MARIJUANA MAY BE LOSING POPULARITY WITH COLORADO LAWMAKERS.
Recently I posted a couple of blogs concerning the
legalization of marijuana. The first was
in January and can be found here.
The second was in February and can be found here.
I’m not a pot user and I really don’t condone its use but I’m really not obsessed with the legalization question one way or the
other except for these three points.
1…It should be kept out of the hands of
minors and there should be serious consequences for those who don’t.
2…Driving under the influence of pot should
of course also be a serious offence.
3…With the two above listed exceptions, Pot
should be a STATE issue not a federal one.
My reason for writing this update is that there have been a
lot of interesting news reports coming out of Colorado
recently on the subject. As you may
know, in 2012, Colorado was one
of the few states to have pot legalization on the ballot as a voter initiative.
The initiative passed, and pot is no longer banned there. (Except
for federal laws which aren’t being enforced)
A study at Colorado State University’s Colorado Futures Center estimates that Colorado potheads consume about 150,000 pounds of the drug per year. This is further estimated to generate $130 million in tax revenues for the state.
But if their estimates are true—and they do admit their estimates may be on the conservative side—then the professed basis for marijuana legalization, at least in Colorado, is a broken one; the $130 million that the legalization is supposed to generate for the state doesn’t even cover the cost of legalization and regulation in the first place. What Colorado has managed to do, in other words, is to create a law that’s supposed to help pay for things and yet cannot even pay for itself. It’s completely redundant.
I am something of a constitutionalist and I do support the Tenth Amendment, so when the federal government noses in on something that was not in the Constitution as ratified by the states, it irks me.
When individual states handle these issues on their own, like they’re supposed to do, even if I don’t agree with the decision the states come to, I won’t put up much fuss. The recreational use of drugs does bother me, but I recognize it as a state issue. Who am I to say that individual states aren’t allowed to dig themselves into a hole?
Even more ridiculous than the economic arguments for legal pot, are the medical ones. It’s only real proven medical uses, that I am aware of are the relief of certain types of pain, and prevention of nausea. Especially nausea caused by chemotherapy and the drug sometimes prescribed for glaucoma. But pot doesn’t actually cure anything.
So unless glaucoma and back problems in young twenty-somethings is a new epidemic in America, “medicinal marijuana” is a hoax in the majority of cases. Be that as it may, it’s still a state issue and not a federal. At least according to the constitution.
Here is a recent headline from Colorado.
Marijuana Repeal Considered In Colorado. http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/04/26/marijuana-repeal-considered-in-colorado-2/
Anyone reading this who owns a firearm, and also uses marijuana should pay particular attention to the remaining section of this post.
The website for the Office of National Drug Policy includes this warning: “Marijuana and other illicit drugs are addictive and unsafe especially for use by young people. … Marijuana contains chemicals that can change how the brain works. And the science, though still evolving in terms of long-term consequences of marijuana use, is clear: marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects.”
Why, then, hasn’t the Obama administration launched legal action against Colorado and Washington, where voters last fall voted to “legalize” marijuana under their state laws – even though federal law doesn’t allow that?
After all, the White House has been more than emphatic that state laws exempting people from the federal Obamacare law are invalid, and when Arizona took it upon itself to adopt a state law to enforce federal immigration restrictions, Washington went after those renegades immediately in the courts.
Is there something about the idea of legalizing marijuana that Washington LIKES?
That seemingly strange idea may have been borne out just days ago when the Congressional Research Service released its report on the “State Legalization of Recreational Marijuana: Selected Legal Issues.”
As attorneys Todd Garvey and Brian Yeh wrote in the report, Washington has flexibility regarding drug prosecution, stating, “The extent to which federal authorities will actually seek to prosecute individuals who are engaged in marijuana-related activities in Colorado and Washington remains uncertain. President Obama himself has suggested the prosecuting simple possession is not a priority, while the Department of Justice has said only that ‘growing, selling or possession any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.’”
What is more certain, they wrote, is that federal firearms regulators will be aggressive about banning anyone who uses marijuana from buying – or possessing – a weapon.
“With the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes in Colorado and Washington, it seems likely the ATF will … consider a recreational user of marijuana to be a prohibited possessor of firearms regardless of whether the use is lawful under state provisions,” they wrote.
The attorneys said the ATF specifically has stated, “any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”
They further wrote, “These individuals are to answer ‘yes’ when asked on the firearms transfer form if they are unlawful users of a controlled substance.”
Answering falsely, of course, is also a felony.
According to the Denver Post, the CRS report was touted by U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., an advocate of legalized marijuana, for saying that while “the federal government may use its power of the purse to encourage states to adopt certain criminal laws … it … is limited in its ability to directly influence state policy by the Tenth Amendment.”
Polis told the Post, “I’ve long believed that Colorado, Washington and other states that have decriminalized or legalized marijuana for personal or medical use have acted within the legal bounds of the law.”
But Obama attacked a state decision to enforce federal immigration standards, so why, as the Post reports, are “Colorado, Washington and 17 other jurisdictions … still holding out for any word from the Department of Justice on whether marijuana possession and distribution – which is illegal under federal law – will be enforced, despite the legalization within local borders.”
Dave Workman, senior editor at TheGunMag.com, a spokesman with the Second Amendment Foundation and a former member of the NRA board of directors wrote about the possible solution last fall as the votes in Washington and Colorado were approaching.
“A source with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C. … confirmed what had been explained in a Sept. 21, 2011, letter from Arthur Herbert, assistant director for enforcement programs and services to firearms retailers…
“Washington state gun owners need to know they cannot get stoned and head for the gun range or hunting camp,” he wrote.
A letter from Herbert, at the time, blew out of the water the option for the libertarian concept of unrestricted guns and unrestricted marijuana.
“There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such is sanctioned by state law,” he wrote. Even selling a gun to someone can catch an owner outside the law.
“An inference of current use may be drawn from evidence of a recent use or possession of a controlled substance or a pattern of use or possession that reasonably covers the present time,” Herbert wrote.
Workman told WND his assumption is that the Obama administration is hesitant to step on the toes of marijuana users who may support the left-leaning administration.
At the same time, with Obama’s agenda for gun rules, regulations, restrictions and requirements looming large, anything that has the potential to trip up a gun owner couldn’t be all bad.
Impacts from strategies such as this are not unknown. There are millions of Americans whose ability to obtain a firearm could be challenged under the position that they are taking a variety of mood-altering psychiatric drugs carrying the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label. An increasingly high percentage of Americans are taking these meds, which have demonstrated an alarmingly high correlation with school shooters.
