Guest Post by Eric Peters
Without consent, what have you got?
Just force.
The Constitution articulates the principle of consent – that “the people” agree to its terms and conditions – to be governed by it – and that without their consent, the government has no legitimate claim to govern them.
This is the principle at the bottom of the debate over medical marijuana – as well as the debate over recreational marijuana. If the people of a state consent to it, by what right does the federal government oppose it?
And it’s actually just one Fed – the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions. He has personally decided to hurl thunderbolts and lightening at any state which dares to abide by the will of its people by decriminalizing the possession, sale and use of marijuana – whether for medical or recreational purposes. He has decreed that he – personally – will send federal hellhounds to prosecute those who legally – insofar as the laws of their state are concerned – defy his personal anti-pot animus.
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But, he needs the funds to do so.
Mao was wrong. Power does not flow from the barrel of a gun. It emanates from the pockets of those with the money to buy the guns.
Take away the money and – effectively – you take away the guns.
That’s what Libertarian leaning Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California did back in 2014, when he put a rider in a funding bill that prohibits the DOJ’s inspector Javerts from going after marijuana users and sellers in states that have legalized the same – by denying them the funds to jihad.
Cue the angry ululations from Sessions. He is stomping his feet, demanding that the funding restriction be rescinded. He believes in the consent of the governed as much as another Republican – Abe Lincoln did.
And like Abe, he is determined to use force to impose his will upon those who do not consent.
But what gives the attorney general – or any other person – the moral right to deny consenting adults access to marijuana for medical or any other reason?
That Sessions does not personally like marijuana – and chooses not to use it himself, for health or any other reason – is certainly his right. There are people who feel the same way about alcohol – but these lack the power to impose their arbitrary preferences on others .
They did, of course, once possess it.
For about 13 years – from 1920 to 1933 – there was a federal ban on the manufacture, possession and consumption of alcohol. This was Prohibition – and it was a disaster for the country in addition to an insufferable affront to the founding principles of the country. A minority of zealots traduced the will of the people and criminalized personal choices which, as such, imposed no harm on any other person.
The Prohibition of alcohol was regarded with contempt from its inception and flagrantly ignored. It is an axiom of common sense that any law which most people contemptuously disobey and – more to the point – which they do not fault others for disobeying – can be safely assumed to be a stupid and even evil law.
Such laws turn legitimate law on its head – transforming people who are’t criminals in the moral sense (i.e., people who hurt others by their actions) into technical foul criminals – while turning the government into a criminal enterprise.
One which – in our time – seizes people’s property without even formal charges being filed, let alone convictions obtained – solely on the basis of an assertion by law enforcement that an “excessive” amount cash was found in a person’s possession; this is presumptively considered illicit “drug” money.
One which puts tens of thousands of people in manacles ad cages every year, for nothing more than possessing – or using or selling – a plant.
The only thing missing is a gaggle of demented harpies singing Onward Christian Soldiers.
The people of 29 states – so far – have had enough of this. Have passed laws decriminalizing the use, possession and sale of marijuana. Their actions are constitutional in both the moral as well as the legal sense of that document. The people are supposed to be the final arbiter of government – of what is and is not permissible.
President Trump, who is no Libertarian, agrees with this principle. “I really believe we should leave it up to the states,” he has said on several occasions.
Which means, leave it up to the people of the states.
This however puts him at odds with his ululating attorney general, who is pushing hard for the elimination of the 2014 law which denies the DOJ funds to pursue federal-level prosecutions of marijuana users in states which allow it. Sessions justifies his demands for federal usurpation by arguing that there is “an historic drug epidemic and a potentially long-term uptick in violent crime.”
This, of course, is nonsense.
Sessions cannot point to any “epidemic” in violent crime – current, let alone projected – that can be laid at the feet of medical or recreational marijuana, except insofar as use/possession/manufacture have themselves been criminalized. Which is exactly of a piece with the 1920s-era criminalization of the use/possession/manufacture of alcohol.
It amounts to the manufacture of “crime” in keeping with the dictum of Stalin’s enforcer, Lavrenty Beria.
