Medical marijuana patient goes shopping for pot in a San
Francisco medicinal cannabis dispensary.
(Dino Vournas/Ap photo)
The issue of marijuana legalization, whether for medicinal use or not, has long been a litmus test for differentiating champions of freedom from authoritarians.
That hasn't changed after Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo on Monday asking federal prosecutors not to target marijuana users and distributors in states that allow medical marijuana.
The Libertarian Party issued a news release quoting their executive director, Wes Benedict, as saying, "This is a small step in the right direction." The LP has been opposed to victimless crime laws since its inception in 1971. Benedict's statement also urged the Obama administration to "take further steps to end the destructive, unjust, unconstitutional War on Drugs."
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, DC, echoed the sentiment as "A good first step."
And, predictably, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) greeted the news as "the most significant, positive policy development on the federal level for medical marijuana since 1978."
This would seem to take California's medical marijuana users off the hook since medicinal cannabis is legal under state law. But apparently they are now at the mercy of their own state prosecutors.
Today's University of California, Los Angeles student newspaper Daily Bruin reports that in spite of the Holder memo City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley plan to "drastically reduce the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles" on the grounds that "they violate state law, which bans the sale and distribution of marijuana."
The article goes on to quote Dale Gieringer, director of the California National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) who said that the memo is essentially a restatement of what Holder said earlier in the year and actually gives Cooley and Trutanich broad authority to decide what is legal.
The biggest name opposing the Obama policy is arguably Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The senator declared, "That federal law ought to be enforced." He justified his position with the so-called "gateway drug" theory: “I think that marijuana is a gateway to harder drug use,” Grassley said recently in the Iowa Independent.
Although still defended and debated by some, the gateway drug theory has been refuted by scientific research over the years, including a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study.
Others, such as Charles Lane, echo Grassley's assessment. Writing editorially in the Washington Post under the headline "Medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence," Lane says, "I worry it's a gateway to harder stuff. So I think we probably should have an open debate about decriminalization. But it should be a real debate, about real decriminalization, and not clouded - pardon the expression - by hokum about "medical marijuana."
Whether marijuana has any medicinal properties is also a bone of contention between freedom lovers and authoritarians. Libertarians take the position that the issue is irrelevant on the basis that government has no legitimate right to prohibit free people from doing whatever they choose as long as they don't harm others in the process. Therefore, if cannabis has medicinal value, so much the better.
For now, all sides will have to be content with the Obama Administration's policy shift, which is not a legal change and therefore does not alter a single federal marijuana law.
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Comments
The prohibitionists rely on hysteria and emotionalism. Unfortunately those things are very effective with non-thinking people.
So what's your problem ? yes full on legalization is what is needed.
legalize it!!!
They are, but so is the popular opinion...non-thinking people seem to go with the flow (eventually). Like you said...they just need to get over the emotionalism.
nobody has the right to control a god givin plant
Remember kids, Creator made man, man made religion and religion made the drug war, so don't blame Creator because of man's religious mandates, which is of course and always has been to legislate morality.
Baby steps...now let's all write our congress-critters, and remind them they work for US, not the DEA or ONDCP. TELL them the 'War on Drugs' is an abysmal failure, the people who SHOULD (DEA, ONDCP) never will!
it is most certainly not a gateway drug check your facts thats why medical marijuana use is requested so that they dont wanna do all the pills that are worse for them marijuana is innocent all you people criminalizing it should be held accountable for their actions!!alcohol and many other pill and drugs oxycontin abuse sound familiar wake up people and stop meddling and destroying peoples lives you are wrong its just common sense either most of you are ignorant indoctrinated employed or a victim of a conspiracy marijuana is the most valuble plant besides it drug capabilities food fuel fiber check it out stop being fools
Today the feds just arrested 18 people from the Bay Area for a pot growing operation connected to organized crime, so the idea that there will be no prosecutions for marijuana is absolutely wrong. The drug war continues and the states and cities are cracking down on the dispensaries for not abiding by state law, which would allow the feds to come in.
I'm all for making marijuana available for medicinal purposes, but a quick search on www.weedneedz.com shows way too many dispensaries in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Do we really need so many dispensaries if the pot is only for medical use and not recreational use?
It's OK. Keep it illegal if you want. You want the government out of it. It's OK. Use the current distribution system. If you want to keep drug gangs in the distribution business....well, they're already there. No problem! Keep cannabis illegal. I'll still get anything I want within a couple of hours. Period. No questions asked. No one carded. No ID's presented. And all proceeds go into the drug gang's till. It's OK. Business as usual. Geez, you act like it's going away. No, you just drive it back underground. Oh, by the way, China called and they want you to quit spending so much money on your stupid prohibition. They're nervous and might call in their loans to us. Besides, the first one didn't work either. How does that go?...Doomed to repeat history. Priceless!
God created this plant. Not humans. Like said above, humans created the war on drugs. Marijuana has no sign of causing harm to someone as there are many forms in which it can be used. Yet, they still sell us perscription drugs that are worse for our system, costs more and are addictive. PATHETIC.
LEGALIZE IT!!!
Most of the opponents of this particular movement are either ultra-paranoid about life in general or they are politically motivated. Officials that oppose legalization largely because the War on Drugs has become the center-piece of an enormous political machine.
This machine profits off of the Drug War through nefarious institutions like Wackenhut, who turn federal drug offenders into slave labor via corporate prisons.
This political machine also consolidates power at the cost of our civil liberties by creating laws that grant our domestic army of para-military drug warriors liberties that the constitution othewise denies them.
Finally, this monster political machine maintains an economic status-quo by opposing marijuana on behalf of all the corporate interests that stand to loose money in the event of legalization - Big Pharma, for example.
It needs to end.
I'm a conservative. And if there was a vote for the decriminalization of Marijuana, i'd vote for it. The people have spoken! I know that the argument of the gateway drug theory is false. I don't smoke or do drugs, but I do believe in freedom. If we are to call ourselves free, then we must honor the wishes of people who choose to do an activity that is victimless. This is not a matter to me of left or right, but rather right and wrong. Prohibition failed, so did the war on drugs. Trouble is that some people don't lose with dignity. Also, Mike R made good points. well done sir.
Also, the gateway theory is BS b/c the people that sell drugs are not afraid of the law so they added other products, and sell them to other people. If it was legal, then they couldnt push those other drugs which leads to further drug use. But by the gateway theory, then tobacco, and alcohol is a gateway drug. How can they even claim that marijuana is subject to abuse and has no medical usage(Schedule 1 drug)? Were they talking about tobacco or alcohol? How much respect for us do they have is they are consistently hypocritical? Alcohol should be illegal then. If not, then marijuana should be legal. It really is a no brainer. It's just that none of them are thinking. This Conservative is in touch with reality. Not all of us thump bibles and are full of crap. Also, i think shrooms should be legal too. They are natural, and like i said before, we are free to decide. Atleast we were supposed to be.
i think that weed should be able to be used all the time
but it does dammage your brain and changes the cells & the way it obstrucks
Well the simple fact is the only reason why the government will not lealize weed is because they cant make as much profit as they would like.I think that they should just harrassing us pot heads ha ha ha lmfao.........PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure it alters your brain and other cells but so does the millions of airwaves from cellphones,radios,electronic equiptment etc. But even then alchol and cigerettes and twice as bad, so F it if people want to smoke let em maybe with some of that tax money well be able to get out of some economic debt.
yeah all those words are tolong to understand okay.
kids should be aloud to do what ever they want! PEACCEEEE!
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