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Pot Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Artus Register | Hammer of Truth | 3/26/2006

FedGov is pretending to give the idea of self-ownership another shot, the AP is reporting. This time, it appears, the dying, rather than the sick are the intended recipients of a small shot of liberty.

This round, like those before it, matches one person and her attorney husband against the state leviathan and its endless cash. Although a long shot in this political climate that has Bush’s hands tightly around Liberty’s neck, there is the possibility of an upset here. If the case somehow goes back to the Supreme Court and is argued well, the “justices” (assuming their hypocrisy has an end) may have a difficult time opining against the right to life when they just ruled in favor of the right to death.

Of course, the Administration has made a compelling case against medical freedom by stating that, well, marijuana is bad and that the government doesn’t like it, or some such stirring oration. More on the well-reasoned opposition from the ass’s mouth:

“There is no fundamental right to distribute, cultivate or possess marijuana,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Quinlivan, the government’s lead medical marijuana attorney, wrote to the appeals court.

From an ethical medical standpoint, the government sounds foolish beyond description. While no one enjoys a right to be healthy, the pursuit of health, like that of happiness is a fundamental right.

If this reality were somewhat more normal and felt a bit less like an altered, down-is-up, parallel one, it might shock the sensibilities that someone like Mark Quinlivan could rise to the level of Assistant US Attorney and not hold the slightest understanding of the Constitution. His position, no more than a parroting of what the Administration’s puppet masters dictate, is without authority on at least three constitutional levels.

Firstly, the 9th Amendment clearly states that rights listed in the Constitution are not exhaustive, stating, in clear language, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Mr. Quinlivan assumes the Constitution is dead wrong on this point. He seems to subscribe to the tyrannical belief that many were concerned about with respect to a bill of rights. James Madison wrote on this point, illustrating the concern.

“It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.”

While well-intending, the verbal guard against statism became, in time, less than a paper tiger.

The 10th Amendment makes it very clear for anyone with third grade reading comprehension skills that the federal government’s power is limited to what the Constitution grants it, and that any power not so delegated, is reserved to the states.

Then there is the “penumbra” of a privacy right (violations of which are not actual if perpetrated by the government) located within the Bill of Rights by court opinion in Griswold vs. Connecticut. In that case the government saw fit to rule in favor of defendants who were trafficking drugs that were illegal under state law. Up to this point, the government has been blazing newer and wider trails of sanctimony by ruling against defendants who are trafficking drugs that are legal under state law.

None of this matters to Messrs. Bush and Quinlivan, who usurp rights for usurpation’s sake. But precedent and constitutionality aside, the entire situation can be distilled down to simple matter of personal choice. If I own my body, as I do my mind, it would reasonably follow that I have as much a right to ingest a tray of black Afghani Hash brownies as I do to chain smoke filterless Pall Mall’s as I shoot a fifth of Everclear with a bacon grease chaser. I can not legally do the former, but the latter act, the more ill-advised, I can peform without fear or threat whenever I wish. I am so blessed to have a government that protects me from myself.

That I can harm myself with some substances but not others, or that I can’t choose my own medication while the FDA approves dangerous drugs with horrifying side effects on a daily basis magnifies the absurdity of Washington’s position. If I truly feel that my physical, mental and spiritual heath is best maintained by copulating with racially-mixed circus midgets in a bathtub full of no. 3 heroin, I can’t imagine that being anyone else’s business, so long as the little people were there by choice. Likewise, if I choose to forgo conventional poison therapy to treat cancer, and favor the odds of laetrile and ozonation, that too, is solely my concern. But doctors who operate outside of the mainstream and offer their patients the treatment of their choice, are usually jailed and have their medical licenses revoked. Thus much for the penumbras of the Constitution.

And let us not forget that terminal patients often get all the opiates they want. The dying are sent home with bags of potent and addictive Morphine, but a few tokes of pot could lead to ruin. No one seriously believes that government is a bit concerned that someone with stage IVb pancreatic cancer might be victiminzed by marijuana’s “gateway drug” charms and start snorting lines of coke in the stall at the local nightclub.

Although I am excited about any foot in the door and hope those worried about a slippery drug slope are right, this upcoming case isn’t really about medical marijuana or even the prohibition of recreational drugs. It is about self-ownership and choice. If we own our bodies, we can put anything we wish into them. If we don’t, then someone else does, which makes us slaves. There is really no third option.

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Buzzby

Wow! This guy can write!


It's good to know that I'm not the only one who has that fantasy!

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Cassius

Let's just hope that we never see Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

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{ Cassius, Your Humble Narrator }
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