I was just greeted by a wonderful headline: “White House sees greater enforcement on recreational marijuana“:
WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – The administration of President Donald Trump expects to see greater federal enforcement of laws against the use of marijuana for recreational purposes, a White House spokesman said on Thursday.
Asked if the government would take action on recreational marijuana use, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said: “Well I think that’s a question for the Department of Justice. I do believe you’ll see greater enforcement of it. Because again there’s a big difference between the medical use … that’s very different than the recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.”
Via Reason, where of course we are reminded of what Trump said during his campaign:
Marijuana legalization advocates condemned the the comments, which appear to backtrack from Trump’s statements on the campaign trail that marijuana legalization was a state issue.
“If the administration is looking for ways to become less popular, cracking down on voter-approved marijuana laws would be a great way to do it,” Tom Angell, the chairman of Marijuana Majority, said in a statement. “On the campaign trail, President Trump clearly and repeatedly pledged that he would leave decisions on cannabis policy to the states. With a clear and growing majority of the country now supporting legalization, reneging on his promises would be a political disaster and huge distraction from the rest of the president’s agenda.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Naturally, they declined to comment. They’ve got a drug warrior in charge there.
Save the fact that he is not Hillary Clinton, from a libertarian standpoint, there is not much to like about Trump.
UPDATE: Stephen Green at Instapundit links this argument against federal bullying of marijuana:
Rohrabacher said every adult should have “the freedom to basically consume cannabis for medical purposes or otherwise if that’s what they agree to in the states in which they reside.”
Polis also said the legalization of marijuana creates jobs instead of addicts.
“It puts drug dealers out of business and boosts our economy rather than our prison population,” he said.
Blumenauer said cannabis received more votes than President Trump in states with ballot questions related to marijuana.
“Millions of Trump voters voted for changing marijuana laws,” he said.
Young said the coalition of lawmakers will “butt heads” with Attorney General Jeff Sessions if needed because it’s the “right thing to do.”
“We’ll do our job,” he said.
Rohrabacher said he expects Trump not to veto any efforts to stop the federal “prohibition” of marijuana.
“When we do our job we would expect the president not to veto it because he has indicated during the campaign that would be his position,” he said.
Polis said he plans to reintroduce the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, which would “transition marijuana oversight from the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and regulate marijuana like alcohol by inserting into the section of the U.S. Code that governs intoxicating liquors.”
Frankly, even if the feds were to treat illegal drugs (including marijuana) the way they treated alcohol under Prohibition, that would go a long way towards reducing what Trump has called the “carnage.”
Here’s what the 18th Amendment actually did:
- Amended the Constitution to give the federal government jurisdiction over alcohol;
- Prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes.”
Were the above measures to be implemented today vis-a-vis marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc., the result would be infinitely more humane than the present system. Mere possession would not be a crime and users would be left alone. (As they should be!)
The result would be so much more humane that I have no doubt that today’s drug warriors would call it a “surrender.”
MORE: Needless to say, this unwarranted policy reversal will not play well with the voters (including Republican voters).
Comments
7 responses to “So much for states rights! (Campaign promises be damned!)”
I’m going to do another post on the subject.
And another point – Alcohol under Prohibition was illegal to manufacture or distribute. Consumers were generally not bothered.
And out of that we got some of the worst gang warfare ever. Until the most recent outbreak.
[…] of a Spicer press conference where he said the government will be going after recreational pot. Eric is covering that in more depth. So I will leave that to […]
It’s going to be difficult to make arguments in favor of state’s rights for legal weed, but against states rights for sanctuary cities. The constitutional argument avoids that logical contradiction.
I wonder if at any point in history if a constitutional amendment against pot would have passed. Maybe in the 1930s after Anslinger and his buddies had ginned up enough hysteria about how pot-crazed negro jazz musicians were going to get jacked up on weed and their animalistic jungle music and rape your daughter and insult your dog. Or was it the other way around?
Ultimately I think I’m at odds with the medical marijuana people; if it’s medicine it will be regulated and require a prescription, just like any other pharmaceutical. I just like to get high. Recreational use is categorically different from medical use, different goals and purposes. Consider if alcohol were treated as medicine. Imagine having to get a prescription just to buy a six pack.
We need a good slogan, like “neurochemical rights are human rights”.
Part of the problem is how diffuse the weed business is. In WA I see dozens of small producers. It’s hard to imagine how such distributed enterprises could organize a lobbying effort in DC, for example. There are ultimately $billions involved, overall. One might think that the money would attract legitimate business and drive out and/or force to clean up the cartels. Like how large corporations pushed the mob out of Las Vegas. Too much moolah not too. Or how old Joe Kennedy went from bootlegging to politics.
Sounds like a job for the newly formed Cannabis Caucus. Generally, the best way to get rid of bad law is to enforce it. Cheers –
https://www.adn.com/politics/2017/02/23/youngs-cannabis-caucus-weighs-in-on-potential-federal-threat-to-legal-pot/
[…] should add that Eric has noted that not all of the current government is on board with helping Trump keep his campaign […]