When this happens you have to jump on it. I agree with Rick Perry – about the need to move away from blanket criminalization of marijuana use.
Perry’s statements were measured and nuanced, another anomaly. He did not endorse legalization or regulation. He merely expressed an openness to explore possibilities in drug cases aside from criminal prosecution. It would have been good to see him go “full-Libertarian” and advocate legalization, (here’s what they could look like), but I’ll take what I can get.
Limited though it is, his statement is a remarkable departure that contributes to a growing momentum away from strict prohibition. Hopefully the momentum will continue to build.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
I just couldnt depart your site prior to suggesting that I incredibly enjoyed the standard information an individual supply for your visitors? Is gonna be back often so that you can inspect new posts kebackadekcd
Sometimes, when a lot of time passes, and I don’t see someone’s posts in a good while, I do wonder if that person might have died.
Sorry, I posted that reply in the wrong place. Darn this format. I thought I was replying to Dan’s comment in which he insists he isn’t stoned or dead yet.
still alive, still not stoned
all’s good
I think I’ve solved the Case of the Missing Posters.They’re not dead after all! They’re still over on the Wendy Davis thread, throwing out the same old arguments about the abortion issue.
I was thinking everyone was getting along, and all this time the fighting continued offstage.
ever realize how many dead people you have in your phone?
ever wonder what kind of cheese they make in China? I’ve never heard of Chinese cheese.
That’s because they view it (semi-correctly) as rotten milk.
Still here, and reading. 🙂
Oh, you were replying to dan, carry on!
DOW, I thought you were replying to the rotten milk thread.
DAN, just remember that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I will let you know either way!
True, good news, but in Harris County an official wasn’t tough enough when he didn’t want to scrape out pipes and charge the person with “possession”. But any progress is good progress.
Another off topic:
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/GOP-leaders-shorten-presidential-nominating-season-5170951.php?cmpid=hpbn
I’m all for shorter Presidential election seasons, but is moving the convention up 2 months really going to reduce GOPers “slicing and dicing” each other in debates when people are going to start running in early 2015?
Fly, even further off topic — I just posted a reply to you on the Wendy Davis thread, about opinion versus scientific and legal consensus.
And I have an answer for you now. Had to tend to a few other things.
Off topic but IT’S SNOWING!!! Down here in Galveston on the Seawall. I happened to look out my office window and white stuff was coming down.
I will bet it is beautiful !
Yes. Too wet to stick around long though.
Enjoy!
Wish I was there right now.
http://www.galveston.com/pleasurepiervideocam/
You just can’t fix stupid.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/24/sean-hannity-i-can-drink-two-beers-and-not-feel-anything-so-pot-is-more-dangerous/
I believe Ann Coulter also said something about how alcohol doesn’t get you high. Perhaps it doesn’t give you the same high as marijuana but it definitely has an effect. She’s obviously doing it wrong. 🙂
High in the same way pot causes? No. But you’re still altering your mind and clouding your judgment and lowering your coordination either way. Declaring one way to be acceptable and the other not is arbitrary without any hard science to back you up.
She didn’t swallow………
+1000 Crogged! That’s funny on more than one level!
‘ “Alright, I can drink a beer or two and I don’t really feel anything, right?” Hannity said. ‘
Probably the first time you had a beer or two you felt something. You drink regularly and your liver gets better at processing the alcohol.
Also get real. People smoke pot or drink alcohol for the same primary reason- to alter consciousness.
I nominate Altered state for the 51st state of America!
I’ve visited a few times!
Well, I’m glad to see everyone getting along, for a change, even if it’s just temporary. Yesterday was a free-for-all, with even Mr. Lifer coming down from his perch and getting down and dirty. He normally maintains a dignified distance, posting his blog entry, and then sitting back to watch the show that ensues. Performance art, indeed. I usually make just the occasional cameo appearance. Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.
I thought the place could use a little sprucing up….
Probably the greatest potential effect of decriminalization/legalization would be the impact it would have on the Mexican drug cartels. Putting a dent in that funding pipeline may very well seriously decrease the human trafficking, violence and other assorted crimes they front with their money.
There’s questions about that:
http://blog.chron.com/bakerblog/2014/01/will-recreational-marijuana-sales-in-colorado-hurt-mexican-cartels/
This probably would have hurt them more 5 to 10 years ago, before they diversified their operations (they are scumbags, but they are not stupid). Nevertheless, giving your $ instead to an American pot grower who has complied with safety and quality control standards is a much better option.
Interesting that pot is still schedule I:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_cannabis_from_Schedule_I_of_the_Controlled_Substances_Act
What else is schedule I? Stuff like Heroin, LSD, GHB, bath salts, Ecstasy. I really can’t see a science-based reason to include pot in that group.
