Are State Rights and the Principles of Federalism Back in Vogue?

While the presidential and congressional elections are perceived as a big yawn for many, there are some very interesting ballot initiatives that challenged Federal powers, especially on issues of marijuana/drugs, healthcare and federal dominion over land.

Voter Initiatives On Dope, Health, and Land Breathe New Life Into Federalism  Bastiat Institute

There's an important constitutional issue on ballots across the country next month, but it's not labeled by its name anywhere that it appears. That issue encompasses concerns traditionally considered both conservative and liberal, even if it is embraced oh-so-selectively by its newfound friends. That's right, federalism is back, though you'll find it labeled “marijuana legalization,” “health care choice,” or even “state sovereignty.” In all cases, the ballot measures are criticized as symbolic or futile challenges to federal policy—but, as such, they also represent tests of just how much free rein the states retain in a country increasingly dominated by the behemoth on the banks of the Potomac. And, hell, if you don't tweak D.C. from time to time, you're just not trying....

* Colorado's Amendment 64, says the always-helpful Ballotpedia, would “legalize the use and possession of, at most, an ounce of marijuana for residents who are 21 and older. In addition … would allow the state to regulate retail sales of the drug.”

* Oregon's Measure 80 "allows commercial marijuana (cannabis) cultivation/sale to adults through state-licensed stores; allows unlicensed adult personal cultivation/use; prohibits restrictions on hemp." 

*Washington's Initiative 502 "would legalize the production, possession, delivery and distribution of marijuana. The initiative would regulate the sale of small amounts of marijuana to people 21 and older. According to reports, marijuana grow farms and food processors would be licensed by the Washington State Liquor Control Board."

All three initiatives directly challenge federal law prohibiting marijuana for pretty much any use whatsoever....

Also addressing a headline-grabbing political issue are measures in several states that would block enforcement of federal laws forcing people to participate in Obamacare-approved medical coverage. If these pass, they would join similar measures already approved in states including Arizona, setting the stage for further legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and guaranteeing that Obamacare, if implemented, will require much greater effort from D.C. than originally planned, without the assistance of many state governments.

* Alabama Amendment 6 would amend the state constitution "to prohibit any person, employer, or health care provider from being compelled to participate in any health care system."

* Florida Amendment 1 "aims to prevent laws or rules from compelling any person or employer to purchase, obtain, or otherwise provide for health care coverage."

* Missouri Prop E "would prohibit the establishment, creation, or operation of a health insurance exchange unless it is created by a legislative act, a ballot initiative, or veto referendum."

* Montana LR-122 "would allow residents in the state the choice to decide if they want health insurance or not, and which health insurance to buy if they choose to do so."

*Wyoming Amendment A says "[n]o federal or state law, rule or administrative decision shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system."

As with the marijuana initiatives, there's a lot of assumption that federal law will prevail and that these Obamacare mesures, if they pass muster, will stand in for Western Union in sending a message to D.C....

More of a regional issue—specifically, a western issue—is local control over public land, a concern that's rising once again across the arid mountains and deserts. And no wonder, in a region where the federal government controls half or more of the real estate. Utah, which is two-thirds owned by D.C., passed a law earlier this year demanding the federal government relinquish its lands to the state and threatening outright seizure of the same in 2014. Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a similar bill, so legislators did one better and put a constitutional amendment before voters.

*Arizona's Proposition 120 "would declare state sovereignty over the state's natural resources based on the argument of 'equal footing.' Natural resources would include land, air, water, minerals and wildlife."

To what extent voters in the states are motivated to reign in federal powers over their lives, land and resources remains unclear, at least until election day. But one thing is absolutely clear - 10th amendment and nullification issues are definitely raising their heads in the states and that's a very positive event.

Only the states have the power to reign in unconstitutional acts of the federal government. If the states don't revolt against Fedzilla, then the monster Fedzilla will continue to voraciously devour everything in its path until all Americans lie in the belly of the beast that hungrily consumed our civil liberties, property rights and economic freedom.

Why Republicans Should Support Legalizing Marijuana

Trying to talk establishment Republicans into legalizing marijuana has always been an uphill battle. They don't care about the medical benefits of marijuana nor do they support the right of an individual to use and grow marijuana. In fact, Republicans generally prefer that marijuana users and growers be imprisoned for the crime of indulging in something that the social conservatives hold in the highest disdain, namely the natural right of every human being to control their own bodies and life.

The closest I ever came to not being laughed out of a Republican gathering on the marijuana legalization issue was when I told them "you absolutely should support legalizing marijuana because the liberals would be too damn stoned to find their way to the polls on election day and you would start winning elections by default".