If the argument is that because some people abuse marijuana, get high and drive or steal to support their habit, etc. – those arguments apply several-fold to alcohol. People who use alcohol responsibly, without harming anyone else, are no longer treated as criminals. Why should people who responsibly use marijuana be treated as if they were? By what logic?
And by what right?
Trump was elected over the harridan Hillary because – his flaws conceded – he better represented the people, who voted for him rather than his crazy eyes opponent. The people voted for Trump because he promised to do what the people wanted. Not a handful of arrogant bureaucrats in Washington – acting contrary to the will of the people.
The idea that the will of a single man – Sessions – should trump the will of the people is obnoxious as well as contrary to everything the Constitution is supposed to be about.
When Trump signed the omnibus spending bill that funded the government last summer, he stated: “Division B, section 537 provides that the Department of Justice may not use any funds to prevent implementation of medical marijuana laws by various States and territories. I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Italics added.
Hooray.
On this issue, at least, the president gets it. As opposed to his AG, who seems to think it’s 1920 – and that America should be governed not in accordance with the will of the people but from the top down by unelected “czars” such as himself.
We need to have a National referendum on this.
A “national referendum” would have to take place in Congress, where is where the issue began and where it should be solved.
It’s this simple.
Alcohol prohibition was lawfully implemented via a constitutional amendment. It was then lawfully repealed via another constitutional amendment revoking the initial one.
Where’s the fucking amendment concerning MJ? Exactly.
There is no valid reason for Cannabis to even BE on the DEA schedule, much less for it to be “schedule 1”. We’ve had enough reefer madness in the U.S. to last many lifetimes. The Feds need to butt out.
No valid reason other than, maybe, legislation regarding it and the power to enforce it eventually delegated to the DEA.
Follow the money. This whole thing is about making a national, federally regulated and taxed market for marijuana. I think they also want to require people to register as buyers of the stuff, but cannot prove it. I think they want the same thing for booze as well, all the better to keep track of all your activities.
problem with 420 is that it is just too easy to grow really good dope in your closet or garden, making taxation and regulation of small amounts ( under, say 10-20 lb) almost impossible without Panopticon style surveillance. It is a damned chore to make beer or wine or whiskey, but a common user can grow all the dope he will smoke as easy as raising pretty flowers. Neither States nor Feds can figure out how to regulate and tax a product that almost any knucklehead can grow and consume themselves. Neither States nor Feds can bear to give up the (in their minds) unrealized tax income they can get. Neither States nor Feds has any intention or appetite for throwing ssome hapless grower of a few plants into jail, or dealing with the public outcry attendant thereto.
A nasty set of conundrums for the greedy law and order crowd.
No, I do not use 420, and do not think use of it is a good idea. I do not seek to enforce that opinion on anyone else.
It is about money, but has a lot to do with pharma lobby money as well. “an historic drug epidemic and a potentially long-term uptick in violent crime.” – Yes, and ALL related to a recent uptick in the abuse of “legal” opiates. Pharma OWNS these assholes, so of course the “pot heads” must be the problem.
Sessions is just another, in a long line of command and control LEO types that forgot the purpose of justice was to protect and serve. In their command and control world, from Sessions, all the way down to the storm troopers that invade your house in the middle of the night, they are enforcing the law for your own good…..similar to the way democracy is brought to the middle east, at the point of a gun, cause they know best.
Trump may have signed the budget, but Trump also is Sessions boss. Trump could very easily make a phone call to Justice, and tell Sessions to knock it off……Oh, and while he’s at it, maybe have him stop with the theft of property allowed under civil forfeiture laws. That would pretty well end it, or he could fire his ass…..
The reality is that most of “law enforcement” in this country now is a make works program. Just like a large part of the MIC, the “healthcare industry”, the EPA etc. It has to do with jobs. If you legalize a “controlled substance” eventually, it results in the firing of the controllers. If laws start to make sense, and people begin to be allowed to make their OWN decisions, the “regulators” have to find real work. Common sense left the US a long time ago. Now, we just make things up so someone, somewhere can stay employed.
