Report: Sessions to End Policy That Led to States Legalizing Marijuana
War on Drugs picks up again…
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who absolutely loves the war on drugs, has decided to eliminate President Barack Obama’s marijuana policy that led to numerous states legalizing the plant.
The Associated Press reported that Sessions will allow “federal prosecutors where pot is legal decide how aggressively to enforce federal marijuana laws.”
BREAKING: Here’s the Jeff Sessions memo rescinding Obama-era marijuana guidance to U.S. Attorneys. Impact still unclear. More to come. https://t.co/m0jOVcPvBl pic.twitter.com/jzShLt9j3c
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) January 4, 2018
Sessions has made it no secret since his confirmation that he will continue his beloved war on drugs. One of the first things he did as AG was review marijuana policies. The AP continued:
Sessions’ policy will let U.S. attorneys across the country decide what kinds of federal resources to devote to marijuana enforcement based on what they see as priorities in their districts, the people familiar with the decision said.
Sessions and some law enforcement officials in states such as Colorado blame legalization for a number of problems, including drug traffickers that have taken advantage of lax marijuana laws to hide in plain sight, illegally growing and shipping the drug across state lines, where it can sell for much more. The decision was a win for pot opponents who had been urging Sessions to take action.
“There is no more safe haven with regard to the federal government and marijuana, but it’s also the beginning of the story and not the end,” said Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who was among several anti-marijuana advocates who met with Sessions last month. “This is a victory. It’s going to dry up a lot of the institutional investment that has gone toward marijuana in the last five years.”
Ryan Reilly at HuffPo said that one official at the DOJ told reporters that this memo is a “return to the rule of law.”
Obama and his Justice Department announced in 2013 that officials “would not directly challenge state marijuana legalization laws and would take a narrower role enforcing federal law against pot sales.” The officials passed around a memo with guidelines:
A series of guidelines, widely referred to as the Cole memo after Deputy Attorney General James Cole, said federal enforcement and prosecution efforts would focus on preventing drug-related violence, as well as stopping distribution to minors, weeding out gang involvement and blocking marijuana from being transported to states where it remains illegal.
Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder used these policies as way to lower the population in federal prisons and tried to find new ways to prosecute and sentence drug criminals. He told his “federal prosecutors to avoid seeking long mandatory minimum sentences when charging certain lower level drug offenders.”
Sessions has an order out that demands federal prosecutors “pursue the most serious charges possible against most suspects.” Here is wording from a memo sent out in May:
First, it is a core principle that prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense. This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency. This policy fully utilizes the tools Congress has given us. By definition, the most serious offense are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.
The memo states that there may be times prosecutors feel “that a strict application of the above charging policy is not warranted.” If they want to go that route, they have to receive permission from “a United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney general, or a supervisor designated by the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General, and the reasons must be documented in the file.”
Eight states and D.C. have legalized marijuana. The plant became legal in California on January 1. The New York Daily News noted “that 64% of Americans support legalizing marijuana, with both political parties mostly iin [sic] favor.” Colorado first legalized it in 2014.
Olivier Knox at Yahoo News spoke with Colorado’s Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who lambasted Sessions’ decision, especially since the attorney general supposedly told him before his confirmation that he would not touch marijuana laws:
“I’m prepared to hold every Justice Department nominee until Jeff Sessions lives up to what he told me, lives up to his commitment,” Gardner said. A “hold” is a senatorial threat, frequently invoked to gain leverage over the executive branch, to filibuster nominees.
“Jeff Sessions told me this wouldn’t be a priority, Jeff Sessions told me the policy would not be reversed, and today Jeff Sessions went back on his word,” the senator said.
Gardner said Sessions made the assurances in “a call specifically set up because I would not release my vote [to confirm him as attorney general] until I got an answer.”
“He said ‘this is just not something that President Trump is focused on.’ And apparently, it’s not just a focus, it’s a primary initiative of the new year,” Gardner fumed.
Gardner reminded everyone that he personally opposed marijuana legalization, but the people in his state felt differently and voted for it:
If you’re a Republican in Washington, if you’re a Republican in California, if you’re a Republican in other states that have legalized, then this becomes a significant barrier toward understanding this administration’s policy,” he said.
