Hooray for denying pain relief to terminally ill patients in their own homes!  At least the pharmacy companies won't loose any business this way. 

Hey Dan, say hi to Bull for me!

That is total idiocy. This vote just encourages more smuggling and puts money in terrorist's pockets. If people want marijuana, they'll get marijuana.

Should be fascinating to see where our anti-Nanny Staters fall on this one.  I am sure the silence will be defeaning. 

"I am sure the silence will be defeaning."

Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone!

Vote Glock for less government

Asking Eggs for a boost, Queen climbs on board the Vote Glock bandwagon

How many years of testing will it need to undergo before the bureaucrats at the FDA decide it's safe to prescribe?

Well at least we know they won't have a shortage of volunteers at college campuses nationwide.

There's about 500 layers of stupid government overregulation that need to be repealed before anything like this would be considered consistent.

The relation to medical marijuna and the long standing abuse of the Commerce Clause going all the way back to Roscoe Filburn and his wheat being ruled part of "interstate" "commerce" in spite of it being for personal use and neither being part of anything interstate in nature, nor even directly commerce in any way has always intrigued me a bit.

In fact the Medical Marijuana decision Gonzales v. Raich revolved almost entirely around FDRs vast expansion of federal power under the Commerce Clause.  Justices O'Connor's and Thomas' dissents are very well argued for ending this long standing abuse.  Thomas' blunt dissent being a must read.

I can absolutely see the compelling State interest that would justify a State prohibition on certain drugs, and although I put marijuana in roughly the same league of alcohol but safer, I wouldn't really be crushed if it remained illegal here as long as States had the option.  My main concern is the use of the Commerce Clause for these types of laws because they invariably get used to bolster the need for further abuse of federal power that justifies a wide spectrum of government regulation and intervention in our private lives and business.

I don't use marijuana personally, but I know many who do and are otherwise law abiding folks.  It'd certainly bug me to see them go to jail for something so absurd because the only avenue to acquire it is through the black market.  But I also don't have much mercy for those that think it justifies a life of crime and end up in prison for various felonies with drugs charges being tacked on.  I'd like to see it come out of the black market so it stops funding drug lords and organized crime/gangs.  Chances for legalization are slim to none due to the general voting public's view of it making the issue a political loser matched with the crusade against smoking.  It's highly unlikely even though I think it makes a great deal of sense, at least to me.

--

Glock21 Op/Ed

Yes, marijuana is a political football, and in the real world I doubt whether it will be decriminalized in our lifetime (well, at least mine). But  it is a poster child example of an archaic and outdated law. I would like to offer a thoughtful piece from a Colorado University newspaper. The opinions of this writer parallel my own.

Paraphrased: article source

"...dominant groups use power to subjugate subordinate ones. Dominant groups are able to pass and enforce rules that define other's behavior as deviant. At the start of marijuana prohibition in 1937, this was exactly what was going on. At this time, many people from Mexico were moving into the southwest of the U.S. Marijuana, a popular plant among Mexicans, was brought with them. Many Americans were hostile to the Mexican immigrants, and concluded that if there was a particular action or characteristic that they did not like about the Mexican immigrants, that it must be the affects of marijuana, according to Professor Charles Whitebread, author of a speech entitled "The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States". The drug caused a moral panic. In 1937, a set of very brief hearings known as the Marijuana Tax Act, determined that marijuana was a "highly addictive drug that produces insanity, criminality and death." I would also like to quote a statement from the Act by Texas prosecutor Harry Anslinger: "All Mexican's are crazy and this stuff [marijuana] makes them crazy."

"There was little hostility toward the actual drug; it was really about how Americans at the time felt toward the Mexican immigrant community. But today, we are still suffering from what was really an uninformed, racist drug scare over seven decades ago. Criminalization of marijuana stems from an outdated perception of what its effects are. I am sure you have heard that marijuana use does not cause death. It is true that everyone reacts to the drug a little differently, but the fact is that it is much safer than legal drugs such as tobacco or alcohol. These drugs come in as first and second in the statistical analysis of substance-related deaths per year. Why alcohol and not pot? Now, we obviously don't think these things about pot. Now, we use the idea of a "gateway" drug."

."..criminalization of marijuana has in turn put an overwhelming number of people in prison since the Reagan era, which only made these laws more strict...If we choose to look at cause and effects of high imprisonment rates, it is obvious that many people who have served time in prison have a hard time getting a job afterwards. Supporting prisoners is a heavy burden on our taxes. Many people in jail for marijuana possession and distribution are the victims of a very outdated moral panic and make up a large percentage of the expenses that come with our prison system."

"The only drug law that ever reduced the consumption of drugs in the United States was the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which in turn created the FDA and required that any potentially habit-forming drug say so on its label. This is a response to the use of morphine in the early 1900's when the drug was in a large percentage of patent medicines, and users unknowingly became addicted... Since then, no criminal law of drug use has effectively reduced the use of any drug. The key difference here is the idea of regulation versus the idea of a criminal law. When something like marijuana or morphine is regulated and labeled because of its altering effects, these kinds of laws do not punish, but instead caution. Open discussion and warnings. This is exactly what needs to happen with marijuana. America needs to stop regulating it the wrong way...look at the out-dated and ineffective, severe criminal laws that we have against marijuana today in relation to the reality of its factual effects and in relation to what is really best for our economy."

Amanda Pehrson - The Campus Press, Colorado University, Boulder CO

Everyone is a "nanny-stater" in one way or another. That's why it's comical when people throw the term around seriously.

Republicans think caffeine, nicotine and/or alcohol ought to be enough for anyone.

What does this even mean? I think that using none of the three is "enough for anyone", but I'm not asking for the banning of this destructive substances.

Why? Because I'm not a nanny-stater and you are :P

What's wrong with shrooms? What's wrong with weed? I am staunchly opposed to using any of these, but I don't see why the government should be involved.

As for Frerich and others' votes, I believe that there needs to be more testing, but unless they plan to do the testing, it's really a cop-out. You can't say, "We need to do testing before legalization" and "We can't do enough testing because it's illegal!"

How about legalizing pot smoking in CU bars only, just to 'level the economic playing field' prior to the geneal smoking ban going into effect?