Health/Medical
See other Health/Medical Articles
Title: As Marijuana Prohibition Winds Down, What Will Control Freaks Ban Next?
Source:
Reason
URL Source: http://reason.com/archives/2016/09/ ... rijuana-prohibition-winds-down
Published: Sep 13, 2016
Author: J.D. Tuccille
Post Date: 2016-09-13 20:08:30 by Hondo68
Keywords: end the WOD, intrusive, powers and dangerous toys, the New Deal regulatory state
Views: 13052
Comments: 67
Marijuana "does not meet the criteria for currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, there is a lack of accepted safety for its use under medical supervision, and it has a high potential for abuse," the Drug Enforcement Administration sniffed in an August public announcement refusing to consider easing restrictions on the stuff. The announcement seemed to deliberately miss the point since a majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana for fun, not just medicine. That the feds are fighting a rear-guard action on the issue is apparent from the fact that half the states in the country are currently ignoring D.C. on the issue, legalizing the sale and use of marijuana for recreation or sometimes broadly defined medicinal purposes. Arizona and California, at least, look poised to further loosen the law in November, with others to follow. But as marijuana prohibition falls, the drug cops have a backup plan. Just weeks after the marijuana announcement, the federal regulator of stuff that makes us feel good "announced its intention to place the active materials in the kratom plant into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in order to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety." The original sin of the Southeast Asia-sourced plant is "its ability to produce opioid-like effects and [that it] is often marketed as a legal alternative to controlled substances." Which makes the stuff a potentially handy reefer madness substitute if you need a new drug to stand in for a relegalizing old one as you try to justify the continued funding of an expensive and potent federal agency. After all, that agency is staffed by well-paid employees who've come to enjoy using the intrusive powers and dangerous toys they've been given to satisfy the whims of the moral scolds in our midst. We've been down this path before. As Prohibition, America's first national effort to penalize people for taking pleasure in imbibing psychoactive substances, became increasingly unpopular and widely flouted at the end of the 1920s, an assistant commissioner for the United States Bureau of Prohibition cooked up a successor project. Harry Anslinger left his old gig and took on the role of commissioner of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics—a predecessor agency to the DEA—and helped launch the national crusade against marijuana. It was a newly demonized intoxicant to give purpose to the power and personnel that had been assembled for the faltering crusade against booze. "This propitious marriage of state power and moral suasion would yield a dramatic expansion of federal policing and an increase of state and local policing in the quasi-military sphere of crime control," Harvard historian Lisa McGirr writes in her 2015 book, The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State. "The war on alcohol and the war on drugs were symbiotic campaigns," McGirr told Reason in an interview. "Those two campaigns emerged together, [and] they had the same shared...logic. Many of the same individuals were involved in both campaigns." McGirr sees the "federal penal state" of intrusive policing and mass incarceration that arose during Prohibition as the result of the combined efforts of old-time religious scolds who disapproved of alcohol use and Progressives who were eager to use state power to address what they saw as social ills. Together they nationalized what had traditionally been an individual, local, or state concern, gave the government unprecedented power to regulate people's lives, and escalated their efforts as people refused to submit. But even as it was a consequence of growing state power, Prohibition also helped to normalize the idea that the federal government could and should boss us around. "Faced with the unintended consequences of Prohibition, many men and women began to rethink their commitments to the war on alcohol, but they did not altogether reject the state's right to police and punish the use of other recreational narcotics," McGirr adds in her book. People also grew accustomed to an activist and intrusive state overall, paving the way for the New Deal and the regulatory state of today. A massive government apparatus, once created, can be used for any purpose its masters desire. "War is the health of the state," Randolph Bourne famously noted. But war doesn't necessarily require ships and planes launched against other nations; it can be waged against a government's own people by police who are empowered by the law to see enemies behind every door. Then as now, the law was unevenly enforced. If you were a New York socialite during Prohibition, you could continue to drink illicit booze at parties or in speakeasies in relative safety since you weren't considered part of a "problem" population and could push back against authorities—urban ethnics were deliberately targeted for harsher treatment when they broke the law, as were rural blacks. Likewise, Malia Obama was at little risk of more than a parental tongue-lashing when she was caught smoking a joint last month while young people—African-Americans, in particular--whose fathers don't reside in the White House often suffer nastier consequences in the absence of helpful political connections. Even for booze, the double standard for enforcement remains. While mayor of New York City, national nanny Michael Bloomberg ceaselessly sought to mold and scold his own suffering subjects as he broke the law himself to quaff wine in public. "They were behaving," he said of his friends who were given a pass by