Posted on 01/18/2018 5:42:35 AM PST by JP1201
You would think that the Justice Department has better things to do than to restart a federal war on marijuana or that it would want to stay away from interfering with the will of the people in the 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow at least the medical use of marijuana. But you would be wrong. Thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, we have now an emerging conflict between federal and state laws. That conflict should be resolved in favor of the states.
When he was a senator, Sessions once said during a Senate hearing, "Good people don't smoke marijuana." So nobody was surprised when a few weeks ago, he revoked the Cole memo—a document that provided guidance to federal prosecutors about targeting sales to children, money laundering and sales across state lines, as opposed to targeting the legal state sale of medical and recreational pot.
The memo was a poor alternative to revoking the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which, the Cato Institute's Trevor Burrus writes, "defined marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical uses and has a high potential for abuse." He adds, "Despite advances in our understanding of the medical benefits of marijuana, and despite 29 states having legalized medical marijuana in some form, federal law treats marijuana (as if it were) as dangerous as heroin." Note that cocaine, which has recognized medical uses, is a Schedule II drug.
The memo had the very positive effect of providing banks, users and dispensaries with confidence that they could operate legally without arrest. Unfortunately, Sessions' move could signal intent to use federal power to go after individuals and corporations in states that allow marijuana.
Though this is a legal move, it is ill-advised. Whatever one thinks of pot use, I can't imagine a good justification for going back to prosecuting the perpetrators of victimless crimes except that it fits nicely with the AG's outdated and paternalistic views.
It also goes against federalism, a belief that Republicans claim to hold, wherein states should be allowed to make decisions outside federal control on a variety of issues—such as legalizing marijuana. The Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that distributed political power between the states and a national government. Police powers reside with the states, not at the federal level.
Our nation operates on consent of the governed. An Aug. 3 Quinnipiac University poll indicated that 94 percent of Americans support adult use of marijuana for medical purposes, if prescribed by a doctor. This poll indicated that Republican support for medical marijuana is at 90 percent. An Oct. 25Gallup Poll shows that a majority of Republicans support fully legalizing marijuana. At a time when Republicans are worried about following the will of the voters they'll face this November, they might want to note those lopsided numbers.
States should be allowed to make decisions outside federal control on a variety of issues and let the people, not the federal government, decide what they want.
Right now, many states respect the right of individuals to choose medical marijuana to treat stress, the nausea associated with cancer treatments and epilepsy. In eight states, the people have gone a step further and consented to adults using marijuana without a doctor's prescription. It's the essence of liberty to let people make their own decisions as long as they're not harming others.
This notion eludes Sessions. In 2014, Congress passed the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which prohibits the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana businesses in states that allow it. Naturally, the AG wants Congress to pass an appropriations bill removing that language. Now's the time for the real federalists in Congress to stand up and stand by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (R-Calif.), and Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), who want this restraint on federal interference to continue.
Will the defenders of federalism stop a new war on drugs? The House and Senate are loaded with members who have parroted talking points and claimed that they're federalists; now we'll see whether their action matches up with their rhetoric. Trying to stop the Justice Department's new war on states that have consented to the use of marijuana is an act defending federalism and the will of the people.
I’m talking specifically of marijuana. It’s a weed that grows wild, for crying out loud.
It was legal before prohibition. It is also less harmful than alcohol, which is where the comedy part comes in.
I don't either. We shouldn't allow that stuff.
All of the above and more because of the war on drugs.
The "war on drugs" may be an excuse cited to abuse people's rights, but we shouldn't accept that excuse.
I can understand a prohibition on hard drugs but grass?
It may be that the use of grass will not be a serious problem, but so long as it is classified as a controlled substance, we have to enforce the law against it, even if we think the law is stupid. If people want to make changes, they should convince their congressional representation to remove it from the federal list of controlled substances.
Pot is not a hard drug and should at the very least be decriminalized.
Maybe, but I'm not sure about this. I've known a lot of people that got stuck on hard drugs, and they all tell me they started by doing weed. I believe the "gateway" theory is correct, at least in the case of the hard drug users I have known.
So do poppies and coca leaves, but that is beside the point. So long as it is listed as illegal according to Federal law, possession of it should result in prosecutions. If people want to possess this stuff, they need to first change the law, not defy it.
As Victor Davis Hanson points out about "Sanctuary Cities", they rest on the same premise as the Confederacy; that states don't have to obey federal laws they dislike.
So do state laws permitting marijuana possession.
With that post I firmly agree. We are supposed to be a country of laws. If we don’t enforce our laws, we lose credibility.
Someone actually suggested that the best way to eliminate an otherwise unpopular law is to strictly enforce it.
There are some towns that still have laws on the books like requiring any motorized vehicle entering the town to be preceded by someone waving a red lantern. Enforce that one and watch it go away almost immediately.
