Thread: The Latest: Justice may crack down on legalized marijuana

Trump changed all that with his message and facts.

There are other problems with this administration's leaning towards undermining the legalization of commercial marijuana. Sessions, if I recall, said that "medical marijuana" was acceptable but the commercial stuff was not. This creates a dead end for federal action against commercialization from a principle point of view. Nobody but the lying drug dealers or fools really believe that anyone smokes marijuana for medicinal purposes. This is a running joke. People get medical marijuana licenses to avoid law enforcement and they smoke it for recreational purposes.

Legal commercial marijuana is the death of medical marijuana. As long as you can get the stuff commercially, there is no longer any need for the special dispensation for "medical" marijuana. If Sessions is going to crack down on commercial pot and stay in defense of medical marijuana, then what is he going to do to protect and restore medical marijuana where it has dried up in the legal states?

Another problem is the law enforcement end of this. Compare the history of legalizing pot with sanctuary cities. Think of all the political and electoral effort that has gone into legalizing pot in the various states so far. And where is the political and electoral effort that has gone into sanctuary cities? It doesn't exist. Sanctuary cities are strictly the work of a political and administrative elite. Nowhere has the public been active in putting any sanctuary city status on the ballot. It may not even be legally possible.

In fact, we see the precise opposite. Remember Prop 187? Remember what happened to that?

No, sorry Trump. Legal pot is here to stay and it will go national. The Drug War is over and the only thing left to do is confront the use as civic matter, not legal. Protect our borders and the stuff crossing in and the immigrants hauling it in and we will do more that than the Drug War ever did.

Originally Posted by MW

The Supremacy Clause puts Federal laws above state laws. Therefore, if the Federal government wants to enforce marijuana laws in Colorado or Washington, it can. Any attempt by those states to interfere would be ruled unconstitutional.



http://legal-dictionary.thefreedicti...premacy+Clause

What was edited out of that quote was: "which shall be made in Pursuance thereof". Laws which are not made in pursuance of the Constitution, are not the "supreme law of the land".


The question remains: Where is the grant of power in our federal Constitution allowing the federal government to enter the states to prohibit the growth, sale, use or transportation of marijuana within the various State borders?

BTW, I am not a big fan of smoking dope. But am a fan of defending our Constitution and its documented legislative intent.

JWK



The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL,290 U.S. 398 (1934)

​

At Sessions confirmation hearing he was asked about legalization of marijuana, and his response was if the people want to end it (Federal War on Drugs), then Congress should pass legislation doing away with it. He sounded very sincere in that if the people in the states want legalization of marijuana, then Congress should listen to the people and repeal the laws. This section of his hearing was played on Fox or CNN last night.

Sessions knows the important laws that actually benefit our country and he knows chasing pot smokers or growers isn't one of them. Sessions also has high regards for States Rights and the Will of the People.

I am one of those who has always liked Sessions. I hope he doesn't disappoint me. We need to get back to adhering to the text of our Constitution and its documented legislative intent, which gives context to its text. We need to restore Federalism, our Constitution's plan.

JWK

Those who reject and ignore abiding by the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was agree to, as those intentions and beliefs may be documented from historical records, wish to remove the anchor and rudder of our constitutional system so they may then be free to “interpret” the Constitution to mean whatever they wish it to mean.

He also stated in his hearing that his personal beliefs on a topic, like abortion, would not interfere with his upholding the laws or enforcement of our laws.

Colorado governor, once opposed, is softening his stance on legal pot

Dylan Stableford Senior Editor
Yahoo News February 26, 2017
280 Comments


Gov. John Hickenlooper (AP) More

In the four years since Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana, Gov. John Hickenlooper — who originally opposed the referendum — hasn’t seen the negative effects he feared. Now, he says, he’s “getting close” to supporting it.

“You know, at first, I opposed it,” Hickenlooper said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And most elected officials did. But our voters passed it 55-45.

It’s in our Constitution. [And] I took a solemn oath to support our Constitution.”

Since then, Hickenlooper, the former Denver mayor and brewery owner, has softened his stance on weed.

“It’s become one of the great social experiments of our time,” Hickenlooper said, noting that more than 60 percent of American people live in a state where either medical or recreational marijuana is legal.

As recently as January 2015, Hickenlooper said he wished he could have “waved a magic wand” and reversed the legalization.

“This was a bad idea,” he told CNBC at the time.

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CO Gov. Hickenlooper says that there was not a spike in teenage marijuana use in the state after sales on the black market were eliminated.
6:58 AM - 26 Feb 2017

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“But if it were put on a ballot today, would you now support it?” NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Sunday.

“Well, I’m getting close,” Hickenlooper replied. “I mean, I don’t think I’m quite there yet, but we have made a lot of progress. We didn’t see a spike in teenage use. If anything, it’s come down in the last year. And we’re getting anecdotal reports of less drug dealers. I mean, if you get rid of that black market — you’ve got tax revenues to deal with, the addictions and some of the unintended consequences of legalized marijuana — [but] maybe this system is better than what was admittedly a pretty bad system to begin with.”

Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice left the enforcement of federal marijuana laws up to the states, leaving room for places like Colorado, Washington and Oregon to experiment with cannabis regulation. In an interview with the New Yorker published in early 2014, Obama famously said he views marijuana as a “bad habit” and “a vice” but no more dangerous than alcohol.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Obama said. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

Now, states like Colorado are closely watching what signals the Trump administration will send on legal weed.

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Questions after #StateOfTheState as to new tone in DC...answer...CO is changing our DC relationship status to "It's complicated." #GiddyUp
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Hickenlooper said that before Attorney General Jeff Sessions was confirmed, Sessions had assured Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner that enforcement of federal marijuana law was not going to be a priority of the Trump administration.

According to a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday, 71 percent of Americans said they would oppose a federal crackdown on legal marijuana.

But late last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested the administration may press for “greater enforcement” of federal pot laws.

“There’s a big difference between (medical marijuana) and recreational marijuana, and I think when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said Thursday. “There is still a federal law that we need to abide by in terms of recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.”

Spicer referred a reporter who asked about increased enforcement around recreational marijuana to the Department of Justice. But, he added: “I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/colorado-...190026370.html

Trump isn't going to go after pot-smokers or pot-growers in my opinion. He's going to concentrate on the borders and foreign drug cartels bringing their crap across our borders, that's the pot Trump will focus on, in my opinion, and it's not even that pot that he's worried about, it's the heroin and other hard drugs with no regulation, no controls, no education, no warnings, so customers have no clue what they're using or how quick it can kill them if that mix isn't right.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

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But late last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested the administration may press for “greater enforcement” of federal pot laws.

“There’s a big difference between (medical marijuana) and recreational marijuana, and I think when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said Thursday. “There is still a federal law that we need to abide by in terms of recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.”

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So it was Spicer who endorsed "medical" marijuana as legitimate. This was a real blunder for anyone who wants to move to push back commercial marijuana. Medical marijuana is quack medicine and only exists to protect recreational users from law enforcement, and for the really deluded and stoned, from themselves. Commercial marijuana is already the death of the medical marijuana facade and if the White House wants to protect medical marijuana, they are going to have to move to promote it in the commercially legal states.

Marijuana should be legal and if it helps sick people, then that's fine by me, all the better. I do believe it helps sick people feel better and that's great. It's better than morphine or oxycodone or whatever meds non-quack docs prescribe. There are a lot of natural remedies that we've been cheated out of by non-quack medical authorities.