police. He's not one of those people, you know, and so he and his buddies shouldn't have to obey rules meant to rein in "problem" groups. So the desire to control remains in place, nurtured by policy-makers and their supporters who never intend themselves to be the target of enforcement. That desire remains even as public pushback causes yet another prohibition to stumble and fall. Prohibition has its own logic—of control and power—that has very little to do with the specific prohibition at any given moment. Those who would mold the world to suit their vision see no reason to back off their efforts, they've created a vast bureaucracy of enforcers who make their living pushing us around, and they've accustomed us to a state that pokes and prods us at every turn. So celebrate the relegalization of marijuana for sure. Just don't convince yourself that it means we've seen the end of prohibition, or of the abuses that intrusive government brings. The next big prohibition might be kratom, or another drug, or a grab-bag of substances and activities of which our rulers disapprove. What is banned matters less than the fact of the ban and the apparatus that keeps the ban in place. Winning doesn't mean ending a prohibition, it means disempowering the prohibitionists. It isn’t enough to end just one restrictive law, we have to disempower the prohibitionists.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
you can't do that, look at the impact on employment, where would all the stupid people work, enforcing stupid draconian laws? What would happen to the politicians, there would be no need of them if there were no empassioned causes to ban such undesirable behaviour as embibing drugs, smoking in public places, parking cars, swimming, building What is needed is to teach personal responsibility, something that is lacking in the educational system.
A better question is, "Once marijuana is legalized what will the aimless, immoral anarchists legalize next?
Exactly. Punishing one for selling pot goes arm in arm with, say, punishing one for baking wedding cakes for only heterosexual couples - yet many who profess to support liberty in the latter case will gleefully stomp on it in the former. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. Why, every non-rights-violating activity, Carrie Nation: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. "Italy's highest court has legalised masturbating in public after a 69-year- old's sentence was overturned when he argued 'he only does it occasionally'." Is that the kind of society in which you wish to live? Then might I suggest you move to Italy.
"Italy's highest court has legalised masturbating in public after a 69-year- old's sentence was overturned when he argued 'he only does it occasionally'." I've seen you make this ridiculous argument before - the problem is, masturbating in public does infringe on the rights of others.
Marijuana cultivation, possession or use remains a Federal crime in all 52 jursidictions. Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005).
Sure does - as does defecating, or making love to one's spouse, in public - none of which ought to be banned in private. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. 750,000 people are arrested each year for simple marijuana possession. What percentage of those were arrested in a private location? 1%? .5%? Yet this is your argument?
They will ban natural remedies. First herbs, then even garlic, honey, ginger and lemon. Only FDA approved, patented and privatized stuff will be allowed.
Possessing marijuana in public violates no rights - using it in public arguably does. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. Keep your skunk at home.
Here in Oregon it has been nice to see these plants back in people's gardens now cannabis is legal. It is a change long overdue on the national level.
Why not simply leave the marijuana at home if, as you say, people are only going to use it at home? Then arrests would drop from 750,000 per year to zero and there would be no need to legalize the use.
#8 Actions without consequences.
Not worried about children having access?
They're going after powdered caffeine right now. Nah. We have garden space for each appaetment in the back yard and there are two nearly fully budded Indica/Sativa hybrids back there. Nobody is molesting them. There are many plants out there besides these plants kids should not eat and leave alone. I don't aee that as an issue. I myself don't eat or smoke this stuff. But the again I had a heart attack this year ans has a stint installed. I am eating and exercising much better and have no use for it.
Marijuana is illegal in all 50 states and all 52 federal jurisdictions. Raich v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 1 (2005). "...the fact that marijuana is used 'for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician' cannot itself serve as a distinguishing factor. Id., at 1229. The CSA designates marijuana as contraband for any purpose; if fact, by characterizing marijuana as a Schedule I drug, Congress expressly found that the drug has no acceptable medical uses." State law that has been wordsmithed provides an affirmative defense against state prosecution for medical marijuana. An affirmative defense requires one to admit the commission of unlawful acts and plead an affirmative defense, an excuse accepted in accordance with a provision of state law. In doing so, a federal crime is admitted. While a budget rider in effect until September 30th withdraws federal funds for prosecutiing marijuana in some states (not Ohio), if it is allowed to expire, or if funding is provided, the feds can prosecute unless the statute of limitations has expired. If you flunk a random drug test, your employer can fire you. If you get a state-issued medical marijuana license, the feds can deny your application to purchase a gun. Marijuana is not legal anywhere in the United States. The crime is currently not prosecuted in some places.