Same thing here.
BTW, after marijuana was legalized in Washington state, I got a call from my daughter there. She said that the day after it was legalized her company did random drug testing and fired a LOT of people they had been trying to get rid of. They all tested positive for marijuana which, as you point out, is a violation of federal law and a valid reason for termination.
:)
Quite true. As well, corruption naturally comes with laws like this as well, as we saw with the initial experiment of prohibition. I've found that the biggest supporters of the war on drugs tend to somehow be making money off it in one way or another.
I think that was General Grant.
BTW, after marijuana was legalized in Washington state, I got a call from my daughter there. She said that the day after it was legalized her company did random drug testing and fired a LOT of people they had been trying to get rid of. They all tested positive for marijuana which, as you point out, is a violation of federal law and a valid reason for termination.
My observation is that some people can handle it without problems, and some people can't. Of course the law has to apply to everyone equally, and so that makes it hard on the people for whom it isn't a problem.
My observation is that some people can handle it without problems, and some people can’t. Of course the law has to apply to everyone equally, and so that makes it hard on the people for whom it isn’t a problem.
The last thing we need in this country is more losers high on anything, endangering the lives of innocent people.
Maybe instead of picking on weed, Session should grow a spine and start some indictments in the Russian scandal - the real Russian scandal that is.
I’m also a libertarian on weed. Prohibition is always a failed policy. And the DEA is so fabulously corrupt.
Not totally true. I have family members who smoked casually and held responsible jobs.
Indeed.
If Prohibition failed in the 20s why would it work now?
Why would we assume the prohibition in the 1920s has any similarity to banning drugs in 1911? Alcohol has been with humanity for it's entire history, and it is an integral component in many cultures. It has been with humans so long that we evolved genes specifically to process it.
None of this history or physiology applies to drugs.
Slippery slope like gay marriage. It starts with turning away from God.
We don't need to assume it - we can observe it.
Alcohol [...] has been with humans so long that we evolved genes specifically to process it.
Only the minute amounts in overripe fruit. Whenever you drink alcohol and feel an effect - be it only 'relaxing' - that's your body being given more alcohol than it can process. Weak if any support there for alcohol-legal-pot-illegal.
It follows from the above that we Do need FEWER losers high on alcohol, endangering the lives of innocent people. The inconvenient fact is that alcohol Prohibition failed, as marijuana prohibition has been failing (even before state legalizations).
Alcohol remains—hands down and by several orders of magnitude—the worst drug on the face of the earth. And yet the Prohibitionist Mind can't seem to grasp the abject hypocrisy which is required to maintain a legal distinction between the drug alcohol and the rest of them.
Arbitrary law—which is what is required in order to criminalize things—is inherently Tyrannical. Once the State is granted the power to imprison its citizens for possessing the wrong plant, chemical, medicine, etc., there is no practical limit to its power.
The same nanny-state rationalizations which the Left uses to justify things like banning smoking at restaurants—or the possession of high capacity magazines—are what the Right uses to ban plants and impose its authoritarian views on the People.
When it comes to manufacturing "crimes" to the point where a peaceable Individual becomes a criminal—simply for pursuing happiness according to his or her own conscience—and in the total absence of infringing on anyone else's rights—there's not a dime's worth of difference between authoritarians on the Right and the Left.
Anyone who calls themselves a "limited government conservative" while simultaneously believing that the State has the right to imprison its citizens for owning the wrong plant—doesn't even understand the nature of human freedom, much less "limited government". Government that is effectively unlimited in its ability to criminalize its citizens—with the stroke of a bureaucratic pen, mind you—isn't "limited government" by any stretch of the imagination.
The role of the Federal government was strictly limited by the Founding Fathers to the specific role outlined in the Constitution. The purpose was to allow enough common grounds to foster a Federal union. Over the years, that Federal union devolved into a centralized government. The villain was not Lincoln,but Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and then Franklin Roosevelt and all his successors, with partial exceptions of Reagan and Trump.
What do you mean by "national consensus"? Do you mean unbridled democracy, depending on the whims of a majority? In 1918, there was a consensus for alcohol prohibition; by 1932, that consensus was gone. In 1990, not even the most liberal state recognized homosexual unions. By 2015, thanks to the Supreme Court, "gay marriage" is the law of the land.
Given the combination of massive Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American immigration, the loss of a Biblically based moral code due to the rise of secularism, and the corruption of the educational system and the entertainment media, America does not have anything like a common culture. Without a common culture, there can be no national consensus. A return to the limited Federal government as intended by the Founding Fathers is a means to prevent either a authoritarian regime or the breakup of the Union.
I would argue it is as addictive and MORE destructive than pot. Not too many high wife beaters out there. Plenty of drunk ones though.
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