Is Marijuana Legalization a Civil Rights Issue??

[Bullet1987]

Run time: 03:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_JOMVKSPpQ   Posted on YouTube: July 10, 2010 By YouTube Member: MOXNEWSd0tCOM Views on YouTube: 2168   Posted on DU: July 20, 2010 By DU Member: Bullet1987 Views on DU: 677

 
I commend the CA NAACP woman for taking a stand on this issue. Too bad some dumbass "leaders" don't get the point of what she's doing. I wonder who payed these people to make a fool of themselves?

[mdmc]

1. pursue happiness!

[dtexdem]

2. The whole 'War on Drugs' is.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

3. that preacher doesn't know that ancient Hebrews loved cannabis

and there is a fair amount of historical argument to be made that is stayed as a primary ingredient of the holy Christian "anointing oil" for quite a long time. Ignorance rules (it is the only perspective that ever wants to rule) and once the Church grew to power it outlawed cannabis as a Devil's sacrament during the Inquisition, of course (the first Drug War!)....but still, it was there in the beginning.

Just another proof that contemporary mainstream religion is full of idiots,I guess.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

12. And is ignoring the Bible.........

"11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." Genesis 1: 11-12

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NIV

[Uncle Joe]

4. I agree, I also believe Marijuana Legalization to be a Civil Rights issue but not just for

blacks and Latinos.

The idea of throwing people in prison period, regardless of race, for criminalizing what should be an educational, medical, personal privacy issue violates everyone's civil rights; blacks, Latinos and whites even if the minorities receive disproportionate prosecution.

Any adult should have the right to smoke a doobie in the privacy of their own home without the government invading their space, and destroying their family structure; if there is one.

That minister must not have been paying attention to reality or politics, but many of our current and past political leaders have smoked Marijuana and it didn't stunt their development or ambition, but even if it had, it should have been their choice to do so.

Thanks for the thread, Bullet.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Pursuit of Happiness is from the Declaration of Independence...

and is not one of the Bill of rights.

What she is referring to is that arrest and incarceration falls unevenly on minorities. Whites are less likely to be thrown in jail for the same offense. Because of that uneven application of the law it is a civil rights issue.

I tend to agree.

The war on drugs is a different matter, but can not be won. Where I don't think it is good for society to legalize drugs, I don't see anyway of solving the problems of violence that destabilizes every thing the illegal market in drugs touches.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I see the War against Drugs as an ongoing violation of several Civil Rights

IV: The Right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against "unreasonable" searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is nothing reasonable about drug forfeiture laws and they're totally invasive.

V: No person shall be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in criminal case to be a witness against him self, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Forced urine, blood, DNA or breathalyser tests are a form of self-witnessing, you can't be forced to get on the stand and say I smoked a doobie but they can take it via your blood or urine.

VIII: Excessive bail shall be required, nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Again this pertains to draconian forfeiture laws, not to mention imprisonment for trivial offense.

IX: The enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The Fourth Amendment implies a right to privacy and the Ninth Amendment adds leverage to that implication. The people have an inalienable right to privacy and the pursuit of happiness, so long as they're not directly harming others.

The so called "War on Drugs" has been a total rape of the Constitution and I haven't even brought up the continued encroachment against the 10th Amendment using the fig leaf of the Commerce Clause, when no commerce is involved.

There is one common denominator behind this erosion of both the people's and states rights, that being the ascendancy of corporate supremacy; and that cuts across racial lines.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. The Supreme Court doesn't appear to agree with your interpretation.

Congress has the right to make laws. They did so outlawing the use of drugs. At no time has this been successfully challenged that I have ever heard of.

In cases where the searches and seizures in the U.S. have been judged unreasonable, people have gone free. In the majority (50% +1), though certainly not all cases inside the U.S. it appears that police have acted within the law.

As long as illegal drugs are transported over the state line or the U.S. border, that is interstate commerce and it falls under the control of the U.S. government.

I have not seen anywhere that the war against drugs has been interpreted as you would like. I have yet to see where blood and urine testing under the various statues has been found completely unconstitutional. I know some attempts have been made.

There is a good discussion here, and it points out how this has been tested by the court.
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f081.htm

A search's reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment generally depends on whether the search was made pursuant to a warrant issued upon probable cause. U.S. v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 ('83).

Even in the law enforcement context, the State may interfere with an individual's Fourth Amendment interests with less than probable cause and without a warrant if the intrusion is only minimal and is justified by law enforcement purposes. E.g., Michigan State Police Dept v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450 ('90); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 ('68).

From everything I've read, the war on drugs, for the most part, has been a constitutional waste of time, money, and lives. I think allowing unfettered freemarket access to drugs is bad for society. But, the war on drugs seems to be worse, especially considering what it has done to other nations that feed our insatiable hunger for drugs.