How do they get it home? A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. And if you go into the Multnomah County Court house and screening deputies looking through your bag will look at it and leave it alone. The place I work up here gave me a pee test and I passed it because THC was all they found. Few people bother worrying about cannabis use here. If you are in public and smoking on the street all you have to worry about is someone wanting to join you. Sure, the repression is leaving too slowly, but the laws and repression was never ever justified, and the money to be made in that industry is too tempting to believe the laws will not become history.
You take the action of drinking booze or smoking pot, the consequence is that you get buzzed. There you go. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. The sovereignty rest in states. Marijuana got decriminalized in Massachusetts by an amendement to the constitution.
Marijuana got decriminalized in Massachusetts by an amendement to the constitution. Wake up. The supremacy clause of the Constitution clearly establishes that any law created by a state in conflict with the Constitution, federal law, or treaty is null and void. What is no longer a criminal act under State law, remains a punishable criminal act under Federal law. The collective States have the power to act to repeal or amend. They do not have the power to unilaterally to make laws in conflict with Federal law. Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 29 (2005) The States may act to repeal or amend any part of the Constitution, but they have no lawful power to enact and enforce laws in any way with the constitutional law enacted by Congress. McCullough v. Maryland, 17 US 316, 436 (1819) unanimous
Constitution of Massachusetts predates Federal Constitution and was never abolished. Suck it up.
The State is not required to enforce Federal law. They cannot convert something that is a Federal crime into lawful activity. Had your employer decided to fire you for testing THC positive, you're screwed. See Brandon Coats v DISH Network, LLC In Colorado, he was fired for having a positive drug test. In a proceeding on a motion to dismiss his case for failure to state a claim, the district court in Colorado stated: CONCLUSION Because the Court finds that use of marijuana, even where such use is in full compliance with Colorado‟s Medical Marijuana Amendment, is not a lawful activity, Plaintiff‟s Complaint must be dismissed pursuant to C.R.C.P. 12(b)(5) for failure to state a claim. Upheld on appeal. A Federal amendment to the 2016 budget currently withholds funding for Federal prosecutions of medical marijuana prosecutions. That law expires in two weeks. If the withholding is not renewed, or funding is provided, prosecutions could commence for violations going back to anything within the statute of limitations. You may be denied the right to possess any firearm of ammunition. See S. Rowan Wilson v Eric Holder, U.S. District Court, Nevada (2014). The ATF stated that "if you are aware that the potential transferee is in possession of a card authorizing the possession and use of marijuana under State law, then you have 'reasonable cause to believe' that the person is an unlawful user of a controlled substance," meaning "you may not transfer firearms or ammunition to the person." In Wilson, the 9th Circuit stated that, "in Dugan, we held that the Second Amendment does not protect the rights of unlawful drug users to bear arms, id.. at 999-1000, in the same way that it does not protect the rights of 'felons and the mentally ill,' Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27." In light of the existing holding in Dugan, that violating Federal marijuana law by possessession/use made one ineligible to possess firearms, Ms. Wilson argued on appeal that she obtained a Medical Marijuana Card but did not use it. The question in Wilson became whether mere possession of a Medical Marijuana Card was sufficient to make one ineligible to possess firearms. The court said that it was. At page 2 of the slip op.: Furthermore, the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 (“Gun Control Act”) prohibits “any person . . . who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance . . . [to] possess . . . any firearm or ammunition . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). Additionally, § 922(d)(3) prohibits any person from selling or otherwise disposing of “any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person . . . is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 922(d)(3). You can make believe all you want, but if the Feds find you worth prosecuting, State law is no defense.
A State constitution trumps federal legislation, especially unconstitutional federal legislation. It's a steaming pile of congressional federal crap, NOT law. They'll have to pry my Korean Ginseng, from my cold dead hands! If it in any way conflicts with U.S. law, that part is null and void. Wake up. Federal law is supreme over all State law.
You are full of shit.
You take the action of drinking booze or smoking pot, the consequence is that you get in an accident and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life.
750,000 arrests of people taking marijuana home. What are the odds.