Pot prisoners cost taxpayers billions, and the primary beneficiary of imprisoning non violent drug offenders and casual users is America's growing Prison Industrial Complex.  The lost War on Drugs has cost American taxpayers over $1 trillion and we have more drug users than ever.

But there is good news on the drug legalization front as the American people are slowly waking up to the utter nonsense of the War on Drugs.  In red state conservative Bible belt Kansas, a Kansas jury discovered jury nullification.

Prosecutor Defeated by Glaring Stupidity of Pot Laws

A Kansas defense attorney reports:

"I had a jury trial this morning on level 3 possession with intent MJ, level 4 possession drug paraphernalia and level 10 no drug tax stamp. During voir dire, my almost all white, middle-class, middle-aged jury went into full rebellion against the prosecutor stating that they wouldn't convict even if the client's guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- almost all of them! They felt marijuana should be legalized, what he does with it is his own business and that the jails are already full of people for this silly charge. Then, when the potential jurors found out that the State wanted him to pay taxes on illegal drugs, they went nuts. One woman from the back said how stupid this was and why are we even here wasting our time. A "suit" from the front said this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. The prosecutor ended up dismissing the case. Judge gave me a dismissal with prejudice. I'm still laughing my ass off over this one. I have NEVER seen a full on mutiny by an entire jury pool before. Easiest win ever!"

Not quite jury nullification, but close. Something similar happened in Montana a couple of years ago.

If folks in Kansas are ready to acknowledge how silly and damaging our idiotic drug laws really are then that should be taken as a sign by the Republican Party that marijuana legalization is an issue  whose time has definitely arrived.

For more on the War on Drugs, see:

The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal (police unions, private prison corporations, alcohol and beer companies, pharmaceutical corporations and prison guard unions).

America's Prison Industrial Complex: Locking Up Folks For Corporate Prison Profits is the American Way

Police Unions, Rehab Owners Tainted With Sex Abuse Scandal Mount Effort To Stop Colorado From Legalizing Marijuana

The War on Drugs is Racist and Expensive

Legalizing drugs, especially marijuana, holds the potential to breath new life into the ailing GOP. The logical place to start is to abolish the federal law criminalizing marijuana and kick the issue back to the states where the folks in those states can decide how they want to handle marijuana.  

Civil Disobedience Can be Fun! A Guy Flattens 5 Police Cruisers with his Tractor

In Police State USA, even snoozing Americans are waking up and screaming "I've had enough". One irate farmer in Vermont took his tractor and flattened 5 police cruisers because he was apparently quite unhappy when police arrested him for possession of marijuana and resisting arrest.

Angry Vermont Farmer Flattens Police Cars . . . And Makes Slow Escape

Roger Pion, 34, is a very very angry farmer. Reportedly upset over an arrest last month for resisting arrest and marijuana possession, Pion drove his tractor to the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department and ran over five marked cruisers, one unmarked police car, and their van. Even though he made a slow escape, the police could not follow because that is all of the vehicles that they have.

The criminalization of just about every possible human behavior is finally being noticed and fed up citizens are beginning to react with anger, as they should.  

Police Unions, Rehab Owners Tainted With Sex Abuse Scandal Mount Effort To Stop Colorado From Legalizing Marijuana

 

Colorado has a closely watched November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana by decriminalizing it while regulating and taxing it. However, there are powerful deep pocketed lobbying interests spending a ton of money to defeat Amendment 64, notably police unions and the drug rehab lobby.

Two-thirds of the entire the budget for the “No on Amendment 64″ committee has been provided by a Florida-based nonprofit called “Save Our Society From Drugs.” The organization was founded by Betty Sembler, a veteran Drug Warrior whose husband is on the Mitt Romney for President finance team. According to one biography of Sembler, she has been awarded an “honorary agent status by the DEA” and was pivotal in founding drug rehabilitation clinics and the Drug Free America Foundation. From 1976 to 1993, the Sembler family operated a drug rehabilitation clinic known as STRAIGHT Inc., which closed down after a shocking series of scandals that revealed that clients faced rape, faced beatings, forced hunger, and other abuses at the clinics. 

The “No on Amendment 64″ committee was registered by Jonathan Anderson, a Republican lawyer with law/lobbying firm Holland & Anderson. Anderson, a former aide to Gov. Bill Ritter (R-CO), was deeply involved in setting up organizations to coordinate corporate cash into the 2010 election. 

The day-to-day management of the “No on Amendment 64″ committee is coordinated by CRL Associates, a lobbying firm registered in Denver.

