“Just a guess here, but I don’t think you’re going to find a highly receptive audience on this forum for your pro-drug agenda, no matter how you couch it Constitutional rhetoric.
Like I said, just a guess .....”
I am sure you are right, but my objective is not preach to the choir. If people in OK don’t want legalized MJ, that is quite fine with me. If people in OR or CO do, that is equally fine. That is the reason why we have sovereign states subordinate to Washington in only certain matters that the states so authorized (or so it should be).
I and the article are not pro-drug, BTW. Libertarians are pro liberty and personal responsibility. We do not look to the government to protect us from ourselves. That is the issue, and I regret I did make it more clear.
This is your best argument, (that it is within the domain of the states to decide) but it does however fall short. Perhaps not with Marijuana, but when you extend the principle behind it to other drugs, an argument emerges for defacto Federal involvement in interdiction.
Regarding such drugs as Opium, Heroin, Cocaine, etc. they generally come from foreign countries. It is beyond the ability of a state to operate in this environment, and therefore it requires a Federal approach to deal with it. Now you may ask, "On what basis can you justify Federal involvement in interdicting drug shipments into the states?"
The Federal government has a mandate to provide for the defense of the country. If drugs are regarded as an existential threat to the security of the nation, (which I argue that they are) then the Federal government has a duty to involve itself in the protection of our nation from this dangerous low-intensity attack. Just as we interdict nerve gas, biological warfare agents, or nuclear fissionable material, so too must we protect the nation against dangerous lesser agents.
Marijuana really doesn't reach the threshold of dangerousness that other drugs constitute, but it is however included in the threat list due to it's classification as a drug. The largest danger it represents is the tendency of others to use it as justification for the legalization of drugs as an acceptable principle.