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Colorado Sued By Neighboring States Over Legal Pot
SternisheFan notes that Nebraska and Oklahoma are suing Colorado over marijuana legalization. The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing state-legalized marijuana from Colorado is improperly spilling across state lines. The suit invokes the federal government's right to regulate both drugs and interstate commerce, and says Colorado's decision to legalize marijuana has been "particularly burdensome" to police agencies on the other side of the state line. In June, USA TODAY highlighted the flow of marijuana from Colorado into small towns across Nebraska: felony drug arrests in Chappell, Neb., just 7 miles north of the Colorado border have skyrocketed 400% in three years. "In passing and enforcing Amendment 64, the state of Colorado has created a dangerous gap in the federal drug control system enacted by the United States Congress. Marijuana flows from this gap into neighboring states, undermining plaintiff states' own marijuana bans, draining their treasuries, and placing stress on their criminal justice systems," says the lawsuit. "The Constitution and the federal anti-drug laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local pro-drug policies and licensed distribution schemes throughout the country which conflict with federal laws."
All they need to do is legalize it themselves.
How about not enforcing the laws there since doing otherwise is a stupid waste of law enforcement time and resources? I can't believe anyone can be stupid enough to think cannabis is dangerous enough to merit criminalization. You have to be basically live up your own ass for decades to come up with that opinion.
The social problems spill over state lines, and eventually proponents will argue "our residents are going across the border, we should be getting that business and tax revenue here" to legalize pot as well.
Not good. I'm not a fan of either trend.
in many states, and they don't want to lose that revenue. It is not about right or wrong, legal or illegal, it is really about money. But as the various other states see revenue flow into states like Colorado in the form of pot taxes, they may change their minds, just like all states changed their minds about gambling and lotteries.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
The US should sue Mexico and Canada. Stupid.
Same thing happened when they outlawed dancing.
Why is this any different than counties that don't allow the sale of alcohol adjacent to counties that do? Do the dry counties sue the wet counties because they have to be on the lookout for drunk drivers on their borders? Looks like a way to get some attention or maybe some cash to me...
> Marijuana flows [...], draining their treasuries, and placing stress on their criminal justice systems [...]
For one time, the Invisible Hand doing the right thing, it seems.
May those states go bankrupt.
(Captcha was "shutdown". One of these days I'll have to study this generation code).
... this is similar in nature to same sex marriage, and women's reproductive rights.
It's legal some places and banned in others.
America needs to make up its mind. Which way are we going to go?
The decision should be based on case law and public need and citizen's rights.
Legalize all that shit and let's play spin the bottle and stuff.
yw
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Suck it up, assholes!"
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
It sounds like the cops have nothing better to do that waste time on pot arrests. They just want money from taxes on pot without having to collect it themselves
If they do win, it will set a nice precedent for the Gun control states to force the neighboring lax gun control laws to clean up their act. Go for it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Attn Border States:
The Interstate Commerce Clause. Read up on it, and how it means you can't do jack about what a neighboring state does or does not legalize. The feds certainly can, and do, have anti-drug laws, but states have no jurisdiction over federal law enforcement priorities.
There is no such thing as "legal" pot. States do not have the legal authority to declare federal contraband to be legal. Despite the fact that this administration has no desire to enforce any laws, the fact remains that pot is still illegal in all states, territories, and possessions of the United States.
... this is similar in nature to same sex marriage, and women's reproductive rights.
It's legal some places and banned in others.
No, it's not. Marijuana is still illegal throughout the United States due to federal law. In no state (including Colorado) is it legal. It's simply that Colorado has removed any state law criminalizing it. The federal prohibition remains. That is not the case with same sex marriage and women's reproductive rights. The next president could easily tell the DEA to go in and shut down every marijuana dealer and grower in Colorado if he/she orders it.
