The new ordinance will force hundreds of dispensaries to close and all but a few to relocate. The goal was to bring clarity to the medical marijuana industry, but the only thing that's clear is that the transition process will be difficult. Especially now that the DEA has begun raiding dispensaries again despite the promises made by the Obama administration.
While federal, state and local governments struggle to make sense of medical marijuana laws, an increasing number of Californians support a completely different approach: marijuana legalization. Nothing more than a pipe dream? Maybe. But consider this: Fixty-six percent of Californians currently support pot legalization, the same proportion of Californians who voted for the Compassionate Use Act, which legalized medical marijuana, back in 1996. Now we just made medical marijuana legal in Michigan. It passed by 60%. What are your views on the medical marijuana issue?
John Stossel and Drew Carey discuss the conflict between federal and state marijuana laws. Charles Lynch, an operator of a legal medical marijuana dispensary, is interviewed about his impending sentencing under federal drug charges.
John Stossel is having a special on decriminalizing drugs on Fox Business tonight. It is obvious that the war on drugs isn't nor has it ever worked. We must rethink the drug war and the money and blood lost over this war. We live in a broken world but we must try and make the best out of it. If you are a medical marijuana user please let us know what it does for you and if it helps. You can use the anonymous if you feel more comfortable.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth did Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., do, and why did he do it?
ReplyDeleteAn astonished ABC reporter followed the senator down the hall. The reporter confronted Bunning as the visibly irritated senator boarded an elevator and tried to leave. The reporter stopped the doors from closing and continued the questioning. Why, he repeatedly asked Bunning, why?
What did the senator do? Fail to pay taxes? Visit a mistress on taxpayer money? Utter a racial slur? No, Bunning committed an even more egregious sin. In effect, he said to his congressional colleagues, "Before we expand a program, let's make sure we can pay for it."
Defying Democrats and most Republicans, Bunning objected to a motion for unanimous consent on an extension of unemployment benefits. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that his "views do not represent a majority of the Republican caucus." Bunning actually supports extending the benefits. He wants them paid for out of unspent "stimulus" funds.
The exasperated ABC reporter explained, "We wanted to ask the senator why he is blocking a vote that would extend unemployment benefits to more than 340,000 Americans, including Brenda Wood, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who has been out of work for two years."
Collectivists love using hardship tales to push for a bigger welfare state. Why, unemployment benefits, like healthcare, are a right! Dissenters become the moral equivalent of Jack the Ripper.
Brenda Wood is a teacher. We like teachers. She lives in Texas. A lot of people don't like Texas. It gave us former President George W. Bush. But it is a red state, which means Bunning doesn't care about anybody, even his own kind. Wood is a female, deserving special care, protection and empathy. And, she's been out of work for two years! Why doesn't Bunning just burn down her house and be done with it?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "I hope Republicans will reconsider and think about their constituents standing in the unemployment line as we speak." Never mind that the Senate had already planned to vote on another bill to extend unemployment and provide other things that Bunning temporarily stopped. Or that Reid could, if he chose not to use Bunning as a piñata, still bring the matter to a vote. So Bunning's "obstruction" has no real impact. It merely puts another coat of paint on the Republicans-are-cold-and-heartless image promoted by Democrats and the Demo-journalists.
Here's a less-than-hardship tale, included in my book Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies, and the Special Interests That Divide America. On a lovely afternoon a few years and one lower back surgery ago, I ducked out of work, grabbed some tennis balls and went to a nearby public park. Nobody was around to hit with, so I used a backboard. A little later, I walked over to a young man firing balls at another backboard. "Want to hit?"
He was quite good and, it turned out, had played on his high-school tennis team. After working up a nice sweat, we sat and toweled down. He asked what I did for a living. At the time, I ran an employment search firm. "Great," he said, "I'm looking for a job. Can I leave you a résumé?" "If you're looking for a job," I asked, "why are you out here hitting tennis balls?" "Oh, I don't intend to get serious," he said, "until my unemployment compensation runs out."
Larry Katz was the chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration. He argued that extending unemployment compensation benefits decreases the incentive to get out and look for a job. Workers, he insisted, are almost three times more successful in finding jobs when benefits are just about to run out.
One more left wing radical. The Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell has died from his wounds after exchanging gunfire with Pentagon Security officers. The LA Times is reporting that Bedell was a 9/11 Truther and was angry about government enforcement of marijuana laws.
ReplyDeleteWashington - The gunman in the Pentagon shootings may have harbored resentment for the military and had doubts about the facts behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
John Patrick Bedell, 36, died after exchanging gunfire with two police officers, both of whom were wounded.
In an Internet posting, a user named JPatrickBedell wrote that he was determined to see justice for the 1991 death of Marine Col. James Sabow in Orange County, which was ruled a suicide but has long been the source of coverup theories. The writer said the case would be a step toward revealing the truth behind the 9/11 "demolitions."
The same posting railed against the government's enforcement of marijuana laws and included links to the author's 2006 court case in Orange County for cultivating marijuana and resisting a police officer.
Court records available online show the date of birth on the case mentioned by the user JPatrickBedell matches that of the John Patrick Bedell who was killed after opening fire outside the Pentagon.
So in the newly popular "Ideological Game", do we attribute this shooting to Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann? Perhaps we should all just grow up and start blaming these incidents on the nut cases who carry them out.
I'm with Stossel on this one. I do not smoke pot, but I think it should be decriminalized.
ReplyDeleteWhat part of the constitution gives the federal government the right to ban this?
It doesn't. This is a states issue. Each state need to criminalize or decriminalize these plants and drugs. We do need to stop the "war on Drugs"
ReplyDelete