So yeah, I agree with Perry too.
Making marijuana legal fits in well with conservative ideas. In fact, ending all prohibition fits in well with conservative ideas. The nation was supposed to have learned the follies of prohibition with the 18th amendemnt and all the carnage it caused, gang violence, cartels, drive-by shootings, etc.. We see that is still going on with modern prohibition, especially in Mexico.
During the prohibition of alcohol, it wasn’t really illegal for the individual to own or consume alcohol, that was viewed as personal behavior and outside the powers of government at any level. It was unconstitutional. That changed under FDR and democratic rule during the Great Depression. Worse, our modern drug laws are mostly based on racism, and it still applies in such a way.
This is another area where we need to get the federal government back into its constitutional boundries, allow adults to live their lives as adults, make our own choices and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences. We ceartainly won’t get any of that with democrats or the GOP establishment running things.
“That changed under FDR and democratic rule during the Great Depression”
If it did, it changed quickly, as prohibition was repealed eight months after FDR took office in 1933. The gangsters we associate with Prohibition, the Untouchables, the Valentine’s massacre, all of this took place in the late 1920s, mostly during the Hoover administration.
Making MJ legal might fit with classical libertarian ideas, but it doesn’t seem to fit with modern conservatism as practiced by the GOP, since these are the loudest voices for maintaining the status quo.
John, the part about prohibiting personal behavior changed under FDR. Basically the federal government took ownership of our persons, our actions, even our thoughts in the name of regulating international and interstate commerce. Wickard vs Filburn, 1942. That’s what all of our curremnt drug laws, modern prohibition, are based on.
Perry is also not the first republican governor to at least want to relax the laws. Governor Johnson of New Mexico wanted to legalize it from what I remember.
When Demon Rationality invades an anti-empiricist stronghold like Perry’s head, on any subject, it means none of the Conservative bastions is safe.
What’s it like having him live in yours?
LOL…I love Perry. He’s the hood ornament on GOP’s broke-down bus to nowhere. But you have to ask yourself–now that he’s actually thinking, will he stay the oblivious, granite-skulled talking haircut we like, or will he become one of those insufferable people who take evidence and process it rationally toward a logical conclusion? How can he call himself Rick Perry if he joins the reality-based community?
I think he realized a long time ago he was amongst insufferable people, took that evidence, processed in rationally and switched parties.
Indeed. Rick saw the opportunity in selling patent medicine to rubes, and like many similarly slick shysters, he took that evidence, processed in rationally and switched parties.
One would think that legalized pot would be on the GOP agenda, after all, I can’t think of a better way to shrink government and bolster our personal liberties. I lot of money goes into drug enforcement and those that have a vested interest in that money train are lobbying hard to keep it illegal.
Those monied interests are national distilleries and the legal community. Not sure where the first fits but the second is solidly on the left. They will abandon opposition as the nation’s mood mellows.
Yep, and don’t forget the Pharmaceutical Corporations.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/907001/the_top_five_special_interest_groups_lobbying_to_keep_marijuana_illegal
Another interest that is against legalization is the police/judicial/prison complex. Filling up courts and jails with minor league pot smokers supports a lot of jobs although I suspect most cops would just as soon not have to deal with little stuff like this. Those jails, though, are big money to politicians and the companies (in many cases) that run them and this tends to be a GOP constituency.
Pot’s current illegal status and the impact of getting in trouble for smoking dope has recently presented a problem for me.
I walk around the neighborhood a lot. Recently, it was obvious that a couple of teenagers [?] on bikes were smoking MJ in the drainage ditch that abuts the elementary school. Also recently, I believe I saw a white adult sell something something to two latino kids old enough to drive.
I’m trying to figure out how to deal with this.
Getting in legal trouble, perhaps getting a record, for smoking dope is stupid and exactly the kind of things kid do when they’re in that stoopid phase; justice is not always meted out evenly.
On the other hand, it was near an ELEMENTARY school. And it’s ILLEGAL.
I understand the conflict, but I’m not sure what you’re asking. It would be good to know your personal stance on marijuana use.
For starters, since it’s currently illegal, it’s unwise and “wrong” for those people to use or sell it.
Do you have a responsibility to report this activity to the authorities since you are a witness? I don’t know what the law says about that. If it’s just a moral dilemma — I would not turn these people in, because as you say, justice is not always meted out fairly, and it’s “just” marijuana. Or should you act in order to save the elementary school kids before they get into the same legal (and potentially mental) mess?