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Comments
What about alcohol, that wreaks far more havoc?
Seems Sessions has better things to do.
Have states been blowing off alcohol laws?
Probably so…….
Karl Marx LIED!
Opiates and Drugs are the “opium” of the masses – that the Globalists use to keep them under control.
Not aware of what states do. Only saying that alcohol is as great a health issue as marijuana in terms of the cost to society, and that disparate treatment therefore seems odd.
Way back when, in the 30’s, alcohol was viewed as something most whites enjoyed, but nasty Marihuana was something only the blacks and mexicans did. So it was easy to make it illegal; and it turned out to be a real handy way for the local cops to come down on any of those people they wanted to put on ice for a while.
RULES FOR RADICALS! Make “them” follow their own RULE BOOK!I suggest everyone bombard the U.S. attorney and DEA with a list of ALL the websites that sell mary juana and demand the LAW be enforced. THEN, maybe, Congress will get off it’s DEAD ASS and change the law to something that resembles reality.
Prolly not the best use of resources…
“upholding a law”
“not the best use of resources”
You’re correct, we should immediately put the DoJ to work trashing our culture and building statues of Benedict Arnold.
Seriously, there are so many laws and so many rules that you would think that we live in the Soviet Union. I agree that we need to uphold the rule of law but when literally anyone at anytime can break the law we need to really think about what rule of law means, and maybe remove some laws and rules.
That said, as to what Rags said, how much have we really hampered or hindered the drug trade? I would see the drug laws as a prime candidate for removal, so that we can get back to rule of law.
You’re describing a problem with the legislature, not the DoJ. In theory, the DoJ doesn’t create laws, it merely enforces them, and they don’t get to pick and choose which laws they enforce. It seems to me that sessions is just returning to this ideal.
“they don’t get to pick and choose which laws they enforce. ”
Did you actually read that to yourself before you hit ‘Publish’?!
“Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This clause, known as the Take Care Clause, requires the President to enforce all constitutionally valid Acts of Congress, regardless of his own Administration’s view of their wisdom or policy.”
http://www.heritage.org/report/the-presidents-duty-faithfully-execute-the-law
What am I missing?
There are soooooo many laws that they can’t enforce them all, that in a nutshell IS the problem. Because of that every law that they choose to enforce 20 others don’t get enforced because the DOJ isn’t immune from the basic laws of economics. THAT says that they are indeed selectively enforcing laws. So the question has to be why these laws and not those laws?
Well, Shane, then CONGRESS, not the Executive, should repeal them and eliminate the resources used for enforcement.
Agreed.
Obama was a douche for creating laws.
I saw some place that if you dropped a person in the middle of the US and waited 15 minutes, they would have broken at least 3 laws.
Those in charge like it that way. So0 do police agencies: having so many laws lets them build up those all-important numbers to justify higher budgets and more and more expensive toys to play with.
Well sir! We agree on something. I think it should be a State’s rights kinda thing
“…who absolutely loves the war on drugs…”
You mean, ‘who absolutely loves the Rule of Law’, right? I mean, up until obummer, presidents could not pick and choose which laws to uphold and which to ignore.
If the potheads want legal marijuana, we have a process to accomplish this. It’s called Legislative Action and involves the creation of a Bill in congress.
This ignoring of federal laws worked to erode the foundations of our Constitutional Republic. It’s a good thing that Sessions is ending this.
Since you are so big on the “rule of law”, can you please cite the Amendment to the US Constitution that gave the Federal government the delegated authority to ban a plant? After all, an amendment was needed to ban booze.
The states have no duty to ban marijuana. If the Feds want it banned, let them enforce the law. The Feds have no authority to require the states to enforce it.
Since you are so big on the “rule of law”
You seem to think that “rule of law” is a bad idea.
It’s actually in the original. It’s called the Commerce Clause, and yes it has been misused. However, until we get enough justices to overturn Wickard, or pass an Amendment, the Constitution says that clause means that Congress can make and repeal laws on this.
Or you could launch a civil war… but it won’t be fought behind a keyboard.