What Colorado does inside their borders is their business unless it violates an enumerated power. The Supreme Court can, and will, say whatever it wants on the matter, but the fact is that interstate commerce doesn't apply to marijuana that is bought, sold and used within a state's borders. If Texas wants to authorize the manufacture and sale to Texas residents fully automatic weapons with grenade launchers, the ATF cannot constitutionally stop them either. If California wants to legalize ritual mutilation of unborn kids at abortion clinics, that's their right as well. Interstate commerce does not apply.
Chappell, NE is a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it town of 929 on I-80 between North Platte, NE and Cheyenne, Wyoming. A 400% increase in felony drug arrests sounds like a lot, but how many felony drug arrests could there ever have been in a town of 929? Did we go from 1 to 4?
I also wonder how many shitkicker rural sheriffs in neighboring states went on full batshit alert once Colorado legalized it and began pulling over every car they could with out of state license plates coming from Colorado, knowing that they would hit paydirt on at least some of them? You can pretty easily create your own crisis if you start looking for it.
To be fair to the sheriffs, I don't doubt there is some increased amount of pot leaving Colorado -- it's a tourist destination even without pot and it wouldn't surprise me at all if people who go there for other reasons (like skiing or other outdoor activities) decide to bring some home.
It also wouldn't surprise me if some people went there specifically to bring some home, although from what I've been told the retail pricing isn't all that competitive on a dollar basis with black market pot and the economics of driving cross-country to pick up a couple of ounces of weed don't seem to lend themselves to a lot of people deciding to make that trip.
I don't think you can factor in any kind of organized criminal enterprises into these complaints -- that was a "problem" *before* it was legalized. Bitching about it now because you're frothed up about pot legalization and seeing it everywhere you look just seems paranoid.
Unlike the dry county / wet county and guns references (or gay marriage, etc), this particular case uses the fact that marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
The suit should prod US Congress to pass a law explicitly allowing Colorado and Washington to self regulate marijuana.
If that happens, it's all good, the Nebraskas actually move the ball forward by removing the legal dichotomy.
I'd think Congress could do that. They might be chicken to actually remove the federal law, but they could explicitly create an exemption for state law since there is no Constitutional (civil rights) issue at stake. And it's because it's a commerce issue more than a rights issue, it doesn't belong in Courts in the first place. If Congress cannot act on it one way or the other, it must be just as dysfunctional as its members claim and agree it is.
Gently reply
Move the fuck out. I hear Singapore and Thailand laws are particularly tough on drugs. How about you border those instead?
There is a gap in the program, and fortunately, Colorado, Washington, Alaska are leading the way through it.
frees up law enforcement to pursuit more serious crimes
You mean crimes, period. It's time to peel off the indoctination and admit that voluntary recreational drug use is not a criminal matter.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/12/department-justice-congress-war-medical-marijuana
The $1.1 trillion federal spending bill approved by the Senate on Saturday has effectively ended the longstanding federal war on medical marijuana. An amendment to the bill blocks the Department of Justice from spending money to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries or patients that abide by state laws.
Toll booths. "Random" inspections. Lengthy waits in a office while people tear your car apart and give you an anal probe. I mean, it works for Canada and Mexico, right?
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Fuck off losers
(From Wiki) - Regulations and restrictions on the sale of cannabis sativa as a drug began as early as 1860 (see Legal history of cannabis in the United States). The head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, argued that, in the 1930s, the FBN had noticed an increase of reports of people smoking marijuana. He had also, in 1935, received support from president Franklin D. Roosevelt for adoption of the Uniform State Narcotic Act, state laws that included regulations of cannabis. The total production of hemp fiber in the United States had in 1933 decreased to around 500 tons/year. Cultivation of hemp began to increase in 1934 and 1935 but production remained at very low volume compared with other fibers.
