TheAgitator.com
Medical Marijuana: The Debate
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Next week, Michigan voters will determine whether or not to legalize medical marijuana. Bruce Mirken sends the following two videos, which I think pretty accurately sum up the debate.
Incidentally, federal officials are mostly prohibited from intervening in local elections this way. Congress granted a special exemption allowing federal drug warriors to spend federal tax dollars to campaign against drug liberalization ballot measures in the states.
To quote the violent femmes, “lies lies lies lies, lies lies lies lies, lies lies lies lies, lies lies lies”
There’s a reason i hate children and it often has to do with the use of them in political speech.
Great quote from the second clip:
“That’s doing the least we can for people who are in need of medical treatment.”
Um… I don’t think that’s actually the point he meant to make, but it’s the one that will probably get this passed.
John Walters and the drug warriors like them are sociopaths and a danger to society. He’s describing medical marijuana as if it were street-quality marijuana. Chemical pesticides and fungus are problems associated with black market, smuggled marijuana, not the medical quality marijuana grown in clandestine California hydroponic grow operations.
There is a movement in California to ensure that medical quality marijuana is grown with organic fertilizers. There are others working to standardize the prescription and dosing of medical marijuana. The Federal government is working to subvert these quality controls. It’s not surprising that the people are against medical marijuana are the ones who know the least about the drug and what it can and cannot do to the human body.
The drug war endangers the lives of both patients and children. Marijuana has never caused cancer in anyone and no one has ever overdosed on it.
Why are so-called conservative appointees like Walters denigrating the rich for influencing politics? Isn’t that a liberal/socialist argument?
Amazing, isn’t it, how a government that makes such a fuss about lawlessness engages in it, itself? The Hatch Act is supposed to prevent any kind of self-serving interference in the democratic process to prevent lobbying by bureaucrats for programs that benefit them…at the expense of taxpayers (redundant, I know, but some people do require continual reminders).
Arguably the DrugWar does precisely that, as it is a net loss for everyone else who has to foot the bill - to the tune of scores of billions of dollars each year, every year, for decades.
For example, the only people profiting materially from the mass incarceration fad the US has engaged in these past 20 years have been the pols, the bureaucrats, police, turnkeys, prosecutors, judges, etc., everyone but Joe Sixpack.
Say, wouldn’t you call such a chronically inefficient and rights-crushing government-enforced system that benefits a few at the expense of the many (while loudly claiming it is doing so for the entire society)…socialist?
I really want to kick John Walters in the balls. Hard.
How have we let this happen to our country? Where are the people offering actual facts? Where are the people pointing out that alcohol is harder for kids to get than pot by leaps and bounds?
When I was in high school, at any given time, I could point out people who could get me pot, acid, E, K, coke and probably about any other kind of drug you could think of. I could not do that for alcohol.
Mr Walters said something in the above video about “Making it easier for the people who put their lives on the line to protect the citizens.”
There are so many problems with that one statement alone. The people who put their lives on the line every day are the people I fear more than anyone will take my life. Nor are they protecting anyone. Police are not supposed to protect you. They are supposed to pick up the pieces after a crime is commited.
I really wish we could get together an assassination squad and start killing politicians who try to take our freedoms. Well, I don’t really, but I think it would be the only way to make politicians fear the population like they should. We are their bosses, and they should be afraid to piss people off.
But there’s too many people out there to make happy. Which I believe is a reason to return the power to the states and make the federal government basically powerless.
Am I over the top in thinking these things?
“Am I over the top in thinking these things?”
Yes you are. Right from the start. You assumed John Walters has balls and that if he does have them, that they would be large enough for you to be able to kick them.
According to this article, the reason for why alcohol Prohibition was scrapped was largely economic.
Simply put, the Great Depression’s catastrophic effect on the economy of the day forced the retirement of alcohol Prohibition, as government could no longer justify expending taxpayer funds on it when the tax base had shrunk so severely.
We may yet see something along those lines in our day, and soon. When Joe Sixpack needs unemployment insurance, he’s not going to want to be told that he can’t have any because ol’ Johnny Pee needs the money for his pet projects. at 40 billion + a year, that money is going to be a tempting target for some politically ambitious pol looking for an issue.
