Posted on 04/10/2014 8:19:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Legalizing marijuana is an issue made to order for the Democratic Party. A majority of Americans now supports the idea, and so do two out of three Democrats. Two states have done it, and several more may vote on it in 2016.
The party could put the issue to use against Republicans, who have no desire to be the party of weed. Can you imagine Rick Santorum or Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan endorsing legalization? Even libertarian Rand Paul declines to go that far.
He is not misreading his party. Chris Christie will lose no votes in the primaries for saying, as he did last month, "I don't favor legalization. I don't favor recreational use. I don't favor decriminalization. And I don't favor the use of marijuana as a medicine."
So the GOP is locked into a position that is steadily losing appeal with the public. Worse yet, support for legalization is highest among young people and lowest among seniors. Rejecting it is a great way to worsen the Republicans' ominous demographic problem.
There's only one thing standing in the way of the Democratic Party using the pot issue to win elections, curtail arrests of minorities, free money for social programs and cement the allegiance of young voters: Democratic politicians.
Start with Hillary Clinton. Her husband may have tried weed, but she has never attested to such youthful indiscretions, probably because she never committed them. As secretary of state, she spoke out against legalization of cannabis, and in 2008 she rejected even decriminalization.
That stance is no accident. Clinton got involved in politics in the 1970s, when Democrats were tarred as hippies and draft-dodgers -- embracing "acid, amnesty and abortion," Republicans alleged. If Democrats of that era learned anything, they learned to look and sound like they couldn't find Woodstock on a map.
Shedding an ingrained persona at her age does not come easy. My bet is you'll see Dick Cheney on a skateboard before you'll see Clinton go after the stoner vote. If she's the 2016 presidential nominee, legalizers will have to look elsewhere.
Democratic governors also blanch at the sight of a pipe. New York's Andrew Cuomo, who only recently accepted medical marijuana, rejects legalization. Connecticut's Dannel Malloy says, "I don't think we are ready, or want to go down that road."
Don't look for a live-and-let-live approach in California, where Gov. Jerry Brown recently went off on the sort of addled tangent that could be excused only if he were high. "All of a sudden, if there's advertising and legitimacy, how many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation?" he asked scornfully. "The world's pretty dangerous, very competitive."
Brown apparently is unaware that cannabis use is far more common in the United States than in the Netherlands, which has one of the most permissive regimes in the world. Banning pot doesn't actually prevent people from getting baked.
Of course, if you truly wanted to worry about a mind-altering toxin that damages productivity and ruins lives, you wouldn't focus on marijuana; you'd focus on alcohol. But Brown doesn't worry that the Golden State's many wineries and craft breweries put it at a competitive disadvantage.
Even Democratic governors presiding over legalization are not wearing "Bong Hits for Jesus" T-shirts. When Washington voters voted on legalization in 2012, Jay Inslee was running for governor and unsuccessfully opposed it. Colorado's John Hickenlooper came out against the Colorado initiative, which also passed. Neither has gotten giddy about the idea since then.
But it's hard for Democrats to justify treating mere possession as a crime, if only because that policy has so many corrosive effects they should care about. It squanders revenue that could be used for more useful government programs. It causes blacks to be arrested four times more often than whites, even though they smoke weed at roughly the same rate.
It encourages police to stop and frisk -- a practice that in New York City, a federal judge ruled last year, led to violations of the Constitution and unjustified racial profiling.
Democratic politicians could be making the case for change at a time when the public is increasingly receptive to a new policy. Instead, they are clinging blindly to the status quo. They undoubtedly are smarter than the average rodent. But even rats know enough to leave a sinking ship.
I would like to see a Dem justify their love of MaryJane in opposition to their hatred of smoking.
It is insane to legalize pot until they do extensive study on exact levels that impair driving, safety, etc. and have the quick tests that enable immediate determination of intoxication.
And I do think that thc is an immediate intoxicant, so it should be sold in specialized stores and sales prevented to anyone under 21.
Decriminalization is a much wiser compromise.
Legalization only feeds the federal beast more money.
I always wondered about that myself.
Last night, I watched an advertisement about the evils of tobacco and NO MENTION of dope.
BTW, I live in Colorado.
I remember the big tobacco litigation settlement of a few years ago and Colorado politicians greedily grabbing their cut of “the take” while whining about the added health care costs to the state.