Some parties have argued that the aim of the Act was to reduce the size of the hemp industry largely as an effort of businessmen Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family. The same parties have argued that with the invention of the decorticator, hemp had become a very cheap substitute for the paper pulp that was used in the newspaper industry. These parties argue that Hearst felt that this was a threat to his extensive timber holdings. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in America, had invested heavily in the Du Pont family's new synthetic fiber, nylon, a fiber that was competing with hemp. In 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created a paper, USDA Bulletin No. 404 "Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material", in which they concluded that paper from the woody inner portion of the hemp stem broken into pieces, so called hemp hurds, was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood". Dewey and Merrill believed that hemp hurds were a suitable source for paper production. However, later research does not confirm this. The concentration of cellulose in hemp hurds is only between 32% and 38% (not 77%, a number often repeated by Jack Herer and others on the Internet). Manufacture of paper with hemp as a raw material has shown that hemp lacks the qualities needed to become a major competitor to the traditional paper industry, which still uses wood or waste paper as raw material. In 2003, 95% of the hemp hurds in the EU were used for animal bedding, almost 5% were used as building material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The stupid thing is: it may well work. The federal government regularly twists the Commerce Clause beyond all recognition. The most egregious case, the one that really set the ball rolling, was the one where the federal government claimed the right to regulate farmers feeding their own grain to their own livestock. Why? Because that meant that they bought less grain from elsewhere, some of which might, potentially come from out of state. Hence, the Commerce Clause allowed the regulation.
Given that sort of precedent, the federal government can justify essentially any regulation that it wants. Certainly including telling Colorado that it's state-wide laws are invalid, because they happen to indirectly affect neighboring states.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You would think after that many years, we would realize that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result is CRAZY!
If the rationale works for 50 years of FAILED policy on Cuba, then it CERTAINLY works on over a CENTURY LONG FAILED DRUG "WAR"
WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR THESE UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS!
"The suit invokes the federal government's right to regulate both drugs and interstate commerce"
Doesn't the federal governments right to regulate drugs stem from it's right to regulate interstate commerce?
I'm just saying there is no constitutional amendment that allows for federal regulation of drugs... the judicial history that didn't over turn such laws is based around the interstate commerce regulations that the federal government does have... So to bring it up on BOTH things seems a bit redundant...
If Colorado simply required a state ID for purchasers that would seem to mute the issue. Purchases by out of state people would be illegal like anywhere else and CO would have done nothing to impact NE and OK. Of course, we tourists would be infuriated and might try our own suit claiming unfair impact.
The state is libertarian, not Bible Belt, and yet Idaho police organizations are incensed over pot legalization in neighboring Oregon and Washington. There have been a number of well-publicized cases of Bad Cop behavior exercised against out-of-state pot users, even to the extent of spying by Idaho cops in the pot-legal states in hopes of entrapping legally operating businessmen passing through Idaho.
Idaho has such a large population of anti-government types that I can see it not only legalizing pot, which they regard as basically a side issue, but being the first state to seriously cut back on law enforcement property seizure powers. Based on this year's headlines, this will start an even more popular serious of referenda across the country than pot legalization.
Decades?
Trillions spent on it? And I can still go down the street & score. Why are people crossing into Colorado to score when Billy next door grows it? This really makes no sense.
Stressing their law enforcement resources my ass... Nebraska is making money on these busts, we know that. Now they want to double dip & get some of Colorado's tax windfall.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
as far as I could tell there's nothing in the constitution that forbids a state from setting its own drug policy
Someone doesn't agree with you, therefore they must have an agenda aligning with a corporate / government cabal?
I do hear that cannabis makes you paranoid...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
strip the DEA of scheduling authority!
here's a simple thought experiment:
you just awoke from a 50 year coma and in playing around with this new-fangled interweb thingy you learn that final authority over the legality of a given substance rests NOT with the FDA (an army of PhDs) or the AMA (an army of MDs) but with this new agency called the "DEA" - a bunch of frakin' COPS! "wait? say that again?!?" you say "a bunch of COPS who know as much about chemistry, biology & medicine as my dead cat have VETO POWER over armies of MDs & PhDs on the legality of ingesting a given chemical?!? what rocket surgeon came up with that bright idea?!?"
we need to abolish the DEA not just b/c we happen to disagree with them on THC (and MDMA, etc) but b/c the basic model is IDIOTIC!!!
Um, there's that?