Presidents have always picked and chose which laws to enforce. You are very naive if you think otherwise.
Which they should not do. The Congress should repeal them if they aren’t going to enforce them.
Drug laws were not created through Congress. They were created by a bureaucracy, maybe said bureaucracy can rescind their stupid fucking laws.
Sessions will allow “federal prosecutors where pot is legal decide how aggressively to enforce federal marijuana laws.”
What will Sessions do when the Attorneys refuse to indict and the juries refuse to convict?
Far more importantly, what will Congress do? Will it continue to wallow on, fat, dumb and happy, with its blind faith in passing laws which Americans don’t want and won’t obey?
He will fire the attorneys, and their replacements will make sure to exclude all prohibition opponents from juries.
Ohhh you mean this one? Controlled Substances Act (CSA) (21 U.S.C. § 811) Yah, who classifies whether something is a controlled substance?
Just sayin’
Marijuana, the second coming of tobacco, but with a hallucinogenic twist.
What does that sign mean?
I do NOT use marijuana, or any other drug other than coffee. (Cuban style, really really concentrated, really really strong)
However, I am 100% pro legalization. It’s a freaking plant!
I have known people that use pot, and they are rarely a threat to others, unlike alcohol and prescription drugs.
But we are talking about a bigger issue here.
If federal law says that pot is illegal, then we have to go through the process of changing federal law BEFORE making it “legal” at state or local level.
The rule of law is probably the one principle that separate us from dictatorial banana republics. Allowing politicians and bureaucrats to decide which laws they want to enforce, as done by the obama administration, is very unhealthy for Democracy. In fact, selective enforcement of the law is one of the most powerful tool of a dictatorship.
I have seen it with these very own eyes, and you all should be worried and scared of it.
I agree with you 100% on repealing the law that creates this mess.
The problem is that as a law it stinks and opens the door to what people that like pot but don’t like crack are afraid of, the legalization of all drugs. See, the law gives someone the arbitrary authority to determine what is bad and good. This creates a bunch of hand waving about what should be legal and what shouldn’t. This also has the perverse effect of delaying possible life saving drugs.
You can’t have it both ways you are either pro legalization of all drugs or you are pro drug war, my question to you is this, which are you?
Your statement is fallacious: a textbook example of false dichotomy.
Check your premise’. You don’t know how the drug laws work and you are operating under false assumptions, now would be a good time to verify your assumption are correct.
You seem to be arguing that drug laws are broken and it’s impossible to write a sane, sensible drug law, or alternately that there are too many laws so we shouldn’t try to enforce this particular one. Either of those preclude further debate on the issue of the DoJ’s selective enforcement of laws. I’m not sure what you’re asking for.
Both of what you said.
First, consensual laws are insane. Why? Because someone has to arbitrarily determine a) what is a drug and b) whether it is bad or good. This is an impossible to task to do objectively, and no law can be written to do it. Drugs can be dangerous and can cause irreparable harm to people. But trying to protect people from themselves is a fools errand. And an A Priori argument leads down paths that are best left for dystopic science fiction. Best to take the lesser of two evils and let people use drugs and if they do things that are damaging to other people then hold them accountable for their actions.
Second, when there are rules regulating every behavior then rule of law becomes moot. This is not good for anyone because then by necessity a class of people will rise that are above the law. We call this a dictatorship.
I am sick of the Drug War because the only winner is the State. The only outcome can be for the State to become larger and more intrusive. History and empirical evidence prove my points nicely.
I think the complete opposition to all drug laws is highly disingenuous. It’s certainly possible, and logical, to favor marijuana legalization but not the legalization of meth, heroin, and crack cocaine.
Why because you or someone like you knows what is best for another person. You think it is ok to force another person to conform to your idea of what is right? Why stop at drugs why not tell people what food is best too. You and Michelle can get together and strategize about which foods you would ban. Hell invite Bloomberg while you are at it.
Yah, really, I am curious how you do this logic miracle. Why don’t you state your logic so I can see how you come to this conclusion.
Your insane rants in this comment section show the logic of my position. You are fatally ignorant about every detail, and show every sign of being on meth.
