Posted on 10/23/2006 5:03:34 PM PDT by JTN
Nevada is known for gambling, 24-hour liquor sales and legal prostitution. Yet the main group opposing Question 7, an initiative on the state's ballot next month that would allow the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 or older, is called the Committee to Keep Nevada Respectable.
In Colorado, opponents of Amendment 44, which would eliminate penalties for adults possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, are equally certain of their own rectitude. "Those who want to legalize drugs weaken our collective struggle against this scourge," declares the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. "Like a cancer, proponents for legalization eat away at society's resolve and moral fiber."
To sum up, smoking pot is less respectable than a drunken gambling spree followed by a visit to a hooker, while people who think adults shouldn't be punished for their choice of recreational intoxicants are like a tumor that will kill you unless it's eradicated. In the face of such self-righteous posturing, the marijuana initiatives' backers have refused to cede the moral high ground, a strategy from which other activists can learn.
The Nevada campaign, which calls itself the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana, emphasizes the advantages of removing marijuana from the black market, where regulation and control are impossible, and allowing adults to obtain the drug from licensed, accountable merchants. To signal that a legal market does not mean anything goes, the initiative increases penalties for injuring people while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The "regulate and control" message has attracted public support from more than 30 Nevada religious leaders. The list includes not just the usual suspects -- Unitarian Universalist ministers and Reform rabbis -- but also representatives of more conservative groups, such as Lutherans and Southern Baptists.
"I don't think using marijuana is a wise choice for anyone," says the Rev. William C. Webb, senior pastor of Reno's Second Baptist Church. "Drugs ruin enough lives. But we don't need our laws ruining more lives. If there has to be a market for marijuana, I'd rather it be regulated with sensible safeguards than run by violent gangs and dangerous drug dealers."
Troy Dayton of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, who was largely responsible for persuading Webb and the other religious leaders to back Question 7, notes that support from members of the clergy, which was important in repealing alcohol prohibition, "forces a reframing of the issue." It's no longer a contest between potheads and puritans.
The Colorado campaign, which goes by the name SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation), emphasizes that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and asks, "Should adults be punished for making the rational choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol?" This approach puts prohibitionists on the defensive by asking them to justify the disparate legal treatment of the two drugs.
So far they have not been up to the task. Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger has implicitly conceded marijuana itself is not so bad by implausibly linking it to methamphetamine. In a televised debate with SAFER's Mason Tvert, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers insisted "the only acceptable alternative to intoxication is sobriety."
That's fine for those who avoid all psychoactive substances as a matter of principle. But since most people -- including Suthers, who acknowledges drinking -- like using chemicals to alter their moods and minds, it's reasonable to ask for some consistency in the law's treatment of those chemicals, especially at a time when police are arresting a record number of Americans (nearly 787,000 last year) for marijuana offenses.
Despite a hard push by federal, state and local drug warriors who have been telling voters in Nevada and Colorado that failing to punish adults for smoking pot will "send the wrong message" to children, the latest polls indicate most are unpersuaded. Perhaps they worry about the message sent by the current policy of mindless intolerance.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.
It was because I was granting that legalization would be real legalization, and was seeking an answer based on that premise.
But if you want to talk about the possible failures of actually implementing legalization that's fine. Let's not argue about each others semantics. Would you really consider it a failure of the idea of drug legalization if people continued to have their homes searched with knock-less warrants? I wouldn't. If there is a problem with the execution of warrants (and there are some) it is a separate issue from drug legalization. I can guarantee that mistaken or overzealous searches will continue after legalization, so why would you consider that a failure of legalization?
Actually, making anti-biotics freely available is a real nightmare scenario. People would pop them when they felt sick and stop when they felt better, creating a huge petri dish for super bugs. That already happens now, but to a far lesser degree. The medical community certainly sees it as a real danger.
Now is it a realistic outcome of legalizating pot? That depends on the method of legalization. If the method of legalization is to say that the regulation of drugs is unconstitutional, then it is very realistic and could be expected, as all drugs would be covered.
I think having a concern therefore does have merit.
Please read my post #102, and I think my points will be clearer to you.
I think you either need to make a constitutional argument, or a practical legalization argument. Because frankly, if its a constitutional right, to argue the rest is pointless.
I've gotta go. I'd find it interesting to get your feedback on my #102.
And it makes black jazz musicians rape white women too. /sarc
Puleeeeez
I have been following this thread with every intent of leaping down your throat at some point, as I would with a standard-issue WODdie.
I see, however, that your statement re consequences is very salient:
"Now is it a realistic outcome of legalizating pot? That depends on the method of legalization. If the method of legalization is to say that the regulation of drugs is unconstitutional, then it is very realistic and could be expected, as all drugs would be covered.
I think having a concern therefore does have merit."
I believe your concerns are valid. To me, the obvious solution to this conundrum is to treat marijuana and other common plants as beneath the dignity of the law. The law should simply not deal with weed, mushrooms, and such.
