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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.
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Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
I don't want THC users living next door to me or my kids. Or anywhere in my neighborhood.
So, if deluded legalizers cannot find a way to banish these dangerous fools to some cave, then maintain its status of illegality nation wide.
I was having a conversation today about someone who's "out of it" all the time due to a past marijuana habit.
It really does fry your brain, whether we should allow people the "freedom" to fry their brains ...
LOL - I've done all of the above. ;-)
That's not the issue at all. The issue is nobody wants to pay good money for a hooker that is stoned......I kid, I kid. Don't ban me.
In all seriousness the last time this came up the pro-dopers were dealt a blow right before the election. A journalist from the Las Vegas newspaper got killed by a driver who was stoned out of his gourd.
The same argument was made a couple years ago about the marriage protection act that was placed on the ballot. Nevada is the easiest state to get married, the easiest to get a divorce, legal gambling in every public venue outside schools, churches, and public libraries, legalized brothels; and now they want to protect marriage. Pretty good argument, but it still passed.
"It really does fry your brain, whether we should allow people the "freedom" to fry their brains ..."
... while we 'allow' them the freedom to calcify their livers, cancerfy their lungs, and tan their perfect skins to carcenoma. Not to mention eat until they resemble Jabba the Hutt. Why pick on a homegrown vegetable?
If it's just a vegetable, then smoke squash, and shut up already about pot.
Uhm, this thread's about pot. If you can't even handle reading about pot, maybe you shouldn't be on the thread.
I think mandatory drug testing as an OSHA standard for all employment (including politicians) would take care of it.
In fact, mandatory drug testing for all employees of 501(c) tax-exempt corporations by the Internal Revenue Code as a condition for "non-profit" status would have all the leftist front groups fold overnight...
Yeah, a lot of people are out of it. And not all admit it necessarily that it's due to pot use.
Trust me, pot use makes people lose theirselves. Even a relatively minor usage changes a person for the worse.
I think mandatory drug testing as an OSHA standard for all employment (including politicians) would take care of it.
Mandatory drug testing for all employees of 501(c) tax-exempt corporations by the Internal Revenue Code as a condition for "non-profit" status would have all the leftist front groups fold overnight...
For those who advocate legalization on practical grounds, NOT constitutional grounds, what outcome of legalization would constitute a failure in your book?
This is me, not posting on this thread, because I'm so tired of hearing all the pro and con arguments for and against legalizing pot. In fact, I'm actually not even here, and you're not even reading this.
I'll tell you what they want. To be able to get high easier without legal hassles and for cheaper. QED.
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