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Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
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| Planting time in a Buenos Aires backyard |
The supreme court in Argentina has ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption. The decision follows a case of five young men who were arrested with a few marijuana cigarettes in their pockets.
The Argentine court ruled that: “Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state.”
Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti said private behaviour was legal, “as long as it doesn’t constitute clear danger. The state cannot establish morality“…
Argentina’s move follows rulings by several other countries across the region, including Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia.
The aim of such moves is to enable police to focus their efforts on the big criminals in the drugs trade rather than dealing with petty cases, says our correspondent, Candace Piette.
But it also marks a shift a dramatic regional shift to the decades-old US-backed policy of running repressive military-style wars on the drug trade, she adds.
Another chunk of South America makes a political and legal decision – independent of 19th Century “morality”.
Sometimes I wonder how long until it gets approved for personal use in the us as well
another subtle snub at the ancient (vatican-backed?) US policy..
-s
Why stop there? Let’s legalize all of it. The US needs more H1B workers, because Americans are not up to par…
# 2 soundwash,
“another subtle snub at the ancient (vatican-backed?) US policy..”
I find that amusing, given U.S. History.
Can you tell me who the First U.S. Catholic President was, and; what influence the “vatican” had??
It wont happen in the US. The price would go down and that would upset a few people.
Headline from the future:
“Following U.S. legalization of marijuana, cocaine, Obama announces balanced budget and fully-funded health-care for all.”
#6 Chuck, he’ll be able to announce anything he likes, and nobody will notice.
#3 – hey, that proves Michael Jackson isn’t dead!
And we call them “3rd World Nations”….
Not 19th century. 20th century.
I am against legalizing drugs but I could be convinced that marijuana is an exception.
I think the pro-drugs crowd would be wise to focus strictly on legalizing marijuana. Crack, heroin, meth, etc all seem to wreck people lives and put a huge demand on society.
But pot? It does seem to lower people intelligence and motivation but it’s not in the same category of those other drugs.
# 3 Jägermeister,
I agree you 1000%. Just before I joined the U.S. Navy drugs was a really big issue. It caused a lot of dangerous and probably deadly events.
The Navy adopted an essentially Zero tolerance policy that has served them very well.
That said, incarcerating small time users is STUPID. It doesn’t work. It turns people into life long criminals. Essentially any incarceration turns people into life long criminals and a judge should sentence this only as the last step, not the first.
Let’s not delude ourselves, legalizing pot will not remove the criminal element. PERIOD!!
@noname
Yeah, there sure were a lot of gangsters running whiskey after they repealed Prohibition. Not. The criminal element would move on to other drugs with a higher profit margin if pot were decriminalized and it was legal to grow for personal use.
Anybody who disagrees with what Argentina did should agree that coffee should be illegal as well. I know that I need my espresso every morning, just like pot heads need their pot.
And beer. That should be illegal, along with cigarettes. Or we all should be able to decide what we want to do with our bodies. I wish we were back in the 1800’s and I could mosey down to the apothecary and pick up some hashish and some opium.
Marijuana is a drug that leads to, Tango dancing.
mmmkay….meanwhile:
“Marijuana Arrests Set New Record”
one angle, methinks, is that there will soon be legislation that makes it illegal for someone with *any* criminal record [no matter how minor] at all to ever purchase a gun..
also IIRC, the UK had all but decriminalized Marijuana and then suddenly reversed course and put it in the same class as heroin and cocaine..
?
-s
We’ll be the last of the so-called civilized countries to legalize what should never have been criminalized in the first place, because the overwhelming majority of our ‘fellow citizens’ are way too stupid to even miss the choices they don’t have.
If this story teaches us anything, It’s that Marijuana causes mullets. Let’s put an end to mullets once and for all.
Now if only they would let people drive without seat belts, buy whatever light bulbs they wanted, etc.
Oh the outrage.
How will the police meet their monthly arrest quotas? There are only so many gay bars to raid for intoxicated patrons.
#19
or perhaps we should start incarcerarting people for those offences as well
America is still stuck in the dark ages because of the influence of the Evangelicals.
Representatives are afraid to discuss abortion because that 1/3 of the population against it are more vocal than the 2/3 in favor. Birth control and sex ed for teenagers would be much more advanced if not for the ‘god’ crowd.
