Posted on 10/17/2011 7:00:16 PM PDT by Freemarkets101
According to a new Gallup poll, a record-high 50 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana use, while 46 percent say marijuana use should remain illegal. When Gallup first posed the question, in 1969, a mere 12 percent of Americans favored it, while 84 percent were opposed. For good or for worse, times have definitely changed.
Gallup's "Bottom Line" ponders that if the current trend on marijuana legalization continues, "pressure may build to bring the nation's laws into compliance with the people's wishes."
Not right now it won't. In my opinion, this shift in popular opinion means jack for the political scene - at least for right now - and it surely doesn't strike any urgent chord for the current lineup of GOP presidential contenders (even though Ron Paul may quietly favor the notion).
I'm thinking at this juncture, stimulating job growth in America is the number one priority. Maybe once everyone is gainfuly employed and bathing in economic bliss, that's when we will all dust off the old college paraphernalia.
For now, I think the only people who would prefer a bag of grass over a 40-hour work week are those Marxist marching degenerates who somehow think they are "Occupying" Wall Street.
I know a guy that use to be for legalizing it, until his son got involved in it, now he is against it...sometimes it takes time to change one’s mind and gain wisdom....
46% of the people love the Nanny State.
States should regulate their own borders and pot laws and let us see if Congress tries to interfere since it’s their drugs lanes that are threatened.
Where’s that cartoon from?
When I was younger, I tried to impress some old guy and said I could make a phone call and get any drug within the hour. His come back was, he could go two trailers down and get any drug in any amount, right now.
So much for drug laws and enforcement.
“Pot’s not heroin or meth. “
True; it’s all a matter of degree. You are content with the line being between marijuana and heroin, meth. I’m not. I place it between alcohol/marijuana.
If anything alcohol should be on the other end of the line. It’s more physically addictive, it creates a far greater psychoactive effect, and it can be overdosed on.
When Americans decided to ban alcohol, they secured a constitutional amendment. This was an unwise decision, but procedurally correct.
Lacking an equivalent amendment, there is no justification for Federal laws against drugs.
“We should have learned our lesson during the prohibition era, instead we feed insane profits to the drug cartels, the modern day equivelent to the gangsters that peddled illegal alchol.”
Well, with all due respect, that was the drug that we chose. Adding another one might make sense to you, but the stats and the cost to society in lives and productivity will, in my opinion, really put us in the crapper. The war on crime would go a lot better if we didn’t prosecute petty theft, handbag stealers and all manner of things. I don’t usually stop doing things because they are hard to do. And where do you draw the line? Coke? Why? What’s the diff? I gotta dodge enough drugged out drivers to keep from being one of the 50-60k plus that die every year with the one drug we legalized. Just don’t want another one on the street. My opinion. The “all the other kids do it” defense doesn’t work for me.
“In our country, laws against anti-social behavior are supposed to be State and local functions,”
I do agree, except I do wonder about border control issues in regards to drug smuggling. It seems the feds should play a role there.
“If anything alcohol should be on the other end of the line. It’s more physically addictive, it creates a far greater psychoactive effect, and it can be overdosed on.”
I disagree with you on most of that. It is not more physically addictive than most drugs. Most people who drink alcohol are not addicted. Can’t say that about the recreational drugs.
I don’t think it creates a far greater psychoactive effect, perhaps the same psychoactive affect as some drugs when consumed in excess. But it is generally illegal to consume it in excess.
It can be overdosed on, but so can all drugs, of course.
How about drawing the line at the Tenth Amendment? If you support the feds crossing that line to impose national prohibition, then you give up any constitutional argument against an expansive fedgov, including control over health care.
I'll tell you what's going to end the WOD faster than anything - see my tagline. Drug Warriors are going under the bus, along with their fellow nanny-staters.
And where do you draw the line with or without the 10th?
Legalize meth? Heroin? Coke? Everything?
How’s that whole legalization thing doing in CA?
Yeah. I thought so. No answers.
“Half full? Half empty?”
The meaning of words does not depend on a popular vote. If the Court has mooted the Ninth and Tenth, it is just one more point that proves that our original Constitution has been sent into exile.
This is not my personal opinion. It even worried Senator Schumer (d. NY) and he asked Justice Roberts his opinion on it during his confirmation hearing. Of course Schumer is interested in the present version of the Constitution, and opposed to restoring the one in exile.
Our government would clearly be substantially different should the real Constitution ever be fully restored.
That should be left in the hands of each state according to the Tenth Amendment, rather than fedgov fiat under the New Deal Commerce Clause.
How's that whole legalization thing doing in CA?
It got voted down convincingly, but the Tenth Amendment was respected in the process.
My questions to you:
1. Suppose CA had voted to legalize. Would you support their authority to do so under the Tenth Amendment... 'YES' or 'NO'?
2. Do you agree that the original meaning of the Constitution should be honored... 'YES' or 'NO'?
It is definitely more physically addicting. That doesn’t mean all people who use it become physically addictive, but millions do and many can’t even quit cold turkey or they will get something called delirium tremens, otherwise known as the DTs. It’s one of the few addictions that’s fatal to quit cold turkey. Pot doesn’t have much of a physically addictive quality to it. The closest thing I hear to chronic potheads and physical maladies if they quit is some insomnia or some irritability.
It has a far greater psychoactive effect when consumed to excess. To the point where most users who have a BAC of 0.2 or over have difficulty with motor functions. And since when is being drunk illegal?
And not all drugs can be overdosed on, at least to the point of death. The drug we are comparing booze to in this example cannot be.
I never smoked dope in my life but am 100% against the war on drugs.
Right click on it, then Properties, or Examine Element, it’ll tell you.
And judges, DA’s, court officers, social workers, etc.
War on Drugs is a Big Govtment dream come true,
“It is definitely more physically addicting.”
Again, I disagree. There are many friend and family I know, at least 100, probably lesser acquaintances numbering up to perhaps 500 people, who drink. Two of them that I know of are alcoholics. So I don’t really think it is all that addicting.
The vast majority of people who take in alcohol do not get addicted to it.
Also, quitting the addiction cold turkey certainly can kill you but it does not normally kill you.
I agree that pot is on the lower part of the totem pole in terms of its physically addictive quality. But it is is stupid maker, and that’s where it’s main anti-social quality lies.
Public drunkenness is illegal. You can be arrested for it. Of course operating this or that machinery while drunk is illegal, and caring for dependents when drunk is illegal, and, many positions of work as in the medical profession call it illegal, too.
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