And yet you have not either refuted my arguments or articulated any of your own. You are Troll.
If the Republicans came out and decriminalized marijuana at a Federal level, I can only imagine the collective explosion of heads.
“If the Republicans came out and decriminalized marijuana at a Federal level, I can only imagine the collective explosion of heads.”
You say that almost as if it’s a bad thing
especially since the attorney general supposedly told him before his confirmation that he would not touch marijuana laws:
So, how is Sessions “touching” marijuana laws? He seems to be enforcing them, not trying to amend/modify/ameliorate/neglect them. You know, doing his job. Like DACA and legal immigration, laws are the business of the legislature. If they should be changed, it’s up to the legislature to change them.
Congress may be the only portion of government which seems devoted to not doing its job, but rather to hoping someone else will do it … and then grousing when they do.
There are no “marijuana laws”. You are being fooled by this.
“There are no “marijuana laws”. You are being fooled by this.”
Yup. The Controlled Substance Act, which you cite in another post, is a figment of everyone’s imagination.
Looking forward to you trying that defense in court.
And just what does this act say about marijuana? You cited the law can you say how it works?
Perhaps you need to learn the term: ‘in context’. You might look up disingenuous, too – because you are being disingenuous in not understanding what Session’s testimony signified.
I understand exactly what Sessions said, because English isn’t my second language and I don’t ride the short bus to school. You????
Same guy who loves civil forfeiture. Giving R’s a bad reputation.
More no-knock raids, breaking down more doors at the wrong address, shooting more family pets, more throw-down baggies, more “numbers” for law enfarcement agencies… What’s not to love for a man like Sessions? A man looking for headlines rather than investigating and prosecuting REAL crime?
Meanwhile the Clintons and other rogues will never see the inside of a courtroom.
Swamp Sessions is quite the elitist. Justice is supposed to be blind, but that doesnt mean turning a blind eye.
Re klintons and the FBI crimes, Sessions pretends to be deaf.
Attorney General Sessions, while we’re at it, let’s again enforce the Mann Act. Let’s start a recovery of the nation’s morality!
/
I have a better idea: If you think Marijuana should be legalized then LEGALIZE IT. Pass legislation making it legal. Don’t have it remain illegal and just ignore the law.
So what legislation makes it illegal? Do you know? Can we rescind that legislation? What will happen if we do?
This issues isn’t as cut and dry as you think.
I think you know that if congress wanted to pass legislation legalizing Marijuana, they could. It is quite cut and dry.
You are not getting it. What if Congress passes a law and the president signs it, that says that marijuana is now legal? Do you have any idea what that would do? If your answer is make marijuana legal you would be wrong, it wouldn’t make marijuana legal.
You are stubbornly hanging on to what you THINK is happening here. Look closer and you will see it isn’t as cut and dry as you think it is.
Actually yes they could and it would be legal, whether you like it or not. Oh and before you question my knowledge of the CSA I am a 20 + year nurse who signs for and deals with controlled substances every day, so yes, I know more than you.
I trade stocks everyday therefore I know way more than you about the SEC. Puuuuhhhleesseee, arguments from authority are weak and you are very far down the food chain when it comes to controlled substances.
Question, if you know so much, then what if you have the CSA scheduling marijuana as a controlled substance and there is a federal law on the books that makes the sale, distribution and use of marijuana legal. Do you have any idea how THAT would work.
Clearly you know how the bureaucracy works so this should be an easy one for you because you are waaaaaay smarter than me.
Quite frankly, you come across as a daytrader on meth. You are not exactly an effective advocate of marijuana legalization.
I am not a day trader. I don’t use meth. And judging from your other comments I am an effective advocate because I don’t use physical threats to prove my point.
If you’re not on meth, then you are on crack. Put down the pipe, boy. That stuff is bad for you.
“I trade stocks everyday therefore I know way more than you about the SEC.”
Do you have any idea how ignorant and idiotic you sound?
Of course you would know more.
“arguments from authority are weak and you are very far down the food chain when it comes to controlled substances.”
