of a catch 22. On one side, I can not explain why the use of weed is any worse than drinking. On the other, what a waste of a life to sit around getting high or drunk. I also think the state right to its own sovereign status is all powerful, but also can not understand why this is even on the ballot wasting both time and money when so may other issues are much larger.

So since I do not live in CA, see no reason why it should be made legal or kept illegal, guess I will sit back and just enjoy the show in CA. But I would vote the same way as You Neil if it was ever brought up in my state.

I’ve been following the Delta Smelt nonsense since it started, because it’s nothing more than a Cass Sunstein “nudge” to Totalitarianism and an absolute danger to our nation, not just California.

In fact, I even have a diary here on the mess and the article below is the latest addition to it.

Here’s what I posted – a totally un-edited c/p…………..

In a stunning development Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would try to pull an $11.1 billion water bond off the November ballot and instead ask voters to approve it two years from now. The governor said the delay was needed to focus on the overdue state budget, but the economic climate and persistent criticism of the bond”s cost also were making the measure a tough sell.

Apart from the Sierra Club and League of Women Voters, the powerful California Teacher”s Association on Tuesday came out against the bond, saying that its $800 million a year in debt payments would take money that could be used for schools.

====================

If I say it, I’ll get mad…… and I’m trying to relax tonight.

Actually, if I say it, I might open fire on something.

Let’s see what happens…………..

An $11 Billion water bond has to be canceled because “it’s for the children” ?!?

You Statist Dictatorial Unionized Leftist pieces of s…………….. BANG ! BLAM !….. Bang bang bang bang bang bang ! BLAM !

OK, I’m relaxed now.

California is expressing sovereignty? How about in relation to it’s state debt?
Isn’t it about time that all 50 states began to once again demand their sovereignty from the Federal government?

Cannibas in most measurable ways is less harmful than alcohol.

I think it is appropriate for the State to regulate driving while under the influence of any substance that might impair driving ability when people are driving in a vehicle that can quickly kill many other people as the result of one poor judgement or one slow reflexive response.

But I have never understood why the State (Federal or State) felt they had any business telling a free sovereign individual what they could ingest or inhale into their own body or what seeds they could plant, cultivate and harvest on their own land. I suppose it is the libertarian in me but I have always found this to be an attack on freedom and I have never understood why Republicans who are supposed to cherish liberty and property rights favored these policies.

Consider what happens when states have no inclination to participate in enforcement of other federal laws – like immigration laws, for instance. And even though CA is not required to help enforce federal law, wouldn’t the state now be aiding and abetting (profiting from!) the breaking of federal law. Holder must really be squirming over how to proceed on this. Nah, probably not.

I think it’s also safe to say CA will see an uptick in crime because of this, as well. Why grow it yourself when it has become so easy to steal somebody else’s?

Seems like CA is becoming a sanctuary state.

To me, at least, it represents not so much an assertion of a state’s prerogatives as another weakening of the Union.

the IRS, the EPA, the department of agriculture, the INS…..

They probably would rather just worry about the DEA and the FBI.

You would have to send an engraved invitation to State or local cops to get arrested for personal use or possession. Meth doesn’t get a pass though, they go after meth labs and dealers. If you’re doing something else to get arrested and then have pot or coke, they’ll bust you for the drugs but that’s it. Alaska cops do work with the Feds on importation and dealing issues, especially importation and sales of narcotics.

OK, it gives our cops something to do rather than bust druggies, but it is very socially corrosive. Drug and alcohol abuse are rampant in rural Alaska and Alaska’s larger towns are a teenage wasteland right out of “A Clockwork Orange.” Teenaged girls stripping and hooking for drugs are just a fact of life here and our jails are full of young men busted for some property crime to support their drug use. Because so many jobs here are safety sensitive and Alaska has steep Workers Comp costs, many, many employers drug test both pre-hire and randomly, so once someone becomes a drug user they are employable only in the cash under the table work or in low-skill jobs with the lowest pay so it quickly becomes a vicious cycle of crime and life outside accepted society.

“I personally don’t favor a sweeping new set of taxes combined with the legalization of a socially corrosive drug, and so I will vote against it.”

Socially corrosive is strongly worded but supposing it is true, isn’t it even more reason to support legalization. Demand for marijuana is not going away and right now drug dealers get to keep all the profits. Legalization would bring tax revenues that that could offset the negative externalities created by the drugs’ use. Plus the extra revenue would relieve pressure to raise other taxes (though thats a little optimistic).

In any case its a consumption tax, so if you don’t consume the product then you never have to worry about paying the tax. So if I assume correctly that you don’t use, then whats your beef with the government skimming some money off some stoners??

I don’t think it’s the job of the government to protect us from ourselves. If we want to ruin our lives with drugs (alcohol is a drug too, imo, and shouldn’t be tacked on after drugs), we should be free to do so.