Gently reply
Make all drugs legal for 1 month out of every year. That way Darwin comes in and filters through all the idiots who can't control themselves. By the end of the month everyone who practices personal responsibility and respect continue contributing to the normal human gene pool. It it's a hit expand it to 2-3 months a year.
The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing state-legalized marijuana from Colorado is improperly spilling across state lines
Seriously, wtf. Oklahoma is way up there among the meth'iest states in the Union, and in Nebraska, LEO's report 1 meth lab incident per 200K people (compared to 1 incident per 376K people in Colorado.) Meth is far more dangerous than pot, I would think these two states should get their shit together before trying to drag another state to federal court.
Furthermore, Colorado is doing far better in almost all indicators than these two states. Not because of pot legalization obviously, but because of a variety of reasons (many of them social).
So, Oklahoma and Nebraska, butt off. Get your shit together. Then worry about legal consequences, if any, that you might be experiencing because Coloradoans are baking brownies the type your granny used to eat back in Woodstock (yes, either she did that there or in a barn, get over it.)
As you can see, the moderation converged on a more proper +5 Insightful
I've read the post carefully and it doesn't qualify as Flamebait IMHO. It states a controversial political opinion and thus invites a discussion, which may lead to flamage, but does not itself lead with a flame.
So this looks like someone who doesn't like the position trying to suppress it, by hitting it with the most plausible -1, in the hope that one more like-minded person will have mod points and get it suppressed before very many people see it. That works for "politically incorrect" subjects (such as criticisms of the "heat death of the Earth, everybody panic and suppress technology" interpretation of climate data), where a crowd of like-minded free speech haters are ready to suppress opposing opinions. But pro-pot doesn't appear to attract that much system-gaming opposition.
Right now it only takes two downmods to hide a non-anonymous itme. It seems to me that we have enough people willing to moderate that it's time to scale up the mod system, so a small astroturf operation can't shut down debate. Say: double it: Mods get 10 points, -2 hides, non-anynomous starts at +2, high-karma at +4, doulble everybody's current karma and readjust the cutpoints for bonuses, caps, and the like. That would mean it would take two moderators to suppress a anonymous post and four for authors willing to risk reputation. (It would also mean more work for those who are willing to moderate - but they might be more willing to spend a point if they had more to spend.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I find this somewhat interesting given that people in Colorado go to Nebraska to get good fireworks, when ever I am heading out there to visit friends and relatives in CO there is always a request to pick them up some fireworks from either South Dakota or Nebraska on my way in. What is most amusing is that in both Nebraska and South Dakota any out of stater can purchase fireworks but residents are required to have a special permit that costs extra, so at least COis more open in that they don't restrict their own citizens like NE does with fireworks.
Time to offend someone
I don't think I could do better than my house in Longmont, Colorado right now. Weed's legal, we're rolling out a gigabit municipal fiber network, there's a skydiving dropzone 10 minutes from my house, a vertical wind tunnel ("indoor skydiving") an hour from my house, the food here is amazing and the gays can get married in the state now. Suck it, rest of the world!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The Constitution and the federal anti-drug laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local pro-drug policies and licensed distribution schemes throughout the country...
Sure they do. Welcome to the federal system of governance.
captcha: athiesm
Going back at least as far as the 1980s, the DEA has used their "emergency scheduling" powers to ban various substances by fiat.
Drugs like MDMA, GHB, "bath salts", and various synthetic cannabinoids were all summarily placed in Schedule I by unelected DEA bureaucrats. All they have to do is wave their pen, and any substance they want to ban is made illegal.
Yes, such actions are theoretically open to review by congress, but in reality Congress has never denied any DEA action of this nature, and simply rubber stamps whatever the DEA does.
So the DEA has the ability to CREATE drug laws, as well as ENFORCE them.
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They argue that a "patchwork of state and local pro-drug policies and licensed distribution schemes" are in conflict with federal law. Yet the very same patchwork exists with regards to alcohol, firearms, and a whole host of other things.
Proverbs 21:19
For crying out loud, the NH State Liquor Commission actually operates liquor stores just across the Massachusetts border, no sales tax. Most of that liquor rides north to the White Mountains, but a lot of it goes right back to Massachusetts.
