Ron Paul: Legalizing Marijuana Is a State's Constitutional Right

www.indecisionforever.com ^ | May 19, 2009 | Dennis DiClaudio

[Yosemitest]

Ron Paul: Legalizing Marijuana Is a State's Constitutional Right

Ron Paul recently told all 23 members of Air America's listening audience that he is strongly in support of state sovereignty concerning the legalization of the sticky icky pot weed…

He said that he believes that the U.S. Constitution gives the fifty states the right to legalize hemp production or marijuana. He said the issue was a matter of personal liberty but added that drug users should not be entitled to government-funded treatment if they abuse legalized drugs.

Not in a free market America, they shouldn't. That would make them a burden on society. Instead, they should seek treatment on reality television, where their struggles can be put to good use entertaining fellow drug users.

"If drugs are legal and people misuse them, then they do it at their own risk," he said. Bottom line, said Paul: "I do trust individuals to make their own decisions."

And that's when everybody listening to him realized that Ron Paul has never met anybody who has ever been on drugs ever.

I'm in favor of legalizing — or at least regulating — a lot of drugs, particularly marijuana. But I won't even trust my pothead friends to make decisions concerning the CD player most of the time.*

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[Yosemitest]

This is why Ron Paul is unelectable.

[hosepipe]

Why not?.. in some States alcohol is manipulated by county.. some county’s have none.. others a little, others don’t care..

[Wolfie]

The marijuana trade affects interstate commerce, just like the health insurance trade. That’s why Congress has the power to regulate both.

[aces]

The weed should be legal,But Ron..I don’t think so..too bad other candidates are not willing to use this issue as well..wuuuuusies...

[Utmost Certainty]

Ron Paul is right.

[edpc]

Even if it was legal, what company would want to engage in its manufacture or distribution? The way the govt went after tobacco companies should be fair warning.

[BillGunn]

Wow, That statement can apply to anything and invites the federal government to regulate EVERYTHING.

[Wolfie]

Yep. The SC has already set the precedent in Gonzales v. Raich that ANYTHING affects interstate commerce, even home-cultivation of a plant the trade in which is actually illegal between States. So a federal health insurance mandatte? That’s a slam dunk.

[Yosemitest]

"The marijuana trade affects interstate commerce, just like the health insurance trade.
That’s why Congress has the power to regulate both."

Congress DID regulate it!
Because it destroys health, and destroys everything in commerce, it's ILLEGAL!

[Wolfie]

Exactly. But please, no whining when the SC upholds Obamacare’s insurance mandate.

[tbpiper]

The weed should be legal

No way in hell.

[Ken H]

Enjoy Obamacare. You asked for it...

Both Silberman and Sutton cited Scalia's opinion in 2005 upholding strict federal regulation of marijuana in the case of Angel Raich, a Californian who used home-grown marijuana to relieve her pain. "If Congress could regulate Angel Raich when she grew marijuana on her property for self-consumption," Sutton wrote, "it is difficult to say Congress may not regulate the 50 million Americans who self-finance their medical care."

http://mobile.latimes.com/p.p?a=rp&m=b&postId=1165037

______________________________________

[tacticalogic]

The marijuana trade affects interstate commerce, just like the health insurance trade. That’s why Congress has the power to regulate both.

The States granted the national government the power to regulate commerce "among the several states", not the power to regulate anything that they can imagine might affect interstate commerce.

The "substantial effects" doctrine is a New Deal invention, not an application of an enumerated power as intended by the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution. It's become the primay means of expanding federal government power far beyond what was intended and authorized by the Constitution.

Ron Paul and Clarence Thomas get this right.

[tacticalogic]

Yep. The SC has already set the precedent in Gonzales v. Raich that ANYTHING affects interstate commerce, even home-cultivation of a plant the trade in which is actually illegal between States. So a federal health insurance mandatte? That’s a slam dunk.

The precedent was Wickard v Filburn. And it was an absolute piece of crap.

[Yosemitest]

"Enjoy Obamacare. You asked for it."

Ron Paul is a guaranteed loser. No, I DIDN'T ask for it. In fact, I'm fighting it.

My Core is Not Up for Grabs

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?

Palin was my first choice
Bachmann is now my first choice, and Cain is my second.
Newt is my third choice, and I might consider Rick Santorum.

But Romney, Perry, Ron Paul, Huntsman, and Johnson are NOT acceptable,
and if on the ballot for the general election for President or V.P., would cause me to do a write in.

There's no way in hell I can compromise my values.

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct by interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.

The "Establishment Republicans" can go to hell!

[GlockThe Vote]

Are you kidding? The war on drugs is a total disaster and failure.

[government is the beast]

The commerce (commie) clause does NOT give the federal government the right to regulate commerce between the People. That is an invention of the supreme black robed terrorists also known as the supreme court (http://blackrobedterrorists.com). The words “The People” are not found in the commie clause, so how can it apply to the “People”. When the Constitution was written, there was three distinct bodies mentioned. The federal government, the States, and the People. The commie clause says that congress can regulate commerce between the “States”, that’s with a capital “S”. It was meant to give congress the power to be the referee if a trade war started between two or more states. It was NOT intended to give congress an out from the enumerated powers outlined in the Constitution!

[tacticalogic]

Wow, That statement can apply to anything and invites the federal government to regulate EVERYTHING.

They know that. They're counting on you being so terrified by marijuana that you'll go along with it.

[Wolfie]

Wickard v. Filburn at least involved a product actually traded between the States, although it certainly laid the foundation for Gonzales v. Raich.

But the real point is this: Americans are children, incapable of consistent thought. If we like the law, then we say Congress has the power. If we don’t, they we say Congress doesn’t. Principals? None in sight.

[KeepUSfree]

I'm constantly amazed at people who CLAIM to be conservatives..... right up until they hit one of THEIR personal hot button issues....then it is:

"Please federal government - save us from that evil weed".

Faux conservatives.

Bottom line...if one thinks that the Bill of Rights gives the Federal government the right to regulate marijuana - that person is NOT a conservative .

They are really just a hypocrites who are MORE THAN HAPPY to use fascism when it suits their purposes.

For me, people like that are WORSE than liberals.