Marijuana.com

Niteshift

The fact that multi-billion dollar industries have the benefit of practically unlimited funding from taxes, asset forfeitures and artificially high profits may keep me from ever presenting my arguments in court

I said in front of a neutral judge..........but I guess it's simpler to hide behind a big conspiracy.

and I've gotten lots of eye rolling on this from both sides of the law.

Could it be because your legal theory has no merit?

No, the implication is that it's a WAR, and that those lost loved ones are collateral damage in that war against Americans, which is unlawful per Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.

Article 3 does not apply here. Show me one credible source that says it does.

The Clayton and Sherman Antitrust Acts clearly prohibit restraints of interstate trade, foreign commerce, and the creation of monopolies, which is exactly what prohibitions against legal access to raw, generic cannabis, coca and poppies accomplish.

Are you intentionally ignoring the obvious, or simply don't understand that CRIMES ARE NOT PROTECTED by the acts? They don't apply until you change the underlying law.

Show me a legal decision that states otherwise.

Further, you are shooting yourself in the foot. The Sherman Act applies to INTERSTATE trade. If it is interstate trade, then it becomes INTERSTATE COMMERCE, which the federal government has the right to regulate (or prohibit).

The Sherman Act was to prevent a person/business from gaining a monopoly. The government doesn't want a monopoly on illicit drugs. They don't want people to have them.

Perhaps this plain English explaination from the Federal Trade Commission will help:

Section 1 of the Sherman Act outlaws "every contract, combination . . . , or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," but long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act prohibits only those contracts or agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. What kinds of agreements are unreasonable is up to the courts.

Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it unlawful for a company to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize," trade or commerce. As that law has been interpreted, it is not necessarily illegal for a company to have a monopoly or to try to achieve a monopoly position. The law is violated only if the company tries to maintain or acquire a monopoly position through unreasonable methods. For the courts, a key factor in determining what is unreasonable is whether the practice has a legitimate business justification.


Next, look up the case Sea-Land Service Inc v Alaska Railroad 659 F.2d 243,246 (S.C. Cir. 198). In this decision the court said: It would defy common sense to allow a plaintiff to make an end run around the doctrine of official immunity by the simple expedient of waiting until a government official resigns from office, then suing him in his capacity as an individual. Accordingly, the Sherman Act cannot be applied against an individual for actions taken in an official capacity.

Is THAT plain enough? IT DOESN'T APPLY!

Also, look up Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics




Drug war benefits crooks, increases per capita homicides and youth access to illicit contraband, and pays huge profits to those employed by or who have invested in the incarceration industry.

You keep repeating it, but don't say anything specific.........then claim I'm "avoiding" it.

__________________
A burning desire for social justice is never a substitute for knowing what you're talking about. -Thomas Sowell

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

 

Jose Melendez

Article 3 does not apply here. Show me one credible source that says it does.

from: http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/...t3/Marbury.htm

It is declared that "no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state." Suppose a duty on the export of cotton, of tobacco, or of flour; and a suit instituted to recover it. Ought judgment to be rendered in such a case? Ought the judges to close their eyes on the Constitution and only see the law?

The Constitution declares that "no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed." If, however, such a bill should be passed and a person should be prosecuted under it, must the court condemn to death those victims whom the Constitution endeavors to preserve? "No person," says the Constitution, "shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."

Here the language of the Constitution is addressed especially to the courts. It prescribes, directly for them, a rule of evidence not to be departed from. If the legislature should change that rule and declare one witness or a confession out of court sufficient for conviction, must the constitutional principle yield to the legislative act?

(snipped for brevity)

. . . the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that law repugnant to the Constitution is void and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

- - -
As for interstate commerce, the Federal Government is NOT regulating cannabis, or coca or poppies, by prohibiting trade in those products. They have instead, given regulation over price, purity and content to the black market, and artificially increased the value of inferior, far more dangerous products, the legal ones of which have indisputably been associates with many hundreds of thousands of American deaths every year.

You keep repeating it, but don't say anything specific.........then claim I'm "avoiding" it.

