A bipartisan team of Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Ron Paul, R-Texas, will introduce federal legislation that would permit states to legalize, regulate, tax and control marijuana without federal interference.
The legislation will be unveiled Thursday by Frank, an outspoken liberal Democrat, and the libertarian Paul, who is running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
The bill would limit the U.S. government role in marijuana enforcement to interdiction of cross-border or inter-state smuggling. Citizens would be able to legally grow, use or sell cannabis in states which have legalized the forbidden weed.
The legislation is the first bill to be introduced in Congress that would end federal marijuana prohibition…
The legislation follows a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, released early this month, that pronounced the War on Drugs a failure and advocated legal regulation of marijuana.
A breath of fresh air in Congress. Maybe a little smoke, too.
#11. “Just go south of the border, you don’t have to travel far and live there,… I bet neither B.Frank or R.Paul would move there of their own free will.”
BS. You’ve certainly missed the point. The only reason for the drug wars in Mexico is because of it’s illegality here. You have to know that. Besides that, why should anyone have to move out of their country to be able to imbibe in something this harmless. Next question: Are you a hypocrite, do you drink alcohol? Have you ever smoked tobacco? Both addictive DRUGS and much more damaging. Be honest.
I think it’s interesting because this makes the GOP deny a states’ rights claim.
Ron Paul is okay by me.
Use as medicine, yes.
Use for recreational purpose no.
We already have enough problems with people legally abusing alcohol. We don’t need to exacerbate the error in monkeys and their insistence to play with their dopamine receptors.
Filthy, senseless, self-absorbed monkeys can rot. All of them unfit to breathe air.
Cursor_
I’m one of those old fashioned kooks who think that if a constitutional amendment was needed for the feds to outlaw alcohol, they should be similarly powerless to enforce other drug laws, so this bill is superfluous. But I’ll support it anyways since it would reduce the amount of my tax dollars going to keep non-violent drug users in cages.
Goldbug–what makes you think a Constitutional Amendment was required to outlaw Alcohol? That was FORCED on the Feds by anti-liquor interest.
Feds could have outlawed Alcohol just as they have done with MJ.
I think the next bus will be by in a few minutes.
NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP
Popular Mechanics
February, 1938
http://goo.gl/9663k
I rather see it that way than the money going to the drug lords.
Legalize but only on condition that it is never advertised and never done in a public place where children can see.
#26–Milo==thats a lot of cellulose. It would be nice to see this green alternative to petroleum based products take off again.
Thanks for the link.
It may become legal soon for the same reason that prohibition was repealed. The Feds coffers are too empty and it could be a lucrative tax revenue stream. It would have the advantage of making tax money, and lowering the costs of arresting and incarceration of those smoking or selling it. I don’t know that I’d ever use it, but it could end up being better as a legal, regulated drug like alcohol and tobacco than an illegal one.
#6 is right.
#11 is wrong. America is all about changing bad laws not living with them.
#14 – It was Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher and yellow journalist of the 33rd degree.
In a free country marijuana would be legal as it was in America until 1937 when evil industrialists demonized the most promising anti cancer medicine we have and the safest therapeutically effective substance known to mankind, it is the ONLY medicine with no side effects.
Supporting a corrupt government like ours is not patriotic it is stupid folly that leads to tyranny. America – fix it or suffer.
They’re just using sanity as another one of their nefarious tricks. This idea sounds good on the surface, and it’s good under the surface, but it’s a dangled lollipop to lull us into a sense of feeling like there are sane people in government. Next thing you know… BAM!… they’ll start taxing the rich.
Indeed. Hemp of any type should be legal.
#25 bobbo, 18th amendment aside, no doubt if it were only the “ignorant, violent negroes” partaking of alcohol the feds would have gotten away with outlawing it beyond the remit of the constitution.
Out of curiosity, what would have been the 1920 justification of alcohol prohibition absent an amendment, the commerce clause? That seems a popular one, along with the “fuck you, I’m president, I can bomb who I want” clause.
Goldbug–exactly so. The CC has destroyed any limitation on Federal Power all as interpreted by liberal and conservative courts since day one. When you can’t grow and consume your own plants on your own property because it “affects” interstate commerce AND you can’t NOT BUY health insurance because it affects interstate commerce==there is NOTHING that does not affect interstate commerce. The damnable thing is that that is absolutely true BUT the rights/powers/duties in the Const must all be balanced off against one another. The CC is never balanced by the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property/err–happiness.
Its outrageous. Its the way it is.
All the power to them.
Don’t look for any tax revenue though. This stuff grows like a weed. In your basement.
Goldbug–on further reflection, I don’t want to “project” todays Courts attitude to back then. A quick google turned this short interesting article up:
http://drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/
saying that 90 years ago the USSC was upholding states rights so the Feds countered by establishing a tax on drugs and alcohol. On drugs it was meant to “trap” drug dealers on tax evasion/failure to comply. Probably something similar was going on with Alcohol too along with many states making it illegal.
Always amuses me the blather given to our “inalienable rights given by god” but if your government doesn’t agree, you don’t get to exercise them in the open and isn’t that really the point?
FREEEEEEEEDOM—someone else doing something you don’t like.
Christ, what is the world coming to when I have to support something Barney Frank proposes? On the other hand, others have pointed out the forces that will prevent it from actually happening.
Uggh… if this passes I would think of Barney Frank while smoking pot. I wouldn’t say this makes up for all the damage he has done to this country, but it is a start.
It sounds like most of the people here are fine with the novel concept of letting states decide their own rules for themselves. Why not letting them decide other controversial issues like abortion laws, health care, etc? If anything, drug laws are probably one of the worst things to try to enforce at the state level because the US was set up in such a way to allow for one border around all of the states and easy interstate travel and commerce with defense and border enforcement at the national level.
Fox News John Stossel and Judge Napolitano make a good argument for ending prohibition…just like the last prohibition, this isn’t working.
http://bing.com/videos/search?q=judge+napolitano+legalize+drugs&qpvt=judge+napolitano+legalize+drugs&FORM=VDRE#