I'd bet the Massachusetts AG would love to sue NH for this to recover the sales tax losses. In practice, this caused Massachusetts to repeal blue laws, so you can now buy liquor and beer in many stores on Sundays. You'd really have to be buying high shelf stuff to warrant a special trip to NH for it to be worth the effort, so the situation has stabilized. The average Joe looking for a case of beer isn't going to bother.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Yes, such actions are theoretically open to review by congress, but in reality Congress has never denied any DEA action of this nature, and simply rubber stamps whatever the DEA does.
So what you're saying is that it isn't really a failure of the DEA, but a failure of Congress?
One thing legalizing marijuana may do, besides producing some tax revenue, is allow for reasonable regulation of it's distribution. Nebraska and Oklahoma authorities are whistling past the graveyard if they think they don't have any marijuana in their states and any there must have come from Colorado. I would also guess that the MJ dealers in those two states are not getting it from legal sources in Colorado. There are likely cheaper sources from elsewhere including home grown stuff. I haven't heard whether legal marijuana sales in Colorado has eliminated illegal sales, but it has likely reduced the cost of police searching for it and housing offenders. Police and jailers have better things to do. By the way, I live in Colorado and have never used marijuana.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Seems normal to me. Police enforce laws not make them.
There was a number of police that came out in Canada that said basically that busting pot was a huge waste of time and drain of resources, however they are still tasked to do it. Their complaint wasn't so much about the morality of doing pot, but that of a staffing and resources issue, where they thought it was a waste of time and resources that could be better spent, you know solving real crimes, or targeting more harmful drugs.
The only horse that law makers keep beating about pot is that it is a "gateway" drug that leads users to do harder drugs. Which is complete BS, but even if it were, the only reason it might be is you have you drug dealers that sell both, "oh we're all out of pot, here try some Meth!". By legalizing it, and selling it, regulating it, and taxing it, you can still enforce the sale (just like cigarettes), but you would basically be putting the pot black market out of business, essentially eliminating the "gateway" to begin with.
How will this change? Eventually the old farts that made the laws will die, and newer more progressive law makers will change them. Slow change, but it is going to happen.
OK. Maybe Canada should sue the USA for all the gun crimes that occur in Canada because the US gun laws suck.
The same argument can be said for ANY laws that differ from States, Cities, Counties, jurisdictions, etc.
Town X is dry ( no alcohol can be sold ) yet town Y is not. End result is all citizens from Town X drive to Town Y to buy all their alcohol. Town Y planning on suing Town X in the near future because of it ? Unlikely.
State X prohibits gambling, yet all adjacent States have multiple casinos running and welcome all of State X's residents with open arms. Is State X planning on suing all the other surrounding States because of it ? Only if they're idiots. The smart State would legalize gambling, tax it appropriately and quit giving truckloads of tax money to surrounding States instead.
Pick a law. Any law that differs from State to State and try to rationalize going the litigation route claiming it's the other guys fault because they're doing things differently.
I attended 2 concerts at Red Rocks this summer. There was far less MJ in the air than I've ever experienced in concerts before legalization. We should have done this decades ago.
Well, a group of lawyers and businessmen (Congress) is about as poorly equipped as a group of prosecutors and cops (DEA) to render an impartial decision about the potential risks/benefits of various chemicals based on scientific fact, rather than political expedience or ideology.
About the ONLY thing that Congress has over the DEA is that (again, in theory) they are responsible to the will of the people that elect them. Of course, in reality, they are beholden to the needs of the corporations (Pharma, Booze, Tobacco, Corrections) who fund their campaigns, so we end up with more and more substances being made illegal every year, science be damned.
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Hey you know those States Rights you want to drone on about and vote about and tear your hair and cover yourselves in ashes about?
