Marijuana Legalization Headed For Washington Ballot: Do The Feds Care?

Joe | Dec 22, 2011 | Comments 3

An article appeared yesterday on The Seattle Times website detailing the marijuana legalization ballot initiative in Washington and why it may be all for nothing.

I-502 has has enough signatures to make the 2012 Washington ballot, according to its backers. But the author of The Seattle Times article contends that even if the ballot measure passes, it will bring down the hammer of the DEA on the state and will all be for naught.

The author’s answer?

The answer is to follow the path that’s already laid out–that is, to do what the folks who ended alcohol prohibition did when individual states began repealingall penalties against alcohol. Without a specific law legalizing booze, the feds had nothing to preempt, and therefore had to rely solely on federal agents to enforce the increasingly-unpopular prohibition laws.

This method eventually ended with the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, and today we drink ourselves silly.

As the author points out, this approach is being tried by the ballot measure being pushed by Sensible Washington, whose initiative failed to make the ballot this year.

But the comparison to alcohol prohibition is an interesting one, and the similarities between that and cannabis prohibition are endless. But does the DEA care? Will the fact that the prohibition has been repealed on a state level matter to the U.S. Attorneys and the agents they direct?

The bottom line is and always will be federal marijuana policy. No matter what states do, the feds will always have the built-in excuse that they are going after dealers of a Schedule I Controlled Substance.

- Joe Klare

And be sure to check out our Open Letter on Behalf of 30 Million Cannabis Users and join us in our fight!

Filed Under: Activism • Exclusive Web Content • Politics • The War On Drugs

denbee

How silly the Feds look to mainstream America. Our government has zero credibility. They come off as a bunch of narcs that know their days are numbered. Oh, what about the children?! What sort of message are we sending the children?! These are slogans the narcs came with all the while drinking themselves silly. Budwieser is a drug company. Starbucks is a drug company and a drug dealer. What about the children? Both companies advertise where children see them. What about the children? Over thirty college kids died from alcohol poisoning last year while no kids died from marijuana poisoning. What about the children? We are such hypocrites!
Clearwater Phil

These changes to state law need to include poison pills that say that as long as the federal government continues to prohibit states from self regulating, then all that state’s cannabis laws are repealed. Leave it to the feds; there’s no way that they have enough resources to completely take over at the state level. As this article states, this is pretty much what the states did at the end of alcohol prohibition.
Lamar Cranston

The feds have ultimate power, but are powerless without tax money. The citizens of the state pay taxes. The states should decouple themselves from federal income tax.

If the state passed a law legalizing marijuana and stated that if any federal authorities interferred, the state would declare a federal tax amnesty and protect citizens from federal prosecution for tax non-payment and marijuana use, the feds would wet themselves.

All powers not specifically vested to the government remain the powers of the people. It is our government, if we don’t like the way it is behaving, it is up to us to stop it and to make sure it stays stopped.

Taxes are money we earned, not the government earned, its money we earned, it is our money. We should have a say in how it is spent and when it is mispent, people should be fined and/or go to jail, like say the folks in the justice department squandering billions on the war on drugs.

Marijuana Legalization Headed For Washington Ballot: Do The Feds Care?

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