"How do they get it home?" 750,000 arrests of people taking marijuana home. Beat that straw man. I never said people CURRENTLY ARE only using it at home, but that if it's legal there, that's where they'll use it. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. The accident is the (rare relative to the number of times booze or pot are used) consequence; us paying is the consequence of voting for Dums and RINOs. A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them. The key words are "in Pursuance thereof" Article 6: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land… === In Federalist No. 33 (6th para), Alexander Hamilton [who was a supporter of making Federal Government stronger!] says: …But it will not follow …that acts of the large society [the federal government] which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies [the States], will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such… [T]he clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union … EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION … [capitals are Hamilton’s]
You take the action of driving your car, the consequence is that you get in an accident and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life. You take the action of jaywalking, the consequence is that you get in an accident and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life. You take the action of masturbating excessively, the consequence is that you go crazy, you dirty little boy, and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life. Yada, yada, misterwhite moralizing.
…But it will not follow …that acts of the large society [the federal government] which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies [the States], will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such… [T]he clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union … EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION … [capitals are Hamilton’s] Perfect rebuttal... Bookmarked for the next time nolu sham tries to subvert the words of our Constitution. ( which is becoming a daily occurrence)
Why are you telling me who's to blame? I didn't ask. I said WE are paying for the reckless behavior of others. I have zero interest in paying more tax dollars to fund the consequences of legalizing yet another recreational drug. In your little Libertarian fantasy world, legalizing all drugs looks real good ... on paper. It falls apart in the real world. Once people start taking personal responsibility for their actions -- as they did back when drugs used to be legal -- then we can BEGIN discussing legalization.
Drug laws ARE pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. So says Congress, the President, and the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005). That's my side of the argument. But you're saying I'm wrong. Please present your side of the argument without using the phrase, "Because I said so".
By using what for logic? If there was ever an incentive to use a drug at home it would be the fact that it's illegal to use it in public. Yet there are 750,000 arrests every year of people who choose to smoke in public. Now you come along and tell me that behavior will stop if we legalize it?
Comments (41 - 67) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latestit means disempowering the prohibitionists.
#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
"As Marijuana Prohibition Winds Down, What Will Control Freaks Ban Next?"
#3. To: hondo68 (#0)
Prohibition has its own logic—of control and power—that has very little to do with the specific prohibition at any given moment. Those who would mold the world to suit their vision see no reason to back off their efforts, they've created a vast bureaucracy of enforcers who make their living pushing us around, and they've accustomed us to a state that pokes and prods us at every turn.
#4. To: misterwhite (#2)
"Once marijuana is legalized what will the aimless, immoral anarchists legalize next?
#5. To: ConservingFreedom (#4)
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
#6. To: misterwhite, ConservingFreedom, tpaine (#5)
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
#7. To: misterwhite, Y'ALL (#5)
Prohibition (is) the result of the combined efforts of old-time religious scolds who disapproved of alcohol use and Progressives who were eager to use state power to address what they saw as social ills.
--- "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
misterwhite --- "Italy's highest court has legalised masturbating in public after a 69-year- old's sentence was overturned when he argued 'he only does it occasionally'." ---- Is that the kind of society in which you wish to live? Then might I suggest you move to Italy.
Our masturbation freak, misterwhite, --- strikes once again in his progressive/religious war on self-pleasuring of ALL types, especially pleasures that obsess small boys. -- Since mentally speaking, he is one.. --- Gotta love this shit....
#8. To: hondo68 (#0)
#9. To: Deckard, misterwhite, tpaine (#6)
(Edited)
masturbating in public does infringe on the rights of others.
#10. To: ConservingFreedom (#9)
"... none of which ought to be banned in private."
#11. To: hondo68 (#0)
#12. To: misterwhite (#10)
750,000 people are arrested each year for simple marijuana possession. What percentage of those were arrested in a private location?
#13. To: ConservingFreedom (#12)
#14. To: nolu chan (#8)
#15. To: ConservingFreedom (#12)
"Possessing marijuana in public violates no rights - using it in public arguably does."
#16. To: Ferret Mike (#14)
#17. To: Ferret Mike (#14)
"Here in Oregon it has been nice to see these plants back in people's gardens now cannabis is legal."
#18. To: A Pole, hondo68 (#11)
They will ban natural remedies. First herbs, then even garlic, honey, ginger and lemon.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
#19. To: misterwhite (#17)
#20. To: Ferret Mike (#14)
Here in Oregon it has been nice to see these plants back in people's gardens now cannabis is legal.
