Froma Harrop: Legalizing Marijuana Is America’s Next ‘Best Idea’

» Harrop is an idiot on 10.26.09 @ 07:35 AM

Why run her column, Noozhawk, unless you’re pro-pot? Woops, guess we already knew that. Can’t count on you for unbiased coverage. When do the ‘dr will see you now’ and ‘free oz of pot with every sign-up!’ ads for medical marijuana start running in the margins?????

» Richard Cabeza on 10.26.09 @ 08:27 AM

Legalize it!!!!!!!

» Harrpo on 10.26.09 @ 10:38 AM

To the person who wrote Harrpo is an idiot…

This person has no common sense and probably has no intellectual sense either.

Finally media that is standing up to the propaganda and racism that made marijuana illegal in the first place. I truly think the people who are for prohibition of marijuana should actually take time and read…

» RC on 10.26.09 @ 01:42 PM

While I strongly disagree about marijuana being legalized, I appreciate the diversity of opinion Noozhawk has provided on the subject. I don’t know where the first commenter is getting his/her information, but Noozhawk has been very helpful and unbiased in following the community debate over dispensaries. Keep up the good work!

» Neil Baker on 10.26.09 @ 06:04 PM

Please be reminded that marijuana and most other drugs are already Constitutionally legal and the current laws prohibiting their manufacture, sale, transport or use are Constitutionally illegal. Marijuana is protected by the 9th Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The 9th Amendment clearly states that, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Marijuana and most other drugs are a “retained right”.

Historically, the 9th Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights during the founding of the U.S. Constitution to satisfy concerned and highly prescient Americans who feared that the presence of a Bill of Rights in our Constitution would promote the dangerous and incorrect idea that the Government grants rights to the People rather than the People granting rights to the government. The Constitution was originally designed as a document describing the very limited rights of Government. The Bill of Rights was a contradiction because it did and does fail to reinforce the correct idea that all is legal except what the People clearly document the Government can control. Its failure is due to an ignorance and disparagement of the 9th Amendment. (Robert Bork during his failure before a Senate confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court justice called it an ink blot on the Constitution.)

In 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution was ratified that outlawed the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors commonly referred to as “prohibition”.  It took more than simple congressional legislation and passage of a law. They had to amend the U.S. Constitution because trade in alcohol had been considered a “retained right” protected by the 9th Amendment. Any simple law prohibiting sale of alcohol would have been unConstitutional.

Likewise, a Constitutional Amendment was necessary rather than a simple legislated law when in 1933 the 21st Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution was ratified that repealed the earlier 18th Amendment restoring the once retained rights to manufacture, sell and transport alcohol to the People of the United States.

After 222 years since 1787 when the Constitution of the United States of America was first ordained and established, the number of Amendments to appear should have been huge. No law is legal if its not Constitutional. Congress might legislate and pass a law but it can’t be a legal law unless the Supreme Court declares it Constitutional. If it’s not legal the Supreme Court should kindly inform the Congress that an Amendment can be written making the legislated law legal but that under no circumstances should such law be enforced without such an Amendment.

Marijuana is legal because no Constitutionally legal law has ever been legislated rendering it other than legal. Marijuana is a retained right and until an Amendment appears in the Constitution saying otherwise, no legal enforcement of illegal laws regarding marijuana can happen. Law enforcement has and is operating illegally.

Although I firmly believe our laws should be legal, it’s difficult to advocate the probable popularization of another inevitably destructive drug with the revelation that its already legal. Having grown up in the sixties and seventies and serving in the Navy during the early eighties, I understand the destructive power of marijuana and the lure it serves for some to harder more deadly chemicals.  I’ve only known one person that ever died from the direct consumption of drugs and that was a shipmate of mine aboard the USS Enterprise who died from the injection of toxically adulterated heroin purchased in Sacramento. He had successfully kept his habit a secret from everyone. The son of a State Department diplomat he had allegedly begun dabbling when his father was stationed in the Middle East.  Heroin is Constitutionally legal and if it were correctly recognized as such, my friend would probably still be alive since he would have been allowed to purchase heroin from reputable retail outlets guaranteeing its purity. But on the downside, there would be far more heroin addicts if availability and purity resulted from its correctly recognized legal status.

If operation of automobiles were not a factor and my 2003 engineering proposal as a candidate for Governor of California had been selected which included a plan for the construction of a zero-collision tolerant, high-speed, electric-drive transportation system in New California, I would not support the passage of a Constitutional Amendment rendering marijuana and other intoxicating drugs illegal. Upon completion of New California, I would fully support the repeal of such an Amendment.

By the way, UCSB is an unaccountable, unelected, unethical, unacceptable criminal maifia organization and no university in the history of the World has more disgracefully failed to fulfill its responsibility to the human species and TRUTH more than UCSB. UCSB is utterly contemptible and its complete destruction is honorably justifiable.

» Anon MD on 10.26.09 @ 11:04 PM

In my view, a big stumbling point to legalizing marijuana is the lack of a ‘legal limit’ of THC that is permissible for driving or performing a hazardous activity. Enforcement of driving laws, for alcohol consumption, is much easier with a legal limit in place, and it likely dissuades drivers from imbibing. The use of marijuana has been implicated in as many as 11-33% of fatal accidents among 15-30-year-olds. (1) Brookoff, D, Cook, CS, Williams, C, Mann, CS. Testing reckless drivers for cocaine and marijuana. N Engl J Med 1994; 331:518. (2) Sutton, LR. The effects of alcohol, marihuana and their combination on driving ability. J Stud Alcohol 1983; 44:438.

» lee rawlings on 11.24.09 @ 06:34 AM

right on, the war on drugs like the evil berlin wal wall is tumbling down, even the evil people or even the most stupid people in the usa cannot stop the evil proabition on pot, the evil wall from comming down!! will you marry me?