Diable

The way it will get done is by some bright guy coming up with a way that the Federal Government gets something out of it. Quite simply you turn the Federal Government into the world's biggest pot dealer. You probably have between 15 to 25 million in this country who spend anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars on pot in an average week. A similar number are smoking it on a less chronic basis. It's a big damned number in total. You probably divide it by four or five to get at the number that the Government could get by producing all or nearly all of the pot sold in this country. The states would get something similar out of it too. You create yourself a National Monopoly to completely control and regulate the production and sale of the stuff in the entire country.

The way to sell Legalization to the Feds is the same way it was sold to the voters in Washington state.

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Prince

Bingo.

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Ron

I guess you think that the Bible thumpers in states like Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, the Carolinas, and then the midwestern states like the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, etc. etc. etc. are just like those that live in Washington state.

You guys just aren't thinking it through. They could have done what Diable suggests in the 1970s (40 years ago!), because at that time this country was going through the most liberalizing time ever in its history (well, maybe with the exception of the 1920s).

They didn't do it then, and they couldn't do it when the conservative movements came alive in the 1980s and the 2000s. What makes you think its anywhere close to happening?

Do you really think that Obama is going to touch this with a 10-foot pole? You ever hear of "Obamacare?" That would be political suicide...trying to reform the country's health system and at the same time touting a toke! Get real.

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E.H. Munro

US v. Morrison which limited the scope of the Violence Against Women Act on the grounds that the states were historically sovereign in the area of law enforcement.

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If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

Dornado

It has been a while, but I'm pretty sure Morrison dealt primarily with the commerce clause and the scope of congressional power. Arguing over the supremacy clause misses the point... it is obvious that where a clear federal law exists the federal law applies, the question is whether congress should be allowed to enact the law in the first place.

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Prince

I'm not even really thinking that Obama is the president who legalizes it, but I think it happens within the next 20 years. Like I said, as time goes on there is more and more support behind legalization as the old, conservative ways of thinking move on from the world.

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E.H. Munro

That was what I assumed, hence my pointing to a case where a federal law was overturned/limited on the grounds that it exceeded the enumerated powers (as well as one of the items in Morrison specifically being that the states were primarily responsible for local law enforcement).

In this case how narcotics are dealt with, criminally, seems far more clearly a local than national matter, and while I can't see a government power bootlicker like Roberts voting to let Colorado make its own laws in this regard, I could easily see Souter, Kennedy, and Thomas holding in Colorado's favour, and that they just might be able to lure two more justices also doesn't seem unreasonable.

__________________
If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

Diable

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Nimreitz

And also the more visible they are the bigger the bullseye on their back for the DoJ.

Diable

They can't do anything about you selling a vending machine. They are ahead of the curve so long as you can only sell the stuff in a clinic. This might have some future application.

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Prince

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Ron

Obama on pot laws: 'We've got bigger fish to fry'

Just as he did with the medical marijuana dispensaries when he first entered office...as the news story states, it confirms what I wrote earlier in this thread; that a couple of years later they started cracking down on the dispensaries, primarily because it was getting out of control in those neighborhoods.

I imagine when the complaint level rises again, the federal government once again will take action. But for right now, Obama is right. We got a lot more problems than dealing with pot users in two states.

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Prince

Shocker.

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E.H. Munro

And yet, just like with medical marijuana, and most everything else, I'll bet that they'll do something completely different and ratchet up enforcement even while they deny it and idiot reporters enthuse over the administrations stated policy (while refusing to recognise the reality).

__________________
If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

Ron

QFT.

That's my point.

That is exactly what will happen.