Yeah, SUCK IT.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
The solution is simple, though. Congress can write a law that says that the FDA and/or Surgeon General decides how to classify drugs, and the DEA can only enforce those decisions. If the DEA really needs emergency classification authority, such a decision can be limited to a duration of 1 year before it must be approved by the FDA (of course, I can't think of why the DEA would be better equipped than the FDA to make emergency decisions).
Now if only something this logical had any chance of getting done by Congress.
That is trademarked by Victoria Secrets. They can call them angels, but they are bunnies with wings.
Congress just took funding away from the DEA for operations on medical cannabis operations that follow state law for medical cannabis.
No, it wasn't posted on the news much. Yes, Obama signed it. Legal by state law for medical cannabis is legal enough for federal now.
My guess is that some corporations or interest groups are sending money to politicos in these neighboring states because they want to stop the legalization of drugs.
Or the cops are complaining because they can't get what they used to on confiscated marijuana.
Honestly, if they could hand out pot at high schools to keep kids off Meth -- that would be an improvement.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Now if only something this logical had any chance of getting done by Congress.
And, more importantly, by the "Might makes Right" Republican Congress we (the American People) just handed the keys...
If they use the standards that they use for regulating pharmaceuticals, and tried to apply them to recreational drugs.
Their risk/benefit analysis procedures would need a major realignment, as the current methods would disallow essentially ANY substance as having risks that outweigh the benefits (getting high).
Because getting high is not a medical necessity, the amount of potential risk would need to be essentially non-existent for the FDA to allow a substance on the market. Even relatively benign recreational drugs like pot or psychedelics have potential risks that would preclude them from approval according to current FDA standards.
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Do you honestly think that the FDA, another branch of government wouldn't just rubber stamp it?
We shouldn't be trying to nanny people. I think attitudes about this south of the border are far more enlighten about this. And because you don't know what those attitudes are I will enlighten you. Drugs are a personal problem across the border, it's not anyones business but the person taking the drugs and potentially their family. See down there they get it, you can't stop someone from hurting themselves. If someone is going to do it they are going to do it regardless, it's foolishness to try to prevent them from doing it by putting them in jail for doing it.
The drug laws are an abomination. They've been used to gut much of the 4th amendment. Civil forfeiture is nothing more than government sponsored theft.
So guns don't kill people. And Marijuana doesn't deplete state treasuries either, its people that do that. And instead of booking people, and finger printing them, and sending them to the holding cell, frisking them, waiting till morning, feeding them (a crappy) breakfast, then putting them before a judge and giving them 90 days or worse, you could just seize all that you see, slap them with a $150 fine, and move on. A second offence would be a $350 fine. If that seems burdensome, then you could consider legalizing it yourself. Or you could be a hard ass, keep up enforcement, and watch the state treasury get sucked up by this. Happy Trails!
It's a good thing those Republicans support state rights. oh wait ...
yes, because the democrats have been wonderful at not taking away our rights.....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
(of course, I can't think of why the DEA would be better equipped than the FDA to make emergency decisions)..
I can think of just one: LEOs see a bunch of people lurching around and groaning "braains!" after ingesting some new chemical compound.
The truth is that policy should belong to the FDA, but LEOs are first responders, and should have some say in correlations. Most of this should be data fed back to the FDA to help them make their decisions, but there are some remote possibilities where this process may take longer than quat is required to prevent actual harm to society.
Stretching the argument I know, but it's still a reason.
what rocket surgeon came up with that bright idea
The same kind of people who would desire to hold coercive authority over others. Their actions reflect their own self-interest, not the interest of those they wish to control through force.
The sad irony. http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
The the GOP has now decided that states' rights and personal freedoms should be abridged by both the Federal Government and adjacent states. This is very curious.
And what happens if:
A. The US Supreme Court strikes down the Colorado Law as unconstitutional in that it conflicts with Federal Law.
B. The state of Colorado chooses not to enforce the Federal prohibition on marijuana production, distribution and sale.
In a way, it depends on whether the writers of Colorado Amendment 64 wrote the law in a way as to prevent or limit any conflict with Federal law. The federal courts can find conflicts between Federal and state laws, but they cannot write law for states.