What do you need to see that is more specific than the fact that hundreds of thousands of American citizens are incarcerated for possessing or trading in substances that are far less harmful than the many poisonous products from which taxes are generated to incarcerate them?

What more do you need than that Wackenhut is one of the world's largest employers, or that spraying in Colombia has increased proliferation of coca and poppy crops elsewhere in the region? What more do you need to know than that pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed huge increases in profits, even as we jail people for using plants that can ameliorate the same symptoms without anywhere near the often deadly and damaging side effects?

Such contracts and agreements to wage war against our citizens most certainly restrain trade unreasonably, unfairly, unjustly and it will ultimately be shown that they do so unconstitutionally.

What more specific do you need than that, say, the Monitoring the Future study concludes that eighth graders are using heroin in ever greater proportions, or that Afghanistan is flooding the world with the stuff, thanks to increased profitability of opiates brought on by prohibition laws against cannabinoids?

. . . CRIMES ARE NOT PROTECTED by the acts . . .

Ah, but the laws criminalizing such conduct were ILLEGALLY enacted, with lies and omission of relevant, material facts that, exactly as with marijuana cases like those of Bryan Epis, Ed Rosenthal or Steve Kubby, would tend to exonerate the accused.



Six unnamed agents, indeed. How ironic that a citizen's privacy would be broached by agents who then, even in court would have their cases disposed without the requirement of disclosing their names.

from: http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/immunity/bivens.htm

"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."

JTP

I think Jose is a computer, programed to argue the same set of false assumptions over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Niteshift

I think Jose is a computer, programed to argue the same set of false assumptions over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

I think you're right.

I've made my case. I can support it. Trying to educate and help someone who wants no education and only help on his terms is pointless.

So, with that, and my listing of the decision that CLEARLY STATES that government employees, acting in their official capacity can NOT be charged with violating the Sherman Act, I will stop arguing with those who turn a deaf ear to supportable fact in defference to flights of fancy and pie in the sky hopes of discovering some theory that people with educations in the law have missed all along.

lilgrasshoppah

Niteshift: you are never boring, I'll give you that. And you have a certain boldness about ya.

How many people support prohibition on this website? How many people think it's legally enacted, fairly applied, and healthful? You say you don't. But I have never seen somebody work so hard expressing the validity of something and not support it. Either prohibition is invalid and insupportable, or it is wholely valid and requiring our support.

Over the course of prohibition, lawyers and judges of all stripes have back-engineered legality into prohibition. But prohibition was begun to stop white women listening to "devil music" and having sexual relations with "******s, Filipinoes and Jazz musicians." Prohibition was begun on less than a half a day's debate. From it's inception it has always been rotten. It will always be rotten.

Jose is saying "The emperor wears no clothes!" And your retort is "The tailors did so abide by the thread-count guidelines for super-fine silk!" Don't you get it, Nitesift? The Emperor wears no clothes! He's naked. That's his wanger hangin' out and swingin' in the breeze.

I suspect that prohibition will fall much the same way it was built: haphazardly and with little forethought; and with much pain to its bulders and any innocents caught in the rubble. All this litigating and brief writing will achieve very little either way. Direct actions will rule the day. Example: Vancouverites have repealled portions of antipot laws in that city simply by refusing to abide by them. They smoke in the New Amsterdam Cafe with little interference.

 

Niteshift

How many people support prohibition on this website? How many people think it's legally enacted, fairly applied, and healthful? You say you don't. But I have never seen somebody work so hard expressing the validity of something and not support it. Either prohibition is invalid and insupportable, or it is wholely valid and requiring our support.

I deal with REALITY, not wishful thinking about applying laws that don't fit.

As I've said, the law can be changed, but it needs to be CHANGED. Trying to imagine some ridiculous application of a law that can't be applied won't accomplish jack.

Would you rather people apply their time and effort to something that stands a chance of working, or waste their time and effort on something that has no legal basis?

If my analysis and explaination shows people the sheer folly of this theory, it allows them to apply themselves in something more productive.......which HELPS you.

Get it?

