Marijuana.com

IbeToken

I am looking for a simple answer to a not so easy question...

Why is it that conservative states are less likely to endorse a bill to support medical marijuana, as opposed to the more leniant democratic states, who tend to support medical marijuana?

Also, I was thinking that with the rise of the public distrust of conservatives in this country, mainly to do with W, drug reform is just around the corner. What a great day it will be when we can light up a peace pipe legally and know that no soldiers were killed.

 

Donaldo

Ibetoken,

With regards to the War on Drugs, history proves that it does not matter which political party is in the majority; the War on Drugs continues because it is in the financial interest of government. Government is about power and dependency and nothing else. With the exception of the Libertarian Party, elected drug warriors come from all political parties. Citizens opposed to the War on Drugs and citizens in favor of the War on Drugs come from all political parties and from all states -- red and blue.

President Bush is a drug warrior and a loser just like the Democrat the preceded him. It is wrong to blame the War on Drugs or, any other problem, on one political party only; both major political parties are equally to blame for everything.

Consider the following. Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, a self-described liberal and former head of the ACLU, voted with every other liberal on the Supreme Court against medical marijuana and every conservative on the Supreme Court voted in favor of medical marijuana. President Clinton, a Democrat with a Democrat majority during part of his eight year term in office, shut down the San Francisco medical marijuana clubs of his day. President Clinton did this after the citizens of California voted, by a 2/3rd's majority, to allow medical marijuana. San Francisco District Attorney Tamala Harris, a member of the Green Party, recently wrote an article that stated that she is a drug warrior and will go after illegal drugs. The recent San Francisco busts came after the Supreme Court decision made medical marijuana illegal. I bet District Attorney Harris had a hand in these raids, but because she uses Progressive buzzwords (community, opression, justice, vulnerable, etc.) in her speeches, the naive San Francisco voters that put this Progressive drug warrior-of-color in office, will go easy on her and foolishly reelect her.

I agree, it will be a great day when we can lite up a peace pipe in peace and not worry about being busted. But if you vote for the welfare state, you are as guilty as the person that votes for the warfare state because both votes are votes for the huge, unconstitutional bureaucracy that we suffer under today. Vote for less government, less taxes, less regulations and more limits on government. That's the only way to end the War on Drugs and live in peace with prosperity.

Donaldo

Yana Usdi

To a point I think I've got to agree with Donaldo. At a local level and to a lesser extent at a state level the more "liberal" party tends to be more open to those type of things. But, once we get to a national level I can't tell the difference between them.

Keep in mind that during the Clinton administration rather than any reduction in the war on drugs we saw three consecutive years of record numbers of marijuana arrests and an increase in police powers. Ever since Reagan it's been nearly impossible to resist the "tough on crime" urge at the national level. You can read some drug war reformers thoughts on the Clinton administration at the following.

http://www.infoimagination.org/ps/dr...s/clinton.html

As far as why, that's tougher. Personally, I'd say it's pure cowardice. Others might say they are being realistic, but I'm not that charitable The fact is though that it's political suicide for them to be labeled soft on crime. So they simply refuse to stand up against policies that they know are wrong.

I wrote to my Congressional candidate last election, a Democrat up against an incumbent Republican. He'd worked some in the field in the past and knew full well that the system is broken, but he didn't plan to say a word about it. What he did say in part was this, typos and all.

"The political problem is if one starts a thoughtful conversation on the subject, those on the other-side use the bumper sticker/sound bite that one is "soft on crime." As we live in a sound bite world, people such as yourself must stage engaged, talk with media, and elected officials. In order to affect change, thoughtful people must come forward and work to change the public view so such sound bites will not automatically stop the conversation."

I got some additional platitudes about how he looks forward to working with me, as long as he took no risk. He lost anyway, should have shown some guts and at least tried to put some information in front of the public.

I'll touch on something else here, another why. Why has everything been reduced to the 30 second tough on crime commercial and 5 second sound-bites on the evening news? Two reasons, and they go hand in hand with this problem and with many others we have in the nation at the moment. The loss of the fairness doctrine in broadcasting was justified by the growth of multiple cable and other outlets that they convinced us meant we didn't need to regulate that both sides should be heard. That was a mistake, in light of the second part. Media consolidation. You can browse the extent of it at the following web page, in the issues section just click on media ownership.

Free Press : media reform through outreach, activism, lobbying and networking
http://www.freepress.net/

Most people aren't aware of the extent of it, but almost everything we see and hear, on cable, network TV, radio, and in print, are all owned by the same 6-8 or so massive multi-national corporations. That's been in place and growing for quite a while now, it used to be that any company couldn't own more than a few outlets so they couldn't control everything, and over the last couple of decades they've relaxed the rules to where just a few companies can between them own every voice you hear. Including "local" broadcast. Some may assume there's no "direct" control, and they'd probably be right. But, they have been controlling hiring and firing practices for a couple of decades now. When they guy who is going to decide the next round of promotions makes his stance on an issue clear, what's yours going to be? It's simple human nature, we look after ourselves and try to please the boss. Informing the public is no longer the point, it was a gradual enough shift that most of us never even noticed. We just know that something isn't right.

I think we'd find that at the root of a lot of our problems, nobody has a stake in telling us the truth anymore. They have other priorities, the higher in level you go the less we matter and the more the ad machine does.

__________________
LEAP Current and former members of law enforcement who support drug regulation rather than prohibition.
Drug Policy Alliance Alternatives to Marijuana Prohibition and the Drug War

Niteshift

Why is it that conservative states are less likely to endorse a bill to support medical marijuana, as opposed to the more leniant democratic states, who tend to support medical marijuana?

That's technically accurate, but a little misleading.