#21. To: misterwhite (#15)
Why not simply leave the marijuana at home if, as you say, people are only going to use it at home?
#22. To: nolu chan (#20)
(Edited)
#23. To: misterwhite, Ferret Mike (#16)
#8 Actions without consequences.
#24. To: nolu chan (#20)
Marijuana is not legal anywhere in the United States. The crime is currently not prosecuted in some places.
#25. To: A Pole (#24)
The sovereignty rest in states.
The Supremacy Clause unambiguously provides that if there is any conflict between federal and state law, federal law shall prevail. It is beyond peradventure that federal power over commerce is "'superior to that of the States to provide for the welfare of necessities of their inhabitants,'" however legitimate or dire those necessities may be. Wirtz, 392 U.S. at 196 (quoting Sanitary Dist. of Chicago v. United States, 266 U.S. 405, 426 (1925))
The Court has bestowed on this subject its most deliberate consideration. The result is a conviction that the States have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the General Government. This is, we think, the unavoidable consequence of that supremacy which the Constitution has declared.
#26. To: nolu chan (#25)
(Edited)
The collective States have the power to act to repeal or amend. They do not have the power to unilaterally to make laws in conflict with Federal law.
#27. To: Ferret Mike (#22)
And if you go into the Multnomah County Court house and screening deputies looking through your bag will look at it and leave it alone. The place I work up here gave me a pee test and I passed it because THC was all they found.
These interpretations of the Medical Marijuana Amendment limit the effect of the amendment as an affirmative defense to criminal prosecution. The amendment does not make the use of medical marijuana a lawful activity, so as to preclude an employer from termination based on this conduct.
However, under the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is listed as a controlled substance that cannot be lawfully prescribed and that the general public may not lawfully possess. 21 U.S.C. § 802(6); 21 U.S.C. § 812(c), Sched. I(c)(10). There is no provision under Federal law that permits any class of the general public to lawfully possess marijuana, including those wishing to use marijuana for medical purposes. See 21 U.S.C. § 823(f) (providing an exception to the ban on possession of Schedule I drugs for federally approved research projects); see also Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 14 (2005) (“By classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug, as opposed to listing it on a lesser schedule, the . . . possession of marijuana became a criminal offense, with the sole exception being use of the drug as part of a Food and Drug Administration pre-approved research study.”). In contrast, the Controlled Substances Act expressly recognizes that “there is a lack of accepted safety for use of [marijuana] under medical supervision.” 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(1)(A)–(C). See 21 U.S.C. § 829; see also United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Coop., 532 U.S. 483, 491 (2001) (“Whereas some other drugs can be dispensed and prescribed for medical use, . . . the same is not true for marijuana.”).
#28. To: nolu chan, A Pole, *Bill of Rights-Constitution* (#25)
any law created by a state in conflict with the Constitution, federal law, or treaty is null and void
Castle(C), Stein(G), Johnson(L)
#29. To: A Pole (#26)
Constitution of Massachusetts predates Federal Constitution and was never abolished.
#30. To: hondo68 (#28)
A State constitution trumps federal legislation, especially unconstitutional federal legislation.
#31. To: ConservingFreedom (#23)
#32. To: ConservingFreedom (#21)
"How do they get it home?"
#33. To: misterwhite (#32)
Why not simply leave the marijuana at home if, as you say, people are only going to use it at home?
#34. To: misterwhite (#31)
You take the action of drinking booze or smoking pot, the consequence is that you get in an accident and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life.
#35. To: nolu chan (#29)
If it in any way conflicts with U.S. law, that part is null and void. Wake up. Federal law is supreme over all State law.
#36. To: misterwhite, aka Cassandra, beats his meat.. (#31)
You take the action of drinking booze or smoking pot, the consequence is that you get in an accident and the rest of us pay for your care and rehabilitation the rest of your life. -- misterwhite
#37. To: A Pole (#35)
n Federalist No. 33 (6th para), Alexander Hamilton [who was a supporter of making Federal Government stronger!] says:
#38. To: ConservingFreedom (#34)
"us paying is the consequence of voting for Dums and RINOs."
#39. To: A Pole (#35)
#40. To: ConservingFreedom (#33)
"I never said people CURRENTLY ARE only using it at home, but that if it's legal there, that's where they'll use it."
.
.
.
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]