Jose is saying "The emperor wears no clothes!" And your retort is "The tailors did so abide by the thread-count guidelines for super-fine silk!" Don't you get it, Nitesift? The Emperor wears no clothes! He's naked. That's his wanger hangin' out and swingin' in the breeze.

It's you who doesn't get it. Jose is saying "the emperor wears no clothes and to fix the problem, we should go to a composer, not a tailor." WTF good is a composer going to do? Jose is identifying the problem, arguably correctly identifying it, but his solution to the problem is wrong.

As I said, present a workable solution, one that makes sense, and that's a different story. But as long as you're going to a composer to solve a clothing problem, you're not going to accomplish anything.

Jose Melendez

You keep putting up straw man arguments, then knocking them down and saying it proves your point. I said nothing about a composer.

I'm saying the laws that ban cannabis, coca and poppies were never legally enacted, that they benefit those who harm and actually kill Americans, and that existing laws that I have pointed out address these issues.

You told me to give you one credible source that says Article III applies, I gave you Marbury v. Madison.

You claim I'm not specific enough and that you are not avoiding the points I bring up, yet I've scoured both of our postings in this thread and you've failed every time to address them, specifically that per capita homicides, youth access and many billions in prifits increase along with prohibitions.

You insist you are against prohibition, and end each one of your postings by pushing against Kerry, who headed the Iran Contra hearings in Congress which concluded that the administration of the day was not blind to funding their extrajudicial wars with illicit drug transactions.

Drug war is crime, increases crime, specifically artificially increased pricing for inferior products that happen to be more harmful. According to antitrust law, these are illegal acts. That they happen to be committed by people who are our elected representatives does not take away from those facts.

When I answer your objections, you completely ignore those answers. When I point out you are avoiding those issues, you claim I'm not being specific enough. Shall I point out a few cases of police corruption only to have you claim again that the vast majority of LEO's are honest people that work hard to risk their lives and use "discretion" to look the other way for some but not others?

The laws were not legally enacted, passed with little or stifled debate, and testimony before Congress leading up to the passing of said laws include distortions, lies and what is likely outright perjury.

Those charged with enforcing said laws will not admit publicly that cannabinoids ameliorate many medical symptoms with far less harmful effects than almost every legal medication or intoxicant on the market. Is it relevant that they are handed money from corporations that make and sell products that would otherwise have to compete with weeds? Certainly, since laws against the restraint of interstate trade and foreign commerce specifically state that such restraints of trade are unlawful.

Is it relevant that half a million Americans die each and every year due to complications from the use as advertised and recommended of foods and supplements that would have to compete with cannabis seed? Of course.

Will Niteshift address these points that I have articulately described? Not to date.

- - -

Or maybe i'm just losing my mind, trying to write an article with somebody over the internet. - Herb Ninja

I've got to go, the place I'm living in in DeLand is experiencing a mandatory evacuation thanks to a tornado and hurricane on the way. Wish me luck.

Wage peace, friends.

Herb Ninja

I have no idea why you put that (old) quote of mine in your post Jose, but ive decided not to write that article. Peace, HN-

__________________
"Truth is treason in an empire of lies." -Ron Paul

lilgrasshoppah

In the words of Pontius Pilate, "what is truth?"

I'm surprised that you have not discovered how slippery reality is. To paraphrase a line from The Mission, "The world is thus...? Thus have we made the world." Human beings form reality. It's why Aztecs could kill millions of captives as a sacrifice to their sun god, and also why the invading conquistadors could be so repulsed by the slaughter, they immediately started their own slaughter of millions of captives, in honor of their Son-God.

Sorry, I get on a tangent, sometimes.

The point is, people believe what they want to believe. They take for an all encompassing reality what maybe a narrow view point and enforce that belief on others.

You say you deal with reality. I doubt you not at all.

Where I'm at is how ludicrously unrealistic the drug war is. It's so roundly, obviously fake, that if people were not harmed by it, it would be funny... Jus Pour Rire, as Montrealers have it.

People greet Reefer Madness with laughter and derision. The colorized version is in the comedy section of most the video rental places I've been in. When they discovered that lovely grow-op in that abandoned brewery in Barrie Ontario, people laughed. Nobody (except the people paid to do so) cried, "Save the children from the demon weeeeeeed!" Nobody takes prohibition seriously. Well, except for prohibitionists. But then, can you blame them? It is their paycheque on the line after all.