Is the only portion of the law that can be actually affected by Federal Courts be the tax collection?
Lets note here that at least for the coming fiscal year the budget for "None of the funds made available in [the Federal Budget] to the Department of Justice may be used... to prevent such States [Colorado] from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana." The Obama administration has already stated that he will not use the Federal Government to infringe on recreation marijuana laws either.
https://american-safe-access.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/2014_CJS_Amendment.pdf
You know you can fix it?
Legalize it everywhere.
Bam where's my undeserved check for legislating?
The DEA and FDA have unconstitutional power, thanks to a little bill Nixon pushed through so he could arrest hippies. Now it will take some serious congressional balls to "look soft" on the war on drugs, in order to reverse this unconstitutional affront to our system of checks and balances.
The existence of public goods as an argument that taxes are not theft assumes:
1) There is no other way to provide public goods
Please provide a counterexample to the claim "There is no other way [than taxation] to provide public goods" and I'll believe you. Preferably more than one, so that other Slashdot users don't shoot each down as impractical.
would it not be stealing if I took your money and gave it to orphans?
Would it not be stealing if I took your money and used it to shoot other people who try to take not only more of your money but also your life? Police and military are public goods. Giving a reasonable peaceful livelihood to orphans helps reduce the cost of police by keeping orphans from forming gangs that use violence against rich people.
giving the DEA scheduling authority make about as much sense as giving TSA authority to change NOAA's hurricane tracks!
No, the solution is even simpler. Recognize the fact that the state has no interest or legitimate authority in regulating what substances a legal adult puts in their own body and quit wasting money, time and effort.
"and in Nebraska, LEO's report 1 meth lab incident per 200K people"
That equals 9 meth lab incidents... not saying it doesn't still suck...
Anyway, this is a state's rights issue which i believe Bruning is on the wrong side of. He's an ultra conservative d-bag who won't last much longer around here hopefully.
Nebraska is already listed as being a place where pot is considered "decriminalized" (see mpp map)
Hmm, when I was 18 I had to drive across the state line to buy booze because the other state had a 18 age to buy and my state didn't.
Is this similar?
I find it interesting that it has gone up 400% in the last 3 years, but pot has only been legal in Colorado for just 1 year...... Do they have more detailed numbers by year maybe?
I totally agree that the Fed's ability to CREATE drug laws is legally tenuous. But that's really irrelevant here. A state has no right of action to force another state to conform their laws to this or that federal law. If the feds have a problem with it, it'll be between the feds and that state. It's simply not a matter for one state to go after another.
So Nebraska and Oklahoma want to force Colorado to repeal the law because it costs Nebraska and Oklahoma money? I can't wait for them to win this suit and set a precedent. Can you imagine how things will go once California can sue Nevada for the costs associated with gambling in Nevada, or suing Arizona for the costs associated with their liberal firearm laws? Sometimes I don't think people think through the ramifications of their initial reactions to things.
If this argument has any legs, then states bordering Nevada can begin to stop and detain women on their way to work in legal brothels, citing the Mann Act.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Your Texas gun laws are allowing people to buy guns and then transport them to neighboring states illegally to commit crimes.
I'm no prude, what what the hell does this story have to do with "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"?
Fsck this crap, I'm out.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
So legal weed coming INTO the state constitutes a great threat, but setting up cheap liquor stores just across the state border from the Lakota reservation (with a huge alcoholism rate) is just swell...
Nebraska Complains About Colorado Weed While Enabling South Dakota Alcoholism
http://www.hightimes.com/read/nebraska-complains-about-colorado-weed-while-enabling-south-dakota-alcoholism/
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Whenever someone says such and such "skyrocketed" 400%, instead of stating the real numbers, I know that they're a fucking deceiving, lying sack of dogshit.
Whoever wrote the article is a piece of shit.
This action by the attorney generals is illegal, oath-breaking, and unethical practice of law.