As times get tighter, the fear of the vocal, loud prohibitionist minority that has caused pols to shake in their boots will lessen as the anger at government waste in the face of fiscal adversity increases. And given the racist history of the DrugWar itself, those supporting it may feel a good deal less sanguine in doing so as that history becomes better known.
In any event, as things worsen economically, the justification for the wastrel spending of the DrugWar will become more threadbare. Expect ol’ Johnny and his cohort to become more shrill as that happens.
Like alcohol and nicotine included with heroin and meth. These are all hard drugs, Marijuana is a SOFT drug which is extremely theraputic. Walters is doing his job for his employer the Federal Government. Our Federal Government obviously has its own biased opinion. The threat that Medical Marijuana will lead to more teen use is wrong. The statement that marijuana is dangerous when smoked is proven false by my 30 years plus, and millions of other Americans, who choose marijuana over alcohol because it is a safer and non-addictive drug. I use it for the control of chronic nausea and vomiting from Diabetic Neuropathic Gastroparesis. Smoking marijuana brings immediate relief of nausea and increases appetite. So if an opiate prescription which relieves pain, is strongly addictive and does not cure the problem is medicine so is Medical Marijuana for the relief of nausea (among many other theraputic values) and is NOT addictive. Wise up people our Federal Government is and has been lieing to the citizens of this country regarding Marijuana for whatever their political/financial reasons. Vote YES on PROP 1 and open the midwest to Medical Marijuana!!!
1) We don’t arrest people for chronic pain.
Uh… there have been lots of medical marijuana patients arrested or harrassed.
2) Marijuana is the number one cause of referral to treatment.
Order people into drug treatment when they use a drug and then cite the number of people in treatment for its harm. Nice.
You know, traditional pain killers just deal with the pain and make people feel better. THey also have addictive qualities. Are we going to try to ban them?
Oh, wait. We are.
What’s interesting is that he seemed to be sympathetic towards the medical MJ movement in the sense that it provides a clean drug w/o extra toxins. Then, he goes on to rant that MJ isn’t medicine, since it only relieves pain. Every medical association in the country would disagree with him.
“Expect ol’ Johnny and his cohort to become more shrill as that happens.”
They’re already pretty shrill. He seems very satisfied with himself, somehow. Smug, I guess, is the word I’m looking for here. He seems to actually enjoy outright, over the top lying to people. Is he actually a sociopath? Wonder if he masturbates to articles about drug war kills every night? Or does he just go straight to the source and masturbate to police videos of drug war kills every night?
Facts be damned. We must protect our children. Besides it justifies our existence as government nannies. And we need the money.
I cant help but remember my underage years when it was so much easier for me to get a joint than a bottle of liquor.
Wanna protect kids? Legalize it, end the black market, regulate it (ID’s please), tax it, shut the fuck up about it.
You’d think a government that wants a society to be more and more complacent would encourage MJ use.
I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here - but I’m a lot more concerned about a drunk than a stoner.
It’s nice here in Cali. We get our “meds” legally as it should be…;)
The debate about marijuana loses me from the begining. After the statement: “It’s a plant” Where is the debate?
“You’d think a government that wants a society to be more and more complacent would encourage MJ use.”
And if Lilly/Phizer/Glaxo could patent the stuff (instead of it being a weed that’ll grow just about anywhere), you can bet that that’s exactly what the Feds *would* be doing.
“What is this sold as? ‘That the best thing we can do for sick people is to get them high’”
How sick a scumbag do you have to be to say something like that out loud? Effing asshole.
Shorter John Waters: People should (painfully) die, so that others can’t - maybe - get high.
In honor of this, I am going to call my local police lobbying group and ask them for their stance on every issue and candidate. I will then vote exactly the opposite on every question.
The first thing that needs to be done is to repeal that law allowing federal agents to interfere in local elections. This should be prosecuted as a criminal act, with the perpetrators banned from any office of trust or profit under the United States. Jail time would not be out of the question, either.