Tutt,
I don’t have kids [and I don’t know the kids involved or I’d talk with their parents] so I’m curious what parents think is the right thing to do:
__ nothing
__ tell the principle
__ tell the school district cops
__ tell the city cops
i think it would be sad indeed for a kid to get a record for MJ when it appears its legality tide is changing.
Personally, I tried marijuana a long time and didn’t care for it. However, I freely admit that if it were decriminalized I’d probably try it again.
It bothers me the things take place near the elementary school.
these things
I don’t have kids either. I’ll have to think more about it. My first instinct is not to get involved, since I consider it a private matter between parent and child, even if I knew the parents. I guess it would depend on how close I was to the parents. However, if I were to witness the kids breaking and entering, I would call the police, because they would be causing harm to others. Is that selfish on my part? To run to the authorities over the burglary, but to be hands off when it involves a kid potentially ruining his life by getting mixed up with marijuana?
I’m a very private person and normally would not appreciate someone meddling in my business to tell me, for example, if I had kids, that my kid was having sex, or using drugs, or that my husband was having an affair (if I were married). There are too many people out there with bad intentions, envious, gossipy people who just like to cause trouble. Not saying that you are, but it’s something to keep in mind before getting involved.
Don’t mean to butt in, but my opinion would be to do nothing about it. Weed isn’t physically addictive and doesn’t harm the body or mind. Not worth the kid ending up with a criminal record. Maybe if I knew their family well I might feel obligated to inform the parents, but I still probably wouldn’t.
Breaking and entering is a different matter since, as Tutt points out, that is harming others.
It’s complicated, alright. Thanks.
My house is on a path to a local high school. The kids must think we can’t see out our windows or something. I bet first period is a doozy for a few of them and their teachers. We have the principal’s cell and give him the heads up. He’s pretty good guy that prefers the neighbors call him instead of the police. Every now and then he has a funny tale to share in his endeavors.
So in other words, Rick Perry can actualize verbalize a rational thought when he doesn’t have a self serving megalomaniacal power grabbing agenda?
Amazing how reasonable even a Looney Tune sounds when he is not tailoring the message to his wingnut “base”. Or translated into Arabic: “al-Qaeda”. Oh the irony, the irony.
Some mom’s teach their kids to remain silent if they have nothing nice to say and I guess some push their’s to be as nasty as possible when thye agree. Must be some interesting table talk getting that message out.
The Houston Chronicle states that Perry has made this clam before but I guess political reality dictated he not take a really aggressive stance on the issue.
When I saw the headline I had to pinch myself to make sure I was awake. Perry makes a sensible case. These small MJ cases are over stressing the prison an court systems and a joint or two should not ruin a life.
turtlehead, try to refrain from using pinch…hey it was there, I couldn’t resist
Personally, I am opposed to the use of marijuana, but I also realize it’s really none of my business whether or not people use it, as long as others don’t get hurt as a result. So what would I do were its legalization to come up for a vote? My first instinct would be to vote against it, since to vote for it would seem as though I were promoting its use, but I wouldn’t really be promoting its use but simply promoting the freedom of others to use it, to live life on their own terms without fear of legal reprisal. So, I would vote to legalize it.
I do think legalization would lead to increased use of marijuana. Nor that everyone would suddenly run out and start using it, but for many law-abiding people, once the stigma of illegality is lifted, it might very well lead to more experimentation.
Tutt, I doubt it would lead to more experimentation. I have neighbors in their 60’s who use it recreationally and don’t use anything else except a cocktail. They aren’t running out and smoking crack or meth. In fact, I’d rather deal with a stoner than a drunk.
Legalize it and sell it like tobacco and alcohol and collect those taxes.
solid
Yup.
Legalization hasn’t seem to harm or stunt society in the Netherlands for the past several decades. I would think that is pretty solid empirical evidence.
1/24/2014… a date that will live in infamy! A bug-eyed lib leans on facts to support a position
Hey, a guy’s gotta have a dream.
Perhaps because he isn’t running for re-election again he’s expressing his true opinion and not pandering to wingnuts?
I was shocked to hear that Glenn Beck was remorseful of his past divisiveness and far right rhetoric on some Fox program.
Legalize. Next year a Texans-Cowboys Super Bowl. Yeehaw!
I see legalized meth labs before that happens, sorry dude.
okay, so he’s already dreaming, but it’s a good dream. Especially if Romo tosses a pick 6 as time expires and we win.
Oh jeez, I share despo’s dream.
Very funny.
Well, my “very funny” comment was meant for Turtles, but after I hit Post Comment, I saw Dan’s funny post, so I guess I unknowingly killed 2 birds with one stone. Or is that “stoned?”
Stoned birds, Tutt? 😉
not stoned and not dead…yet