The “No on Amendment 64″ committee contracts with Keating Research Inc, which bills itself as a progressive consulting firm, for polling.

A coalition website that links to the “No on Amendment 64″ effort lists other allies of the campaign with many groups that rely on marijuana prohibition for financial gain, including police unions like the Colorado Law Enforcement Officers Association (police unions often utilize federal grants which provide funds for law enforcement as long as officers prioritize drug enforcement, including marijuana). The list also includes several religious right organizations like Focus on the Family.

Read the rest here

Republic Report

 The Republic Report does an excellent job tracking the lobbying money on this issue.

The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal

Not surprisingly, the top five lobbying groups opposing the legalization of marijuana are:  Police Unions, prison guards, the beer/booze industry, private prison corporations and Big Pharm!

Also, America's religious right and socially conservative theocrats are a formidable force in criminalizing all human behavior that conflicts with their Biblical literalist worldviews, including prostitution, homosexuality, gambling etc.  Never underestimate the 'Sin Police'.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming percentage of Americans totally support decriminalizing marijuana and it's long overdue for this issue to move beyond medical marijuana to outright decriminalization and abolishing all marijuana related criminal statutes.  

The War on Drugs is Racist and Expensive

 

In a piece titled Marijuana law just creates criminals CNN reported on June 6, 2012:

More than 50,000 people in 2011 were arrested in New York City for possessing small amounts of marijuana -- the majority of whom were black and Latino -- at a considerable judicial and financial cost. New York City spends about $75 million every year on arresting people for recreational marijuana possession.

But what many people don't know is that the state decriminalized this offense more than 30 years ago, making private possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana a violation punishable by a $100 fine. Possession of the same amount in public view remains a criminal misdemeanor.

Despite this change in law, arrests for small quantities of marijuana over the last decade have skyrocketed, with more than 400,000 people arrested and unceremoniously run through the criminal justice system. Marijuana possession is now the No. 1 arrest category in New York.

Why is this happening?

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people in New York are stopped, questioned, frisked and searched, often without justification, under the "stop and frisk" policy. The vast majority of these people live in communities of color, and almost 90% are immediately released without arrest or even a summons.

Read the rest here

CNN

Most of the folks arrested in NYC for marijuana possession are blacks and Hispanics. Furthermore, the NYPD's draconian 'stop and frisk' policies specifically target people of color. You better believe that Fuhrer Bloomberg's Militarized Police State is blatantly racist. 

While this is an issue that gets considerable media attention, nothing ever changes and these horrid police assaults on folks of color continue unabated and so do the arrests and prison sentences.

Ron Paul: Drug War In U.S. Has Racist Origins  The Huffington Post

Dylan Ratigan: Racism was rebranded ‘the war on drugs’  The Raw Story

The War on Drugs Is Really a War on Minorities  Alternet

The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste
Common Dreams

Racism and the Drug War  The Future of Freedom

Not only is the War on Drugs immoral and racist, it's a hugely expensive waste of money.  Cato estimated a few years ago that we were spending $88 billion a year on the War on Drugs.

Drug criminalization policies in the United States drain $88 billion annually from state, local and federal government coffers, according to a report released Monday by the Cato Institute.

"The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition," by Harvard economist and Cato Senior Fellow Jeffrey Miron and Katherine Waldock, concludes that current drug policy costs governments $41.3 billion each year to implement, while depriving their budgets of $46.7 billion in potential revenues from taxation of legal drug sales.

The revenue figure was derived assuming roughly the same taxation rate currently used for alcohol and tobacco sales. Also factored in is the tax revenue on the income earned by producers--currently concealed in a shadowy black market--that would be subject to standard income and sales taxation.

"State and federal governments in the United States face massive looming fiscal deficits," Miron and Waldock write. "One policy change that can reduce deficits is ending the drug war."

Read the rest here

Cato Institute

Over a period of 40 years, we've spend over $1 trillion dollars on the idiotic War on Drugs, here.   

The War on Drugs is a BIG fail; we totally failed to even put a dent in the flow of drugs and we have more drug users than ever, plus a whole lot of recreational drug users in prison and with criminal records.  The economic impact on the poor who are the primary victims of the government's War on Drugs is devastating.  The War on Drugs needs to be renamed the War on the Poor.

Folks with criminal records can't get jobs, their family suffer enormously and their lives are essentially ruined.

But then again, that's what government does best - it deliberately and maliciously ruins human lives for the exclusive benefit of the Police State and the Prison Industrial Complex.