Next, repeal Biden’s anti-Rave law that is deliberately used to disrupt 1st Amendment activities related to the War on Drugs/America. We need to bring back stocks in the public square specifically for law enforcement that choose to violate civil rights based on subject matter, and that’s after losing their badges with a lifetime ban on any career related to law enforcement. Pull this crap, forget about being a PI or a security guard, or a prison guard, forget about being eligible for sheriff or dogcatcher — lifetime ban means exactly that.
Next, rewrite the laws to ensure that all civil forfeiture proceeds regardless of venue go to public hospitals, public literacy programs, anywhere but back to the pockets of cops. “Conflict of Interest” doesn’t even begin to describe the incest occurring here.
And make it clear to all law enforcement, all levels, all agencies, if you want to be a cop, expect 24/7 tracking and surveillance of their persons. Undercover? Tough shit. You are public servants, not slave overseers. Get over it.
Finally, get rid of government propaganda organizations like DARE and the Partnership For A Truth-Free America. The kids already know you’re lying, so stop wasting time and money on this crap.
So, George Soros doesn’t care about my kids and therefore chronic pain sufferers can….. wait, I missed something. Anyway, it’s for the kids, so please vote against this, Michigan. I’m just 8 hours away from you, so do it for my kids, too. I mean, we might be close enough for them to be harmed by George Soros in a wheelchair with fungus. Or something.
Weird. I live in Michigan and wasn’t aware of what Prop. 1 was, or that there was a proposal about medical marijuana. Pretty much all the attention on ballot proposals has been on Prop. 2 which deals would allow and support stem cell research.
There is a pretty big effort to block it, and the reasoning they are using is that it will cost the state money. I get the strange feeling that the people who don’t want it don’t actually care about the money and are just religious wingnuts.
Ross: “I get the strange feeling that the people who don’t want it don’t actually care about the money and are just religious wingnuts.”
I just read this today in our local newspaper:
“Father James Edward O’C***** and Michael D***** were arrested in South Charleston on Sunday, Sept. 29, about 10:35 p.m. after a police officer traveling behind them smelled the drug wafting from their vehicle.”
I starred out the names to protect the innocent.
This guy is a local priest in the Catholic Church
WTF is wafting anyway
drug warrior thoughts:
drugs are bad for kids
we have to make kids illegal to protect kids
once its illegal, then we can throw the kids in jail for possession
jail. y’know, for the kids
don’t they ever wonder wth their doing? if they cared about kids so much, why did they seek out jobs with guns?
ha! sorry about the typo.
we have to make drugs illegal to protect kids
# 19 Nick T,
The campaign commercials around here make the choices easy. The FOP runs ads for/against several issues and several of the AG and judicial candidates tout their endorsements by police groups.
When the people running around shooting kids are making political statements “for the children,” I know which way I’m voting.
Frank said:
The first thing that needs to be done is to repeal that law allowing federal agents to interfere in local elections.
Actually, it there is no law that allows it; in fact, the Hatch Act at both Federal and State levels is supposed to prevent precisely that kind of thing from happening. But it is explicitly written into the ONDCP’s charter that they may act to try to counter ‘legalization’ oriented legislation and referenda.
Obviously, that is an indirect violation of the Hatch act, as Ron Paul made plain in his correspondence with both the GAO and the ONDCP, but (IMHO) because of the overly politicized nature of the present Administration, the GAO begged off from its’ duties as a government ‘watchdog’ and lamely stated that the ONDCP was acting within its’ charter.
Keep in mind ONDCP was used extensively by Karl Rove’s operatives in the White House as a vehicle for assisting Republicans in States where the election prospects for them were poor.
If anything was a Hatch Act violation, that was. Hence my statement that they were overly politicized. Walters has become so much of a party hack that he’s sticking his nose in foreign affairs (of which he is anything but an expert) such as the tiff between Venezuela and the US.
There’s not even the vestige of supposed bureaucratic neutrality as befits a civil servant; he’s pimped himself to the Republican apparatus, body and soul. If Karl Rove had told him to get on all fours and bark like a dog, ol’ Johnny would probably have gone a step further, and bought his own leash. He’s owned, as simple as that.