Oh, I see you are getting your proverbial ass handed to you in this discussion so since you can’t win you will just become insulting. Typical of the weak minded. In point of fact the only people in medicine that handle more controlled substances than Nurses are Pharmacists. Though I do like the attempt to classify me as just a little ole no nothing nurse who isn’t a real medical professional. Well I hope and pray that is the kind of nurse you have for your medical care for the rest of your life. It’s not an argument, it’s doesn’t make you right, it just makes you an asshole.
“Question, if you know so much, then what if you have the CSA scheduling marijuana as a controlled substance and there is a federal law on the books that makes the sale, distribution and use of marijuana legal. Do you have any idea how THAT would work.”
Yes, the LAW would supersede the REGULATION, since congress has the authority to overrule regulations. See isn’t civics fun.
“Clearly you know how the bureaucracy works so this should be an easy one for you because you are waaaaaay smarter than me.”
It’s very adult of you to admit it, I didn’t think you had it in you.
Yes, as ignorant as this guy
—————————————————————-
This from the same guy making arguments from authority.
I see you have taken the high ground here and have provided your facts and reasoning … oh wait, you’re the guy that was making arguments from authority.
Damn, you are authoritative. You must be trusted and believed no matter what you say.
Wow, you are have some insecurity about being a nurse. Wow just wow. I will make it easy for your … ready … are you a lawyer who specializes in Controlled Substances? No? Whelp I guess even if you were a medical professional you wouldn’t really know either. So there is that. I hope I didn’t hit your fragile ego too hard.
I guess this is why you are a nurse. Because CSA is a law. Wow shocker. So which law supersedes which law? I am sure you can use your nursing background to work this out.
Congress allows the FDA and DEA to assign drugs to particular schedules. If Congress didn’t want marijuana to be a schedule I drug they could remove it at any time.
The DEA doesn’t assign substances, but the FDA sure does A+ Sandog 🙂
I have a question though how would Congress go about removing a marijuana as a Schedule One substance?
Congress can direct DEA to Remove it from the prohibited substance schedule, or the executive could do that. There is overlap between laws and regulations.
I don’t use the stuff and have no plans to start, however it was legal and Thomas Jefferson’s day. Cultural rot will not be affected by making the stuff legal or not, but legalizing or de-Federalizing it would be a head exploding political move for Trump.
DEA is an enforcement arm. Directing the DEA to stop prosecuting crimes related to marijuana is decriminalization of a specific part of the law it is not rescinding the law.
The DEA doesn’t prosecute crimes. Please, shut up and go trade some stocks, boy.
Wow you are a pretty tough keyboard warrior, do you want to fight? Is that what you are getting at, you don’t like what I am saying and you think you can physically bully me through the interwebz … Why would you think that? Do you think that is possible or even smart? What would possess you to use words like that? If you did that in real life it would be a fight and do you think those end well for either party? You might want to re-think your approach.
So you decided to pick this one thing to try to fight me on when it is pretty clear I was using short hand for the process that happens when someone gets put in jail for a violation of the CSA. Of course the DEA doesn’t directly participate in the prosecution of the crime. That is what prosecutors are for. But if no evidence of criminal activity is brought to a prosecutor then no prosecution can take place.
Put. Down. The. Meth. Pipe.
Also the DEA doesn’t create classification under the Scheduling system.
“What about alcohol that ruins more lives”
Good point we’ve seen what legalization of alcohol has done to society, so we should have the wisdom now to not make that mistake again.
As for the article, terms like “beloved drug war” insert a bias that I thought was beneath this site. Do better
Sessions needs to go. He spends more time on trivial things, the majority of Americans want pot legalized, we don’t want our friends in jail for something so ridiculous as smoking pot, and no I dont want to see pot smokers driving cars
Do your job and get a SC to investigate Comey, Mueller, obama, Hillary and all…
Or leave!
The ability to pick and choose when and against whom to enforce a law that most people have broken is the ability to destroy anyone perceived to be an enemy of the state.
And the antithesis of the idea of rule of law.
Make all drugs legal.
Don’t use drugs.
Sessions is just reversing Obama-era pen and phone policies which result in the law being enforced in a haphazard way across the country. It is causing hysteria, just like the reversal of the sentencing guidelines.