Now they are drooling over the tax revenues from pot sales.
Democrats are evil but they’re not all stupid. Sooner or later they will start to run on legalization and wrap their position in freedom and choice. It will be hugely popular, enough so that folks that sit out elections will vote and folks who have become wary or tired of their failed socialism will come back and vote for them again. Republicans should take up the fight of legalization and wrap it in terms of individual freedom, smaller government and states rights. Get the voters hooked on those ideas and marijuana could be our gateway drug back to liberty. Unfortunately it is another transformative issue we will stand by and watch the otherside run away with.
Conservatives who hate drugs and want big government prohibition and morality laws fail to understand that the tide of society WILL legalize marijuana in the next day. It’s just a matter of whether Republicans as libertarians and federalists will champion it and use it as a tool to promote liberty and limited government or whether we will let liberals couch it in an anything goes, anti-conservative, anti-church, anti-establishment leftist cause.
Democrats don’t need to do it, you speak for them.
If the Democrats so easily embraced “gay marriage” they’ll have no problem endorsing pot. Mark my words, this article is bunk.
Many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation.
And Obama is proof of that Jerry?.
It is the perfect drug for creating Democrats: kills brain cells and erases memory. Exactly the two things the party needs.
I’d take away the vote, too. Good idea Vigilanteman.
I’d take it away from anyone on welfare for over 6 months, too, until they go off welfare. You shouldn’t be allowed to vote for people who give you money
Looking at your tagline I think you don’t understand that libertarianism is more of a threat to liberalism than it is to conservatism. Libertarianism is incompatible with some of the Big Government Republicanism that you apparently support like the war on drugs. But most conservative ideas, both social (the right to life, privacy from big brotherism) and economic and political are very compatible. On the other hand libertarianism is incompatible with almost the entire liberal/Democrat agenda. Even if you want to talk about social issues like gay marriage and abortion the liberals use big government to force their opinions and agenda on others, there is nothing libertarian about that. Every liberal idea is wrapped up with the power of government forcing that idea upon you. Fighting against that idea is the only hope America has. Unfortunately for some breeds of conservatives their desire to hang on to the power of government to regulate culture and behavior means they are willing to ride the Titanic down. Hope you can swim.
Nonsense, libertarianism is about attaining liberalism while fantasizing about conservative economics, it is like the “Communism on paper” fantasy.
Libertarianism is to the left of the left on social issues, a true and total, Sodom and Gomorrah.
The libertarians sugar coat it with the claim that the total destruction of conservatism and traditional America, and Christianity, will somehow result in the voters suddenly becoming conservative voters, instead of becoming even more greedy and self serving when they vote.
“Give us our social liberalism and Sodom and Gomorrah today, and we will gladly end welfare and social programs, on Tuesday.”
If intoxication with pot can’t be judged by existing field sobriety tests, is there really any indication that the person is impaired?
I’m not saying a person should drive impaired, I’m saying if you examine a driver and can’t see any signs of them being intoxicated, they should be let go.
It’s not a matter of detection. It’s a matter of a scientific lab test that gives constant results.
Any officer can stop any suspect driver and administer a field sobriety test and use that to determine their fitness for driving. However, writing a law that says drivers are at the mercy of an officer’s interpretation of a field sobriety test is a law that is begging to be abused.
That’s why establishing a blood/thc level that is legally passed by the legislature and signed by the executive is the certain way (and the fair way) to establish a system truly concerned about sober driving.
She'll flip positions just as quickly on POT as she and Obama did on GAY MARRIAGE.
DWI laws aren't about safety at this point, they are about revenue (for states, insurance companies, lawyers, politicians and MADD).
The CDC is now pushing to lower the BAC to 0.05. Some groups in the US want it to go to 0.03. In Sweden it is 0.01.
Pot smokers need to be held accountable for their "impaired" driving as well. Heck, how cellphone drivers' are not held accountable, I'll never know.
Well stated. It’s inevitable that the Democrats will eventually be more benign on pot than the GOP, and cast themselves as the party of individual liberty while they do it.
You’re taking heat on your statements from people who are right on many issues but still want the power of government to enforce their views on this one.
Me... I’ll never be a single issue pot voter... but the Dems are expert in picking out (or manufacturing) issues to garner votes. No principles, but great community-organizing short-term vote gathering tactics.
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