And he’s supposed to be a ‘public servant’. Looks like the only part of the public he’s serving is the part drawing paychecks for carrying out this execrable DrugWar…
And on the subject of cops who should be monitored 24/7:
http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/HerbSettlementRelease.pdf
Too bad that 19 grand didn’t come out of the assets of the arresting officer. Someone who definitely should be fired and spend a week in the stocks getting pelted with rotten food.
Massachusetts has Question 2 on the ballot to change the penalties for marijuana possession (under an ounce) to a civil fine. Not going far enough of course, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. It isn’t getting a huge amount of attention up here, because it’s overshadowed by Question 1, which would get rid of the state income tax in it’s entirety, which of course is opposed loudly by all the public employees and politicians. Let’s hope that both questions pass by overwhelming margins!!
I still don’t understand how legalizing medical marijuana is going to make it more available to children? As far as my understanding is that you need a doctor prescription to get it, it’s not going to be OTC is it? I have a hard time believing that a parent is going to take their child to the doctor to get a prescription for marijuana just so their kid can get high.
“I have a hard time believing that a parent is going to take their child to the doctor to get a prescription for marijuana just so their kid can get high.”
Would that even be a problem? That’s how bad their arguments are.
I support medical MJ*, but I struggle with needing to classify the “medical” part. I’d like to, as one post put it, kick John Walters in the balls and say “Not only will I smoke medical MJ to help me with life-stealing cancer in what may be the last few months of my existence, but I will smoke MJ because I damn well feel like it. MY body! Mine!”
I believe I know how this usually turns out. Some very high profile politician gets cancer and has to change his mind on MMJ. No laws get changed, but we get to see nature’s irony as he vomits his stomache lining up while in handcuffs.
With that out of the way, can anyone really explain to me what the real (I mean REAL) reason is why the US Government doesn’t want to allow medical MJ?
Quote that comes to mind “…it’s like outlawing steak because babies can’t chew it.”
*No, MJ is not Michael Jordan.
Just ignore the lying hypocrite.These are the last sqweaks from a wheel that will get no more grease, hopefully. Johnny Pee is off to his well paid reward ,soon. The ONDCP charter exception to Hatch ,could be rectified by letting the ONDCP charter renewal expire in 2010…but if it could be flushed sooner…the better. Out with the bad old,and in with no replacement at all.
Weird. I live in Michigan and wasn’t aware of what Prop. 1 was, or that there was a proposal about medical marijuana. Pretty much all the attention on ballot proposals has been on Prop. 2 which deals would allow and support stem cell research.
There is a pretty big effort to block it, and the reasoning they are using is that it will cost the state money. I get the strange feeling that the people who don’t want it don’t actually care about the money and are just religious wingnuts.
You’d be more or less right on that one, Ross. While ads opposing Prop 2 focus on lack of oversight and cost to the state, there’s nothing actually in the proposal (ballot language or otherwise) that would allocate government funds to stem cell research. The “2 Goes 2 Far” campaign is spearheaded by the chair of the MI Taxpayer’s Alliance, who’s a small-government guy until embryos are involved. Of course, the pro-2 side is headed by the same woman who tried to push the Reform MI Government Now through.
(Sorry for the threadjack!)
The very concept that I cannot grow a plant in my backyard, dry it out and smoke it is the most ridiculous idea ever concocted.
Let’s see.. they care that we don’t get: “Carcinogens, pollutants, fungus, pesticides,” etc. But these are perfectly okay when someone smokes a cigarette:
http://www.tobacco.org/Resources/599ingredients.html
For every reason he gives, alcohol and tobacco should be outlawed. There is no logic behind them, so I must conclude that these people are simply insane.
[...] the actual night of or possibly the morning after. I like following the ballot initiatives such as prop 1 in Michigan since we don’t have those in Canada. I am also enjoying seeing some of my students vote for [...]
What a lying sack. The parasite [and his entourage] flies “home” on the taxpayers’ dime to violate the Hatch Act with gross propaganda in support of his unconscionable meal-ticket. Despicable.
Cannabis prohibition is abomination in the first place. To withhold its medical benefits from the ill is atrocity.
This Ann Arbor native hopes to fly home, secure in the knowledge that Michigan retroactively respects physician-certification from California, in the very near future!
Yes on 1!