[Uncle Joe]

13. The Supreme Court has been wrong before only to reverse themselves years or decades later,

ie; "Brown vs Board of Education."

I consider the "War on Drugs" to be a dysfunctional, immoral, illogical exercise that only serves to magnify and aggravate the very situation for which it proclaims to be against.

I also believe the outlawing of Marijuana has led many people to harder drugs via exposure and relevance.

If you grew a Marijuana plant for your own personal use, that can only be "commerce" under the most tortured of reasoning, commerce requiring an interchange.

I agree with you the War on Drugs has been a waste of time, money and lives, this should be an educational, medical and or personal/privacy issue.

I also fail to see the difference between the taking of your blood or urine and forcing you to testify against yourself; as is prohibited by the V Amendment. Why allow the former and not the latter?

[Ozymanithrax]

15. Yes they have, but it doesn't make your interpretation correct.

I agree with your estimation of the war on drugs. Like prohibition, it was doomed to failure.

The law where those things are allowed have been tested by Supreme Court Cases. I believe the term is unreasonable search and seisure. They can, with a warrant, search your house, no matter how unreasonable you think that might be. All of our rights have some limits on their expression.

So I guess we will have to agree that the War on drugs needs to come ot an end and disagre on other matters.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Apparently even the the Prohibitionists didn't believe the idea of Prohibition was Constitutional

or they would never have went through the arduous task of passing the XVIII Amendment, changing the Constitution, they would have just outlawed it, which would have been much more simpler.

I agree that our Rights do have some limits but it seems with the passing of time and increasing technological advance, those Rights are continually eroded against the people as society closes in on their personal space.

It also seems the primary beneficiary of that erosion isn't the people nor the state, but the corporation; the outlawing of Marijuana and Hemp being prime examples.

[Capitalocracy]

14. The Supreme Court in Argentina upheld right to privacy

in a marijuana case recently, theoretically making it unconstitutional here to charge someone for personal use possession.

I think they're right and the U.S. courts are wrong.

[Ozymanithrax]

16. I believe we should expand the right to privacy, which I believe is the basis

for Roe V. Wade.

However, this is not Argentina. The case has no bearing on courts here.

And I still hope the thing passes, even though I do not use Marijuana, and will not allow it to be used in my home or on my property (the only exception being if it is prescribed by a doctor.) I would just ask that it be consumed in a means other than smoking and be controlled as any prescription drug.

That will not change, even if the law passes.

[David__77]

6. I prefer to say "decriminalization" is a civil rights issue.

It needn't be legally sanctioned for it to be decriminalized. But the onerous prosecutions are a concern to be sure. With drug abuse in general, decriminalization is the right approach, coupled with rehabilitation in the case of socially destructive drugs. As far as big drug traffickers are concerned, exemplary capitalists thought they are, the criminal law approach is not wrong.

[Capitalocracy]

7. Yer goddam right it is!

Not just because of the inequality of enforcement, but because people have a right to do anything they want as long as the repercussions of their actions are not so extreme as to make it more important to prohibit that action than to defend that person's right. And you can make an argument about some drugs, but when alcohol, more intoxicating and more deadly, and cigarettes, more addictive and more deadly, are both legal, making marijuana illegal makes absolutely no sense and you'd have to be blind not to see it.

Now, the issue of race is also important, but if I'm to be intellectually consistent, I have to admit that if I were in favor of marijuana being illegal, I would use the same argument I use to "refudiate" people who say that we should get rid of welfare because some people (theoretically, supposedly) abuse it. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If people abuse a good program, you put in cops and regulators to make sure those abuses are stopped, you don't get rid of the program altogether.

But in this case, between taking control of marijuana enforcement and making sure they're busting white people and black people and latinos in equal numbers (or proportionate numbers, whatever) and just throwing out the law entirely, it makes much more sense to throw it out. Legalize it.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. The reason to legalize it is to stop the illegal traficing...

that causes enormous problems both here and in other countries. The drug war has become, possibly, the largest single cause of unstable governments around the world.

Just enforcing it legally, increases the prison population without affecting the greater problems with rampant and uncontrolled free market narcotics.

[loudsue]

8. I really don't believe those polls that say the majority of Californians oppose

legalization. My guess is that the domestic (bush) drug cartels are trying to make it seem unpopular, when there's hardly anyone "on the street" that says they're against it.

And this dude that is saying she should step down....he sounds like Michael Steele...talking out both sides of his face. He probably wants to be the head of the NAACP in California. He misses her point altogether.

That's how I see it.

[Bullet1987]

17. I think the polls are downplaying support as well...

But there will need to be a good turnout of voters between 18-30 to make sure the proposition passes.