Failing that happy outcome, I take solace in the thought that the government's ludicrous propaganda war against marijuana is a signal to youth that the government lies, and then lies some more; and that there is a large vested interest in the continuance of this policy, unsurprisingly.
The WOD is a great poster-boy for teaching distrust of the state.
Did you read my #102?
I believe your concerns are valid. To me, the obvious solution to this conundrum is to treat marijuana and other common plants as beneath the dignity of the law. The law should simply not deal with weed, mushrooms, and such.
The problem with this approach as I see it, is that most all drugs are natural. Penicillin is just a natural mold spore.
If I were pushing legalization, which I'm not (just not one of my irons in the fire), I would push to put the laws back into the hands of the states and then let open debate and common sense prevail.
I think that by federalizing everything we have lost one our strongest advantages in government. That being the ability to conduct 50 different experiments in what works and what doesn't. Getting off of drugs for a second, look at education. If the states had free reign, we could let the blue states try throwing money at it, and let the red states set academic requirements and merit pay. Soon it would be very clear what model works, and what doesn't. Indeed, we might find that different things work in different places.
If you live in Vermont and the citizens of Alabama don't want to legalize pot, what business is it of yours? The reverse of course is also true. Now with antibiotics, clear harm from another state's actions becomes real, so I do think it becomes a federal issue.
Thank you for raising the level of civility on this thread.
I said, "I believe your concerns are valid. To me, the obvious solution to this conundrum is to treat marijuana and other common plants as beneath the dignity of the law. The law should simply not deal with weed, mushrooms, and such."
You replied, "The problem with this approach as I see it, is that most all drugs are natural. Penicillin is just a natural mold spore."
I should have explicitly stated 'unprocessed' plant material. Extracts or other refined or transformed products such as THC, heroin, cocaine, and penicillin are drugs like any other, as you point out, and must be regulated for purely utilitarian reasons, but not from some posture of moral improvement of the people by the state.
Thanks for the clarification. Let me ruminate on your idea for awhile. At least on the surface it seems like a good place to draw a line for those drafting a process of legalization. Its certainly more workable than the sledgehammer approach of constitutional mandate.
Every strike against the failed war on some drugs is a step in the right direction.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Don't concur. There is a great deal of damage that can be done if legalization is done the wrong way (see my #102).
dirtboy:
Well, you unfortuately have a real problem with the 10th amendment, then. Because, according to the 10th, it IS a state's decision about such. Or should be, until SCOTUS decides that words mean what they wish them to mean.
S-man:
Reread my post. The 10th Amendment does NOT make smoking pot a right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Smoking ANYthing is an unenumerated right under the 9th Amendment. -- A right that can be 'reasonably regulated' by State & local gov'ts, -- but not outright prohibited.
The 10th Amendment limits fed/state/local governments from using those powers prohibited in the rest of the Constitution & Amendments.
Gov't must use only powers delegated to them by the people, who have limited themselves in the power to infringe on each others individual rights.
-- IE -- 'I won't try to suppress your liberty, if you don't try to suppress mine'; -- is the basic [much abused] Law of the Land.
The Ninth Amendment does not state that every action that is not mentioned in the Constitution is a de facto right. Treason is the only crime mentioned in the Constitution. The only possible inference to be taken in relation to the WOD is that smoking pot cannot be said to be constitutionally prohibited. I don't think anyone has every stated that it was.
Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
The Tenth Amendment clearly states that the people of the states are reserved the power to enact laws which they see fit, provided that those laws do not transgress those rights enumerated in the Constitution. Where is smoking anything enumerated?
Smoking ANYthing is an unenumerated right under the 9th Amendment. -- A right that can be 'reasonably regulated' by State & local gov'ts, -- but not outright prohibited.
The 10th Amendment limits fed/state/local governments from using those powers prohibited in the rest of the Constitution & Amendments.
Gov't must use only powers delegated to them by the people, who have limited themselves in the power to infringe on each others individual rights.
-- IE -- 'I won't try to suppress your liberty, if you don't try to suppress mine'; -- is the basic [much abused] Law of the Land.
-- Amendment IX --
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Ninth Amendment does not state that every action that is not mentioned in the Constitution is a de facto right.
Never said it did. But obviously, smoking any substance is, just as drinking or eating any substance is.
The Tenth Amendment clearly states that the people of the states are reserved the power to enact laws which they see fit, provided that those laws do not transgress those rights enumerated [or not, as per the 9th] in the Constitution.
Agreed.
Where is smoking anything enumerated?
The 9th clearly says rights do not need to be enumerated. Enumeration "-- shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. --"
They probably already are.
Ok, so fight legalization in your neighborhood, and leave the people elsewhere alone.
So, if deluded legalizers cannot find a way to banish these dangerous fools to some cave, then maintain its status of illegality nation wide.
Like I said,,,your neighborhood just became the whole country?
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