I mean, if we’re going to ban pot, why not smoking? Smoking is at least as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And why not ban alcohol? While there isn’t a direct causal relationship between alcohol and domestic abuse, there is definitely a correlation between the two acts. Why not ban stripping? In a lot of cases, stripping is a gateway to prostitution. Or gambling? I could go on and on with things we could ban because they can be harmful to the individual choosing to participate in the activity. When does it stop? Certainly not with fast food, trans fats, or salts.

Also, I would say that pot is probably the least permanently damaging drug available today (which I have no scientific evidence to support) and that it is definitely the least physically and mentally addictive (which I do have evidence to support). So if we’re going to ban drugs based on their ability to harm the people who use them, we should legalize pot and ban alcohol and tobacco.

I certainly don’t condone marijuana use, but I’m definitely in the camp that the government shouldn’t be in the business of protecting us from ourselves.

I really see very little difference between smoking marijuana and consuming alcohol. Just like in the case of Prohibition, the marijuana will still get smoked, the government is only creating a funding source that creates criminal cartels and throwing massive amounts of money and resources for nothing.

I think the biggest reason why conservatives don’t support marijuana legalization is cultural. I can definitely understand that (being traditional) but I think conservatives should take a second look at the issue.

1) Legalized “drug” taxes would help solve city and state tax problems.
2) The criminal element would be defused. Control of the border would experience relief; Mexicans could get back their country;
Colombia and Afghanistan could allow peasants to grow whatever they wanted and make as money as they can.
3) We could send the Delta Forces to better hot spots.
4) The DEA and all drug task forces that waste law enforcement budgets could be disbanded.
5) 2/3s of all prison inmates (most minority) could be released, unless convicted of violent crimes.
6) Gangs and esp. biker gangs would lose their sting with loss of drug profits.
7) Addicts would get medical attention all the time without having to wait for places in rehab.
Public schools and malls could return to the purposes of retail business and education instead of being the drug sales and distribution centers of the nation.
9) Organized crime worldwide would partly disintegrate.
10) Pharmaceutocals would produce standard quality product and alleviate the problems of doctored street stuff.
11) Prohibitions don’t work once the social and cultural onus of a practice loses its negative moral force in society. Having laws and entire systems of legal oppression when populations refuse to comply just creates disrespect for all law and law enforcement.

but not for the reasons you all cited.

I’m torn on the “Regulate” part of the title of this.

If Californians want to legalize pot, or cocaine, or whatever, as a federalist, I believe that they have every right to do so. And I also believe that the State government has nearly unlimited power to tell its citizens what they can and cannot ingest or put in their bodies, etc. If some folks think marijuana is a socially corrupting drug, and want to ban it, then convince enough fellow citizens to go along.

So I’m all good on the federalist grounds. Let California decide what its legal regime would be.

I’m more troubled by the “regulate” part of this. So presumably, there would be some new state government bureaucracy setup to regulate marijuana. Perhaps standards of purity and chemical potency would have to be published (“minimum potency” or “maximum allowable” or some such), and inspectors would need to ensure that such regulations are being followed. If the sale of now-legal marijuana is to be regulated, then again, some sort of bureaucracy would need to regulate that activity.

Sounds like more big government to me….

Since a simpler solution — removing marijuana from the list of prohibited substances for which criminal sanction attaches — exists, whereupon it would be taxed like any other product in California (via the sales tax), I’d prefer to see a less intrusive, less Big Government alternative to drug legalization.

But that’s me being unrealistic, I realize….

-TS

Calif NAACP to back pot legalization initiative?

Jumping the shark in the process.

Key quote:

The group highlighted findings it says show the arrest rate among blacks for low-level marijuana crimes far exceed those of whites in the state’s largest counties. “Justice is the quality of being just and fair and these laws have been neither just nor fair,” said Alice Huffman, president of the California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Fortunately other voices recognize the absurdity of promoting drugs within a community devasted by drug violence and family breakdown.

International Faith-Based Coalition president Ron Allen said African-American leaders are distressed that one of the country’s most respected civil rights organizations would disregard the harm caused by illicit drugs among blacks. “The NAACP does not represent the African-American community when it comes to legalizing marijuana,” Allen said.

I am not commenting here on the validity of liberty-based, governmental coercion arguments relating to marijauana laws here. These are certainly worthy of debate.

But to effectively call marijuana laws as racist is a travesty against the brave pioneers of the civil rights movement who raised the conscience of a nation against an immoral practive, and in number of cases, paid with their lives.

But par for the course for race whores.

but I would support the repeal of federal laws against marijuana use.

This is something that should be limited to the states only, except when dealing with crossing the borders with large amounts of pot to sell.