The 9th Amendment of the US Bill of Rights, the highest law in the land, provides for unspecified rights "retained by the people", to be asserted by the people when and as desired. The 10th Amendment provides for unspecified rights "reserved to the people". It is, in short, an open-ended list of rights. James Madison wrote it this way to deal with the assertion of the Anti-Federalists that any Bill of Rights would be incomplete and inevitably leave out lots of important rights: an open-ended list by its nature does not leave out any rights.
From a Bill of Rights perspective, the actions of the citizens of Colorado / Washington / Oregon, in voting to legalize an individual right to purchase and use marijuana under reasonable circumstances, constitute an assertion that the right to do so is a right retained by or reserved to the people. For even a single state to legalize marijuana would be more-than sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a 9th Amendment right. For the people of three states to do so is going far, far beyond any rational minimum requirement for the assertion of such a right.
By definition, rights retained by the people are retained by the people. It follows that no entity of government, not the President, not the Congress, not the Supreme Court, nor all three collectively, can take away such rights. Nor can the US legal profession take away such rights: the permission or consent of the legal profession is immaterial to the assertion of such rights. Indeed, it would be blatantly unethical practice of law to attempt to do so. To see this we construct a proof by contradiction (a technique of logic familiar to every high school student that has taken geometry). We start by assuming the government has that authority, which necessarily leads to the conclusion that no rights are retained by the people, which directly contracts the Bill of Rights. This shows that the original assumption was invalid.
The US legal profession -- as a class in society -- is clearly and indisputably in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to recognizing the authority of the 9th Amendment (a point that has been made in great detail many times on Slashdot, and thus need not be repeated here). For the legal profession to create contradictions in the legal system is always unethical practice of law, for contradictions (or even just complexity of such a nature as to create the appearance of contradiction) make the legal system harder for ordinary people to understand, thus creating an artificial demand over the long term for the services of legal professionals. To have government or the legal profession take away rights the people wish to assert as retained by them is inherently to create a contradiction in the legal system.
As such, the attorney generals of Oklahoma and Nebraska are:
1. In violation of the oaths they have sworn, both as legal professionals and as public servants, to uphold the Bill of Rights.
2. Engaged in unethical practice of law.
3. Engaged in illegal conduct.
4. Disqualified, immediately and permanently, from engaging in the practice of law or holding any position of public trust or responsibility.
Note that all of these penalties would apply not just to the state prosecutors, but also to the Supreme Court judges, if the judges were stupid enough to support this action. They, too, are bound by oaths, and their oath to uphold the Bill of Rights does not permit them to ignore the 9th Amendment, or the 10th.
Since it is clear that individual private use of marijuana is a 9th Amendment right under appropriate and reasonable circumstances, it follows that federal and state laws that interfere with the exercise of this right are -- and always have been -- illegal laws. The authority of legislators is necessarily limited to writing laws that do not infringe fundamental rights the people may choose to assert under the 9th Amendment. An
which means they sidestep a really important checks and balances of power. Thank you Ronald Ray-gun
Mr Fleetwood released an autobiography recently. He talks about his own drug use. Stevie Nicks has commented previously that her own drug use had very detrimental consequences. Don't be fooled by all the legalistic babble.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/12/15/mick-fleetwood-talks-about-affair-with-stevie-nicks-in-new-memoir-play-on/?intcmp=features
http://news.health.com/2014/10/03/health-effects-of-cocaine/
Being that Colorado should be making more money off of the taxes, should be no problem dealing with legal issues.....
You mean like when someone gets cancer and decides to sue a bunch of dealers out of existence? Oh, wait, maybe they'll just assassinate him. The cancer has mostly killed him anyway, right?
Oklahoma and Colorado share only a short border, and there are no major roads connecting them. What makes Oklahoma think Colorado is to blame for all its marijuana issues?
Denver already has the smog, now it can grow a narcotics trade as well. Then Nebraska will get some surplus drones and start a campaign agaist the drug trade, then ...
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
From the article you linked: "working with public money".
Essentially these LECs operate as private security contractors paid for with public funds obtained through taxation. And you'll only see them on the level of the several states because the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 prohibits the U.S. federal government from hiring private rent-a-cops.