DJ again defends the weed proposal that might be on the ballot next year. Like the last time, he goes down the bullet points of the ballot language, but unlike last time, he further editorializes on one of the points:
•release individuals incarcerated or on probation or parole for non-violent, cannabis-only offenses which would no longer be illegal and expunge all records related to such offenses; With the removal of violation on people records, more people will be employable. The provision alone should decrease the jobless and unemployment rate.
Fail. First off, “non-violent, cannabis-only offenses,” assuming this is referring to simple possession, is only a misdemeanor. Potential employers can’t ask about misdemeanor convictions, only felony convictions. Also, putting more people on the job market wouldn’t “decrease the jobless and unemployment rate,” it will only increase it, statistically speaking.
DJ links back to what he thinks is a convoluted op-ed in the P-D supporting the potential weed proposition. That one states that:
Contrast the explosion of cannabis use under prohibition with rates of cigarette smoking — a habit that is treated as a truly private matter for anyone over 18 years of age since public health campaigns first began highlighting tobacco’s dangers in the 1970s. According to Gallup polling data, 40 percent of Americans smoked cigarettes in the 1960s and 1970s, but by 2008, only 21 percent of Americans reported lighting up in the past month.
“Truly a private matter for anyone over one-eight.” What planet is he on? Is he jumping the gun on this proposition and smoking the green, thereby distorting his sense of reality? The anti-tobacco left has almost made smoking cigarettes a capital offense. In fact, some of the same anti-tobacco leftists love weed and want to legalize it. In their ideal world, the criminal punishment and social ostracision for smoking tobacco would be far greater than the same for smoking cannabis resin.
By the way, I said last time I wouldn’t sign this petition nor vote for it if it made the ballot. I’m starting to have second thoughts — If this measure keeps weed dealing illegal, then I will probably sign the petition and vote for it.
I am not a Libertarian. I could be if they were in support of clasical values and not progressive on drugs and marriage.
Those are two things I can not and will not ever support — for the record, I smoke weed.
You just can’t as a whole decriminalize drugs.
What I would support is decriminalizing growth and possession of reasonable quantities of plants — marijuana, opium poppy, and mushrooms. “Dealing” should never be decriminalized. Home sysnthesis of morphine or heroin should never be decriminalized, same with meth.
Libertarian don’t realize what will happen when you say: “Criminal laws should be limited to violation of the rights of others through force or fraud, or deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm. Individuals retain the right to voluntarily assume risk of harm to themselves.”
Did Libertarians ever take the time to consider how what the results of “Individuals retain the right to voluntarily assume risk of harm to themselves” might be?
You’ve decriminalized heroin and cocaine, now what?
1) You’ve essentially put some bad people out of “work”?
2) Where will the addicts get their money?
3) Where will the newly unemployed bad people get their money?
4) Who pays for the rehabbing?
5) etc ….