Prohibition is unreal. It is the sick twisted fantasy of a power whore brought to full ugly completion by a schizophrenic drunkard. Harry Anslinger lied to congress to get cannabis prohibition enacted. They violated the constitution to do it. Tricky Dick framed mischief by law to escalate the war on drug (users), first by assembling a biased commission to "investigate" cannabis, then by completely ignoring their findings and publicly attacking their characters when they were forced to publish what every other investigator has discovered before and since: that cannabis is not dangerous, and has many medical benefits.

Thomas Jefferson et al did not free America by jumping through false legalistic hoops for King George, now did they?
Gandhi did not free India by jumping through legalistic hoops either.
Even Jesus Christ wasn't to keen on keeping false laws.

You don't fix a bad law. You scrap it, and start over.

To carry the parable of the naked emperor to it completion: a tailor will not fix the problem. You have to recognize it's silly to follow a leader as shallow and vain and gullible as the Emperor. Rather than clothe the emperor, cast him off!

Niteshift

You keep putting up straw man arguments, then knocking them down and saying it proves your point. I said nothing about a composer.

It's called an analogy. Try to keep up.

I'm saying the laws that ban cannabis, coca and poppies were never legally enacted, that they benefit those who harm and actually kill Americans, and that existing laws that I have pointed out address these issues.

You told me to give you one credible source that says Article III applies, I gave you Marbury v. Madison.

Thus far, the courts have said that the law is legal. As I have REPEATEDLY pointed out, this issue will be addressed, in specific, in the spring by the Supreme Court.

Maybury doesn't apply here. You are misuing the wording. So you've still provided nothing.

You claim I'm not specific enough and that you are not avoiding the points I bring up, yet I've scoured both of our postings in this thread and you've failed every time to address them, specifically that per capita homicides, youth access and many billions in prifits increase along with prohibitions.

Because you never make specific observations/claims about them. You simply make vague statements.

You insist you are against prohibition, and end each one of your postings by pushing against Kerry, who headed the Iran Contra hearings in Congress which concluded that the administration of the day was not blind to funding their extrajudicial wars with illicit drug transactions.

Whoa sport, step back. I said I am not against marijuana legalization. There are certain off topic substance I would ACTIVELY fight legalizing.

And what the CIA did in a misguided and WRONG effort to accomplish something else has NOTHING to do with prohibition in my opinion.

Drug war is crime, increases crime, specifically artificially increased pricing for inferior products that happen to be more harmful. According to antitrust law, these are illegal acts. That they happen to be committed by people who are our elected representatives does not take away from those facts.

You are a broken record. Tell me this: How is the government violating the anti-trust laws (ie criminals) when the courts have ruled that the government CANNOT be held liable for ant-trust violations. This is like a state saying you don't need a fishing license until you are 12 years old, then you complaining the a 10 year old is fishing without a license, therefore breaking the law. The law doesn't apply to him! (That was an analogy Jose. I know you didn't say fishing licenses. )

When I answer your objections, you completely ignore those answers. When I point out you are avoiding those issues, you claim I'm not being specific enough. Shall I point out a few cases of police corruption only to have you claim again that the vast majority of LEO's are honest people that work hard to risk their lives and use "discretion" to look the other way for some but not others?

You "answer" the objections by repeating the same thing. I gave you SPECIFIC case law that addressed your theory and your sole comment on it was about the title of "six unknown agents", (which can be easily explain by those who actually understand the courts).

You've pointed out nothing specific on those issues.

And point out all the cases you want........it won't change the fact that I'm right in every one of those instances.

The laws were not legally enacted, passed with little or stifled debate, and testimony before Congress leading up to the passing of said laws include distortions, lies and what is likely outright perjury.

That is your OPINION. It is not a legal FACT.




You don't fix a bad law. You scrap it, and start over.

Then fine. Do that. But this notion of using laws that don't apply in some dream-like blow to "the man" won't get you anywhere. That's what I'm trying to get acrossed.