The proper procedure is for Congress to change the laws and simplify things. If a state wants to have stricter penalties for crimes, then they can do their own laws.
Congress has nothing to do with what everyone is calling the drug laws. There are no such laws. And Congress has no power over them at all. Maybe the President, tangentially.
Read this and understand:
Controlled Substances Act (CSA) (21 U.S.C. § 811)
This is getting old, who do you think wrote this Controlled Substances Act? What congress gives, congress may taketh away. Do you think this was the product of Divine Intervention? Your argument that congress cannot do anything about the legalization of marijuana is absurd.
So you are saying that Congress would remove the CSA because they wanted to legalize marijuana. Wow, you are in way over your head, do you even have a clue how much regulation is centered around the CSA that is not even remotely related to marijuana. Do you really think that Congress would be willing to pass law for EVERY single substance that is deemed dangerous after they dumped the CSA. I can’t imagine any scenario where that would happen EVER.
My argument is precisely correct that Congress can not do anything to change marijuana’s legalization because they have no control over the FDA. How clear could I make this. If you had put any direct thought to this you would see what a terrible dangerous law the CSA is and why Congress won’t touch it with a 20 foot pole.
You know nothing.
While you are technically correct, that does not preclude congress form writing legislation removing Marijuana from the preview of the CSA. Which they could technically do for any drug.
And when they do that then what, they have overridden the CSA for a very narrow case. Can you imagine the language of that bill. You are fooling yourself to think that will ever happen with ANY Congress. It won’t. There is only one way to make marijuana legal currently and Congress can’t do it. Strangely enough the President can through some seriously convoluted logic via appointment.
Yeah, it isn’t like they’ve carved out a ‘narrow’ exemption for any other drug from CSA. Nope, no legal drugs at all anywhere. Oh wait…
Name the drug they have done this for.
Alcohol
You do realize that congress has the absolute authority to overturn pretty much any regulation, right?
@rdmdawg Prohibition was an amendment to the Constitution and well before CSA. Try again. And as a side note alcohol is still regulated under the CSA.
@Gremlin1974 Nope, they have to write a law to “overturn” any regulation, and while they can indeed write a law specifically for or overturn the CSA for pot, you will read in my previous posts that there is a snowballs chance in hell of them doing that. CSA was written specifically so that the Congress wouldn’t have to be involved.
I like it. It stirs up the pot-heads. I’d like to see the US Treasury step in and seize all of Colorado’s pot-tax money as they would if they caught a dealer. Freeze the funds and let them fight to get it back via the courts. Same for California.
This would, IMO, force Congress… where this all belongs, to decriminalize or legalize pot… nationwide… at least kicking it to individual states. This “non-enforcement” idea is a crock. No other federal regulations are laws get to just slide if the cool kids get elected. We’re either a nation of law and proper procedures or we’re banana republic.
I think you’d be surprised at who the “pot heads” are.
I know plenty of them, from every walk of life. It seems to be a uniquely human trait to want to escape from reality. Some people use booze, others drugs. As long as their actions don’t harm others, I really don’t care what they put in their bodies.
I don’t think people typically use pot to “escape from reality.” That would be harder drugs, like meth, heroin, and LSD.
So you are psychologist? You know why people use drugs? Do explain, I’ll get the popcorn this outta be interesting.
Put down the meth pipe and go trade some stocks.
No question that Sessions has the authority to do this. Any reading of the case law shows it. There should be no quibbling about the legal side. But just because it’s legal to crack down don’t make it wise or right.
I’m sure Sessions would differ, but this is nothing other than a gift to the cartels. Marijuana was here to stay before a handful of states legalized it, and it will be here to stay no matter what Sessions does. The only question is under what structure.
The practical impact will be to close the retailers and shut down the derivatives makers, and end the rapid innovation that has occurred in the marijuana business. The commodity will continue to thrive, but the money will once again flow to gangsters and cartels.
It’s a very unwise move, and it’s going to wreck a lot of otherwise law-abiding and productive lives. I propose a compromise: The Democrats abandon gun control, and the Republicans quit trying to stamp out marijuana, and both sides generally agree to mind their own business.