According to NORML, There are 12 states have passed mmj measures.

AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ME, MD, MT, NV, OR, VT and WA.

AK, AZ, CO, MT and NV all voted Bush in 2004.

That's about 40%. Not exactly a huge gap.

__________________
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.

Buzzby

If every conservative in a conservative-dominated Supreme Court voted in favor of medical marijuana, why did the plaintiffs lose 6 - 3?

Liberals are traditionally in favor of federal supremacy over states' rights. They didn't vote against Medical Marijuana, they voted against states' rights in order to support the universal application of the interstate commerce clause.

With Justice Thomas, I don't believe that the interstate commerce clause should apply to intrastate, non-commercial activities. Conservatives tend to believe in states' rights, except when it comes to legalizing the "demon weed". The Right, now dominated by the Christian Right, is too deeply entrenched in Puritanism.


True conservatives, whose intellectual icon is William F. Buckley, believe that the government should keep it's long nose out of people's individual choices.

__________________

 

Niteshift

With Justice Thomas, I don't believe that the interstate commerce clause should apply to intrastate, non-commercial activities. Conservatives tend to believe in states' rights, except when it comes to legalizing the "demon weed". The Right, now dominated by the Christian Right, is too deeply entrenched in Puritanism

The most conservative justices voted to ALLOW states to have mmj laws and keep the feds from over-riding those laws.

If the most conservative justices had their way, you'd be able to smoke pot,with a prescription, in 13 states, right in front of a DEA agent without any fear.

And if that case had gone the way that the most conservative justices thought it should, there would have been real precedent to put forth a real, valid arguement to eliminate the federal controlled substance laws.

SkyTripper

I only wish there was a third MAJOR political party to butt heads with the Dems and Republicans.
I personally don't believe that being far left is good.....nor far right.
Donaldo is right.
This government is obsessed with power and control....obtained through corruption and greed and is nothing more than an entity now......no longer does it matter WHO is elected or from what political ideology. It's on autopilot and managed to become this more than ever....over the last 40 years.
Separation of church and state is also becoming more of a grey area as religion has a continued powerful influence in government policy regarding individual liberties, freedom and especially morality enforcement.
The media rarely wishes to discuss America's failed "War on drugs" nor does Hollywood ever seem to manage to get a major motion picture release documenting this as well. Not since TRAFFIC anyway. They only tell us what they want us to know on the news and once in a while they have to cover their asses when something "leaks" through and wasn't supposed to.
The business of government now....IS business. At a gradual and methodical pace it seems as though everything is merging into ONE.
One in the same......and you are either WITH them or not. If you are not you WILL serve them one way or another and obey their wishes....or pay a greater price as time goes on.
IMO....the future looks more and more grim with the passing of each day.
Just MY opinion.

__________________
SkyTripper

Mamabudz

If you Toke..then Vote...

(and now back to your regularly scheduled propoganda)

Murdock

Credit where credit is due.. I wish the Conservatives on the Supreme Court had won that case, but they didn't.

With that said...

Can you point us to any Pro-Marijuana Legleslation authored by a Mainstream Republican Congressman or Pro Marijuana Bills signed by President Bush either in his time as President or his time as Governer of Texas?

Who within the Republican Leadership have come out with a Pro Legalization stance? Delay? Hastert? Frist? Santorum? Ken Mehlman?

The only Republican I can think of that might have was Ron Paul of Texas, but he's hardly mainstream. he's closer to Libertarian than Republican.

I'm sorry Niteshift, but your attempts to paint the Republican Party as Pro Marijuana are laughable, BOTH Republicans and Democrats are equally anti legalization.

Niteshift

Murdock,

You fail to understand what I'm saying to you.

Judges do not (or should not) make law, they make case law. They interpret existing laws.

I am NOT saying that any part or faction is pro-legalization.

But the conservative justices felt that the federal govt was over-stepping its bounds by applying the interstate commerce clause to the issue at hand, medical marijuana.

Their (imo correct) belief was that the states have control on this issue, not the feds when there is no demonstrated link to interstate commerce. The idea that is somehow mythically effects interstate commerce wasn't good enough. In other words, they believed the govt. was wrong in their application of the law. That is important. It's not a question of whether the justices have any opinion on mmj, whether is works or not, whether it should be legal or not. It's a question of whether or not the feds should have been involved in it. And their answer was no.

IMO, that is the mark of a good justice. They render decisions based on the law, not based on activism. Do you honestly think that Scalia, a man would could easily be pegged as a "conservative Christian", rendered that decision because he thought pot should be legalized? Or is it more likely he just followed the law?

Where that is relevant to the mj legalization community as a whole is that the decision would have provided strong caselaw to use in the future.

For example, is NV decided to legalize pot, there is still the possibility that the DEA or other federal agency can arrest you for it. If the Raich case had been decided by Scalia, Thomas etc any federal intrusion would immediately be challanged and the Raich case would be cited as long as the pot was not connected to interstate commerce.

Now the case wouldn't open up all drugs, eliminate the controlled substances act or end the drug war immediately.........but the Raich case WOULD have left legalization in the hands of the state and kept the feds out of it as long as there was no interstate commerce link.

Wouldn't it be easier to get pot legalized in one state at a time than in the entire country? Of course, 13 states have proven this already with mmj.

So again, I'm NOT trying to paint ANY party or faction as pro-legalization. I'm telling you that conservative, originalist justices would interpret the law in a manner that would help you more than hinder you.

Whereas more liberal, activist justices try to legislate from the bench and they will often lean towards the idea of bigger govt vs state or individual rights. They did in the Raich case. They did in the CT property rights case (siding with govt. and big business over individuals). And they will again.