Say Anything Blog

Even the progressives, i.e. the hemp clothing clad bastards that think dudes with BA’s in Philosophy would be making millions if not for evil Corporations and Neocons, were pissed at their “Inconvenient Truth” candidate in 2000:

Both have official positions with the standard drug war rhetoric.

Gore pledges to ``toughen our fight against illegal drugs,’’ and stresses more testing of parolees.

Bush calls for ``a balanced policy of education, treatment, and law enforcement,’’ including ``character education in our schools’’ and ``faith-based’’ treatment. But he’s a big believer in fighting the drug war overseas and at the border, despite all the evidence that it doesn’t work.

Both Gore and Bush support U.S. military aid to Colombia, a $1.3 billion policy that bears an eerie resemblance to the early days of the Vietnam War. Except we had a better chance of defeating the Viet Cong than we do of ending cocaine abuse in the U.S. by sending advisers, helicopters and herbicide to the jungles of Colombia.

Both candidates oppose racial profiling. Neither mentions why federal customs agents and state troopers started using profiles: To look for drugs.

At the second debate, Gore was eager to bring up a grisly racial murder in Jasper, Texas. He attacked Bush for not pushing a hate crimes law, apparently unaware that Texas has such a law increasing penalties for racially motivated crimes. (The bill Gore mentioned added gays.)

In beating the hate crimes drum, Gore offers symbolism to black voters. He isn’t offering real protection against a far more dangerous destroyer of black lives, the war on drugs. That’s where the body count is high.

This is not “Bush’s War on Drugs”.  It was Clinton’s War on Drugs.  And Bush 41.  And Reagan’s.  It goes back to the original decisions to ban opium dens in San Francisco in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  This is not a “Republican War on Drugs”.

You wanna check the dissents on the medical marijuana case in 2005 Gonzales v. Raich where O’Connor, Thomas and Rhenquist dissented from the majority opinion written by Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens and Kennedy that effectively killed the Cannibus Buyers clubs in CA and overruled the Arizona Law that I voted for allowing Medicinal Marijuana:

Justice O’Connor, dissenting (transcript), began her opinion by citing United States v. Lopez, which she followed with a reference to Justice Louis Brandeis’s dissenting opinion in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann:

“ Federalism promotes innovation by allowing for the possibility that “a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

O’Connor concluded:

“ Relying on Congress’ abstract assertions, the Court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one’s own home for one’s own medicinal use. This overreaching stifles an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently. If I were a California citizen, I would not have voted for the medical marijuana ballot initiative; if I were a California legislator I would not have supported the Compassionate Use Act. But whatever the wisdom of California’s experiment with medical marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our Commerce Clause cases require that room for experiment be protected in this case.”

Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent (transcript), stating in part:

“ Respondent’s local cultivation and consumption of marijuana is not “Commerce ... among the several States.

Certainly no evidence from the founding suggests that “commerce” included the mere possession of a good or some personal activity that did not involve trade or exchange for value. In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.”

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the original author of the commerce clause cases United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison, joined O’Connor’s dissent.

So the left’s wonderful folks on the Supreme Court including the former head of the ACLU, Ginsberg vote against California law allowing medical marijuana and you want to attack Bush and Republicans?

Get a fucking clue dude.

In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.”

That Thomas statement saya it all.  Back then government didn’t try to criminalize what you put into your body because it was well understood that it (government) didn’t have the right to do that.  The whole drug fiasco rests on an erroneouss interpetation of the ‘commerce clause’ which gave the Feds the power to regulate interstate commerce (the Feds have no constitutional right to regulate intra-state commerce!!) but not to prohibit it.

The war on drugs violates almost every aspect of the constitution but it will continue as long as the courts continue to ignore the constitutional limitations put on the Federal government.

You don’t have to be a moron to be a liberal Democrat but it sure helps.

Sparkie, I’m shocked; I partially agree with you here.  That said, cannabis DOES explain some of the other stuff you’ve posted to this forum, I’m sure.  :^)

Sparkie....

My stance on this is pretty well known on this blog. I’ve written two rants saying just what you said in yours. Waste of time. Waste of money. Too many people in jail for petty drug offenses. 

We need another approach to this problem and if we had politicians who could think outside the box to solve problems instead of being vote-whores we might eventually find one.

And once again I’ve agreed with Sparkie. I may need therapy.

The future ain’t what it used to be.....