Prostitution is another one.
#22 Agreed.
Similar problem facing Saudi Arabia today. The government knows it’s wrong to treat women the way do.
However, they take no action because of the influence and degree of religious brainwashing in the populous is so thorough.
I would be angry if a court in the US did this. In our country laws are made by the legislature. I would be perfectly fine with Congress passing a law to legalize all drugs, but not because I want to take drugs. I just don’t want to submit to a search of my vehicle in violation of the Forth Amendment.
#24, Benji,
I would be angry if a court in the US did this. In our country laws are made by the legislature.
So the Constitution be damned. You’re suggesting the courts have no role in deciding, as did the Argentine Supreme Court, that this was outside the Legislatures jurisdiction?
#25 Mr Fusion. The courts don’t make the law. The Congress makes laws. I am not sure how the Argentine constitution is set up, so I am not criticizing the Argentine Supreme Court.
I do agree that drugs laws should be repealed, but I believe they should be repealed by Congress. We agree on the issue, just not how it should be implemented. Courts are dangerous when they make laws since justices are un-elected and appointed for life. The role of courts in the United State is to mediate disputes and act as a check on unconstitutional acts of Congress. Their role is not to make laws.
The proper response in the US would be to rule the search for the pot unconstitutional as a violation of the Forth Amendment and the case would be thrown out for lack of evidence.
You can brew your own beer in the USA, you just can’t sell it (legally). Same of hard liquors and wine. You can make your own, just don’t sell or distribute it around. Cause you’re interfering with the profits of the major makers. And the government can’t tax your output. So that pisses them off, royally.
But marijuana is a plant like any other. I grows like anything else on this plant grows. To keep it’s possession totally illegal, is like forbidding ex-cons from ever having children, because they might turn out bad too. Well I’m sure a lot or self-righteous republicans do feel that way. But they’d make exceptions for bad GOPs that served any time.
Instead of moving forward on this issue, we’ve appeared to move backward. Some recent legislation, stopped the sales and possession of a new intoxicating weed, Salvia. Or Magic Mint. It doesn’t sound very bad to me. Far less unhealthy that downing a bottle of Everclear.
BTW, I’m not a advocate of using any of this crap. Not even hard liquor or beer. But I think it should be up to the individual, to decide if they’re stupid enough to ruin their health. And then take all the money wasted on paying authorities to track down and prosecute such numskulls. And spend it on generally educating the young on healthier choices. But I’m sure the alcohol and tobacco industries live in abject fear of that happening. So instead we have this crappy legal mess, that probably does more to promote the use of weed. By making it seem like the forbidden fruit of good times.
For some reason, ever since the Puritan days, there are large numbers of people in the US who are scared to death that someone, somewhere is having a good time.
The reaction I usually get is that legalizing means approval of drugs. It’s bizarre to me, the notion that I’m supposed to want armed gunmen in blue to attack anyone who is doing something I disagree with. The idea that I can dislike something, argue against it, and still not want to use physical force against someone to have my way seems foreign to a lot of people.
#26, Benji,
#25 Mr Fusion. The courts don’t make the law. The Congress makes laws.
I haven’t seen any court make a law. But please explain this next line,
The role of courts in the United State is to mediate disputes and act as a check on unconstitutional acts of Congress. Their role is not to make laws.
Your suggestion is if a court ruled on this it would be “making law”. Yet I am unaware of any law any court has made by themselves.
Courts often rule that a law is unconstitutional or outside the jurisdiction of that legislative body, but they never write laws.
Either explain how a court makes laws or give us a couple of examples of court made law.
What floors me on this whole legalize marijuana debate is 2 things that people for it always forget.
1/ More people using the stuff equals more DUI. We have enough of a problem with just drinking and driving offensives now marijuana will increase the statistics.
2/ Smoking is not a natural thing to do. Besides the drug in marijuana what about all the carcinogens and deadly chemicals found in it? Tokers don’t use filters so they are getting all the crap in the smoke. Smoking tobacco is finally becoming a social negative and the numbers of people smoking is gradually coming down. This also has the effect of easing the burden of taking care of smokers in the health system. Now we’ll see a massive jump in stats relating to smoking illnesses.
Answer those 2 issues never addressed by the pro marijuana crowd with believable stats and then maybe I’ll change my mind.