Spanky's Place

1 - No shit, Spanky, no shit. Bastards...

2 - When I heard the news, the first thing I did was check your site to see what you had to say on the subject. I can't believe I "beat you to the punch" on this one.

I've done a little more digging on this, and it scares the hell out of me. At it's heart, this not a drug issue. This is a state's rights issue. This ruling sets a terrible precedent in that it opens the door for federal intrusion into what should be an internal matter to the particular state.

They (the court) made use of some rather nebulous points in their decision, which was based on both the interstate commerce areas of the Constitution and the Controlled Substances Act. The following excerpt from the CNN story is what really burns me (emphasis mine):

A federal appeals court concluded use of medical marijuana was non-commercial, and therefore not subject to congressional oversight of "economic enterprise."

But lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department argued to the Supreme Court that homegrown marijuana represented interstate commerce, because the garden patch weed would affect "overall production" of the weed, much of it imported across American borders by well-financed, often violent drug gangs.

So, if your state says marijuana (or any other stubstance that the federal government doesn't like) is legal, as long as you grow it for yourself, don't sell it, don't transport it across state lines, and consume it yourself; you had better not even think about doing so, lest some DEA stormtroopers kick in your front door and haul your ass off to federal prison. If Little Red Hen were around, she would surely find herself on a dinner platter.

Now, for a fun little jab at my liberal friends who are concerned about Bush packing too many conservatives on the court; please note that the dissenters were justices Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas.

-Devin

3 - Heh. Yeah, any other week and it'd have been a race to see who could type the fastest. I've spent the past two nights at Annual Town Meeting until almost midnight. I'm on the Finance Committee in town, so I have to be there to explain our recommendations on the budget and then watch the citizens decide where their money should go (they tend to take our advice, and did last night as well, but it's entirely up to them - pure democracy on the local level). Do you have town meeting government in AZ? I think it's *mostly* a New England thing, but the more time I invest in town government the more curious I get about all the different systems we use in the US.

As far as the decision, I'm no lawyer so I can't speak very well about the reasoning behind the decision, but I don't like any of the implications. Medically, I doubt it will surprise you to learn that my opinion on the subject is heavily influenced by my wife the doctor (whose sister died of breast cancer several years ago while my wife tried desperately - and not terribly successfully - to manage her pain with morphine). You want to watch somebody go ballistic? Tell a doctor they aren't allowed to prescribe the most effective pain medication available. Then duck.

Have you ever been to this blog? https://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/

All Supreme Court, all the time. A little overwhelming, but they had some very interesting discussion on this case.

Oh, and I definitely noticed the dissenters - about time my fellow Holy Cross alum Justice Thomas did something I could be proud of.

Question for you: do you think we'll see this decried as "judicial activism" by the conservatives on the airwaves? It seems to qualify, to me, but I suspect the people who would normally be all over it won't touch it because drug use is against their moral code. Doubly ironic given that this is, as you note, a states' rights issue - and usually the conservatives carry that banner. Ironic if the liberals picked it up, no?

4 -

Oh crap, yet another blog that I see myself becoming addicted to. It has already been added to the blogroll.

Town meeting government? Here? HA!! The level of concern displayed by most folks out here on local issues (or any issues really) is best measured in micro-givashits. Trying to get folks involved enough to even bother showing up at a school board meeting mostly a wasted effort.

Re: Doctor's prescriptions - A doctor can prescribe all kinds of extremely addictive, extremely dangerous and in some cases extremely psychotropic drugs such as meperidine (Demerol), butorphanol (Stadol), codeine, morphine (Astramorph), methadone, propoxyphene (Darvon) thebaine, oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), Salvia Divinorum, various amphetamines (and even methamphetamines, benzodiazepine (Xanax), Methylphenidate (Ritalin); but they can't prescribe marijuana.

The two primary reasons given for keeping marijuana illegal are:

1. Because it is such a dangerous drug
2. allowing it's use could potentially cause an increase in the illegal trafficing of marijuana by "violent drug gangs".

Excuse me, but don't they (the court) realize that these "violent drug gangs" exist because pot is fucking illegal? Make it legal, and the "violent drug gangs" go out of business, overnight.

Back to the State's rights issue, I cannot believe this hasn't seen more coverage. This is a very big deal, and has some terrifying ramifications -the list of other areas of our lives this decision will eventually effect is huge.

As to your question, I think you are probably correct. The "usual suspects" have been strangely silent (or I have missed their comments). I'm going to switch over to Air America today (I alternate my talk radio listening between the right and the left -it is very illuminating) and see if perhaps Al Franken (I think he is a bit of a looney, but I still enjoy his show) will weigh in on this. As far as the moral code issue is concerned, this is one of those issues where intellectual honest will be overrun by blind allegience. I think the reason that most right-wingers "object" to marijuana use is because they believe what the government tells them, without analyzing the information themselves. I think the train of thought goes something like this:

Marijuana is a gateway drug, and should therefore be banned. Beer, Wine, and distilled Liquors are ok though, because alchohol is....oh shit, better not think about this too hard. Drugs are bad, mmmmm-kay?

<rant mode=on>
I saw an anti-drug PSA the other day, the one where the guy with the "street cred" is talking about how smoking pot destroyed his buddy's life. I think what most people miss is that some folks are going to destroy themselves, period. It doesn't matter what "thing" they use, the simple fact is they are going to find something to use, and others will blame the thing rather than the person. Pot, Booze, Dope, Porn, Fanatism etc. aren't the cause, they are merely the tools some people use to destroy themselves. As far as marijuana being the evil, addictive, life-destroying entity that it has been made out to be by our government propaganda machine; I'm willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of the most successful people in America have done more than just a few bong hits.
</rant>

-Devin

5 - I've got a couple more that, for some reason, never seem to make their way into the debate. First, inhaling the combustion products of smoldering organics is harmful in and of itself -- you cannot at the same time work toward the elimination of tobacco on those grounds and open marijuana to popular legal use without demonstrating schizophrenia. Most of the harmful compounds in tobacco smoke are the natural product of smoking leaves (or buds or whatever) and not special to tobacco.

Second is the second-hand smoke issue. It is a matter of public record that I am an alcoholic and drug addict. I can choose to associate with people who are responsibly using alcohol (say, having a beer at a picnic or other social gathering) with no ill effect. Other people's choice to drink does not affect me unless it gets out of hand. (Okay, it took nearly twenty years of sobriety to get me to that point, but I got there nonetheless.) The same is not true of pot smokin'. You smoke, I smoke. You smoke, your kids smoke. And so on.

That's not to say that I don't condone medically necessary use. I do wince a bit when people claim that smoking is the only effective way to use he drug -- a safe inhaler that would allow user-regulated dosage is not only possible, it would be relatively simple to create, provided that the government gets out of the way long enough for the thing to be created.

Of course, that does nothing to get the really despicable gangs (Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Lily, Merck, etc.) off the street....