It looks like a marijuana legalization initiative will be on the ballot in California this fall. Today the backers of the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act turned in nearly 700,000 signatures; they need just 434,000 to qualify the measure for the ballot. The Los Angeles Times notes that “a Field Poll taken last April found that 56% of voters in the state and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it.” It also suggests that “if passed, the initiative would put the state in conflict with federal law,” which is not strictly speaking true.
As Drug Policy Alliance attorney Tamar Todd noted in response to a Los Angeles Times editorial that made a similar claim a couple weeks ago, California is under no obligation to replicate federal drug prohibitions. Under the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of the Commerce Clause, the federal government would have the authority to prosecute people for growing, distributing, and possessing marijuana even if the drug were no longer banned by state law. But it would not have the resources to do so consistently.
[Via Jack Liberty]
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It certainly is fun reading the fearmongers’ comments.
If this is passed the Earth will still rotate the same way and the days will pass normally.
After a while people will be saying “So what was the hype all about? all these years?”
#25. Sorry, the premise of your comment is flawed.
When the premise is flawed, the conclusion is screwed.
Here is the sanity on CPOD, for instance:
How many cigarettes per day? How many joints?
#35, buzz,
Your post is flawed. RBG gave a reasoned argument with references. You gave a distorted, incomprehensible post.
# 19 Thats a dam good suggestion but um yeah legalize it.
Is there any kind of big grave danger of the process of legalizing medical marijuana? I pretty much are not able to help feeling the fact that there is something real absolutely wrong with this idea…l
What’s your own most loved sort of cannabis?
there goes someones rubbish slant on the science.
the most recent, mot comprehensive head, neck, back and lung cancer research found that cannabis use alone, even in chronic smokers did not lead to lung cancer.
not the same result if you smoked cannabis and tobacco though.
you can not link one study findings ( there is dangerous stuff in plant smoke) to another (smoking a lot of dangerous plant material with added nasties) to make some argument that we should not allow pot, because ultimately tobacco is legal.
same goes with the stoned driving, pot driving trials have repeatedly shown that pot is less dangerous than drink.
in case you forgot, people face penalty for drinking and driving.
not for drinking at home.
the studies do not even suggest that people that smoke and drive would lead to as many crashes as alcohol.
so why keep wasting our money on anti pot laws?