Geez Sessions is the Don Quixote AG of the Century.
Do something useful!
AG Sessions has terminated the opened ended policy of his Obama administration predecessor Eric Holder. I see this marijuana policy as a signal to “sanctuary cities” like Denver, and “sanctuary states” like California, Washington, and others…that federal law still trumps state laws…particularly in the realm of immigration.
If he cares about immigration, he’d pursue that. This is about marijuana. Sessions is a long-time, old school prohibitionist.
Trump and the Feds should not complain about sanctuary cities and states regarding illegal aliens if Trump and the Feds tolerate sanctuary states for illegal drugs. At least be consistent.
People are all clamoring for the federal government to enforce the laws, well here you go.
I have always found it interesting that people are so gung ho over marijuana use. We already have a perfectly good legal intoxicant [alcohol] which causes all kinds of societal problems. Now we have another [marijuana], which has the added societal problems which afflicts cigarettes, which everyone is trying to stamp out, emphysema and lung cancer. What are the upsides to society for legalizing marijuana again?
Unless it restores the rule of law by eliminating the CSA, and giving us back some of our freedom … nothing 🙁
So..
As far as I am concerned, Dopers can burn in hell.
You put this stuff in a store for my babies, and I think you are worth a 12 cent bullet to the head.
Get your bullets and head to the local grocers where they sell alcohol.
This is the problem I have with drug legalization. Cynical, indeed, is the government that says to its citizens “If you want to wreck your life, go ahead”. In fact, drug legalization amounts to tacit endorsement of sitting around and getting stoned. It’s the reason why we’ve outlawed suicide and a multitude of other self-destructive behaviors. It’s the reason minors are prohibited from drinking or smoking.
Also, we’re a society, we aren’t just a bunch of individuals living in close proximity to each other, something that Libertarians consistently fail to acknowledge. Other people depend on you not to destroy your own life with drugs, not the least of which is your own children. Drug use has far-reaching consequences that ripple out through our complex society in a myriad of bad ways. Do you really want a government that says “we don’t care.”?
If drug users checked in to the local opium den, when they wanted to use drugs, and were held there until the effects of the drug had dissipated, that would be fine. But, they don’t simply sit around and drug themselves. They drug themselves then decide to drive, killing innocent people, or end up injured or overdosed, which then costs the rest of us money for medical care, or they lose control and otherwise harm someone. Drug use is a public health issue, in which the whole of society has a BIG stake. Drug use costs all of society a big price and that is why an individual’s desire to use a specific drug has to be regulated.
You don’t think people die from DUI’s and alcohol is legal. Some much societal destruction and monetary loss are caused by alcohol, but yet still it is legal. Why? Prohibition. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
If you need to know what a society built on A priori laws is like watch the Minority Report. I don’t want to live in that society.
If you use a drug and you do something reckless under the influence of that drug then you are responsible. This is no different than any of the bullets that exit my gun regardless of how I felt about where they should go.
Society needs to view people that do bad things as the perpetrators of those things not victims of anything. I think we are mostly there with our views on DUI so why not go all the way.
Yes
Because you believe that angels inhabit the government, doesn’t make it true. Also when you regulate behavior you have to determine what is good behavior and what is bad … this is ALWAYS subjective … ALWAYS.
This, THIS is why we still have dictatorships. You support Mao, because he thought this, you support Stalin because he thought this. Look at all of the good those people have done. The sad part is that you don’t give two shits about “other” people. Maybe for you “other” people means family, but having grown up in with addiction throughout my family, I have surmised the best thing for them is to find their own way (or not) because as I am sure you are well aware of in your own life that you can’t truly make someone do something they don’t want to do.
I will never agree with you and I can only hope that you will be shown the error of your thinking before it really hurts you.
Gee … it’s still against federal law … and golly … there’s a new boss in town … and darn … so the previous rules have changed. Who woulda thunk it … that’s secret code for … it’s obvious to all but idiots …
Very easy to fix roll up all state, municipal governments, venders, manufactures in RICO civil litigation take the money. It then stops.