'd have known better. Prof. David Currie, U of Chicago, writes: "the First Congress took the Constitution very seriously. Constitutional questions cropped up in the House and Senate every time somebody sneezed, and one proposal after another was subjected to intensive debate to determine its compatibility with relevant constitutional provisions. Members of Congress plainly thought it necessary to demonstrate that the Constitution supported their actions".
The degradation of the constitution did not really begin in any notable way for about 30 years, one generation removed still left a few aged experts but that is when it began to weaken. and it had to have happened for the fed to have been so screwed up by the beginning of the 20th century. So between 1820 and 1900, there had to have been a sea change in the interpretations.
But here is one reference regarding the crocket myth that shows you a connection between the myth and the facts in 1828. This would be within my time target and it shows clearly that congress was beginning to go it's own way. Not hard to see it in the voting..Today of course this vote would pass unanimously. In the first Congress it would have failed miserably.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llrd&fileName=006/llrd006.db&recNum=308
If you want to nitpick my opinions as you have, you can do so, but don't expect me to defend, because I do not have to and I'm not going to...so why not try one more time. Maybe that will do the trick. Maybe I'll get mad and lookup something else for you. The reality is that all I am positing here is that the bastardization began early on.. and it has continued to this based on a pile of previous precedent.
To question that premise would put you in lala land.
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