Florida needs millions more dollars in the Budget to combat the legal drug problems this year; each addicts medicine costs $1,000 per month not to mention all the other social costs . Now come Dopers wanting to throw the barn doors open to Dope and let the Devil pay for all problems that would cause. Sorry, I am a sober taxpayer and know certified stupid liberal ideas when I hear them.
Really? What exactly is Florida combating? If you are referring to a legal drug problem, then I suggest that as a “sober taxpayer” you march right on down to your local “pain clinic” and have a conversation with the “doctor” there making several $100,000 a year prescribing large amounts of pain meds to his “patients”. And, while your at it, you may want to take a drive down to your local big pharma rep that brings donuts by that same pain clinic giving presentations about how much additional revenue that “clinic” can realize by just prescribing a few more.
Do you really believe that pot smokers are the ones causing all of these problems? Last time I checked, pot did not cause rage monsters that shoot up schools….most pot causes teens to sleep and maybe miss a homework assignment.
I propose that you, along with 1000’s of other “sober taxpayers” are the problem, and not the solution. As you continue to fund legal theft, command and control policies and military style tactics while blissfully ignoring the root causes. Please, sir, stop voting, for the good of all of us.
Another case of Government fucking up anything it touches.
We all know what a threat legalized weed is…goddam good thing Sessions has his priorities so squared away.
In PA if you’re on the list for medical weed, the PSP can have your CCW pulled. So you can be an opioid or heroin addict and it’s all good, you get that med. card for weed…give us your goddam guns. Makes sense, right?
How many billions were spent on law enforcement chasing down weed?
It should never have been any form of infraction to grow, possess or consume weed.
This will cost President Trump to lose the next election, what happened to the states rights???? They always change their minds once they get in office. makes you wonder whom is really running the country.
I doubt it.
When you are ready to discuss the Boozers and the Pill Poppers, talk to me about Dopers. I know which one I’d rather be sharing a highway, a workplace, or a marriage with.
Cannabis is kept illegal to support the pharmaceutical\medical industries, the alcohol and cigarette industries, and the prison\slave labor\law enforcement industrial complex.
Also, one of the benefits of Cannabis is that it enables multiple-perspective analysis and “thinking outside the box”, which is the last thing that the Overlords want after putting so much effort into dumbing the populous down. Don’t want the slaves expanding their neural pathways do we?
Some people believe that it might just cure cancer. I think the jury is still out on that one but if true, that would be another reason some might be interested in keeping it out of people’s hands. Since I smoked Camels for 37 years before quitting in 2013, I may be testing this one out myself one day.
The idea that this is about anyone’s safety or that the AG is concerned about people is laughable. He is worried about the profits of his primary campaign contributors.
The hypocrisy burns! The fact that people either can’t or won’t see through it is frightening.
The people who are actively part of this twisted system, those who knowingly sell often harmless and non-violent people into it are even worse. It’s just a few steps down the slope for the same people to start burning books they don’t like and executing those who were reading them.
As a regular reader at this site (because so many of the articles are thoughtfully considered and well expressed, and provide a fuller understanding of the issues), I expected the comments to have a completely different tone. To wit:
I had expected that many of the seemingly freedom-minded visitors would contest the original premise of any state action, whether from federal, state, county, city, or unelected busy bodies, on this basis: (1) Can a party be held to the terms of an agreement to which she/he was not a party?; and (2) Can the terms of contract be imposed on someone not a party to a contract made by others simple because of the nonparticipating party’s physical proximity to those that did make the contract?
I call bullshit on the entire concept that the obligations of a contract can be transferred to anyone that chooses not to participate in the contract–by the say-so of those making the contract.
All discussions need to start at the other end–what right does anyone have to impose conditions for living on another? Answer: none, unless by agreement of the parties.
So how would you apply that to, say, immigration? Or the same laws being enforced in Black communities as in White communities?
And so on, think it through.
The Constitution didn’t last 100 years. All the talk about “constitutional legitimacy” of this law or that merely plays into the hands of the nine black robed nanny-staters and their interpretation of our rights. Why are our laws written in a foreign language? Was there any Latin in the Constitution? Probably for the same reason medicine uses it. To preserve Guild power.
So, can Alabama vote to bring back Jim Crow, in violation of Federal Law?