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dawsonspaw
anonymouse tipster
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 398
Location: Somewhere in the temporal space inside my mind
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 Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: question about a petition |
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Barry,in the General Discussion thread,there is a post to sign a petition targeted at : Congress; Supreme Court of the United States. do you think 10,000 signatures are enough to even get them to look at it if sent? shouldn't it also be sent to the FDA,as it is those who are responsible to reclassify it? just wondering.  |
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Barry
CEO/NeverGetBusted.Com
Joined: 03 Apr 2007
Posts: 640
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not sure how that works. Does anybody care to do the research and post their findings?
Barry |
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Mr.C
Anonymous Tipster
Joined: 15 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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from everything i can gather any one of these three could change the classification of marijuana.
which would be Congress,,DEA, or the President.
i personally dont think 10,000 signatures is even close to enough to get them to raise an eyebrow,,i personally think it would have to be in the millions,,as in 5-9 million for them to even concider looking into it. theres supposedly what 12 million pot smokers give or take one or two
now the FDA or the some other agency recommendation may also give them reason to look into it as well but what are the chances.
im not a lawyer but its always been my understanding that the Supreme Court is not suppose to legislate laws from the bench,,but rule on your rights,,rights to gather,,rights to free speech ,,rights to abortion and rights to collect when damages occur ,,right to assisted suicide,,im sure theres others,,but the concept of bypassing congress and trying to create laws from the bench is relatively something new.
as in,,if the supreme court gives us the right to smoke pot it doesnt automatically become reclassified but it sure would be a great start.  it would force the GOVT's hand,,but i just dont think the supreme court can do it.(Reclassification)
i found this article interesting. on the subject.
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The argument to reassign pot's drug classification
Dec 07'
The United States is a nation governed by law at the federal, state and local levels. Sometimes these laws differ with each other. That's where the great principle of federalism comes in. Federalism permits state laws to be in conflict with each other, and even with the federal government. But that's OK. The sometimes messy business of federalism permits different locales to try different solutions to vexing problems, allowing the states to act as the "test tubes of democracy."
We see federalism in action most vividly today surrounding the controversy over medical marijuana. Ten states have either legalized cannabis for medicinal use or permit a medical purpose defense against prosecution. Their actions do not force other states to go along.
But federalism also means that the federal government can't be compelled to accede to the state's laws, either, and indeed, when federal and state laws conflict - as currently it does in states that have legalized medical marijuana - both federal and state laws may operate at the same time. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States has twice ruled that the federal government is entitled to enforce its total ban against all marijuana possession and consumption where such use is statutorily authorized.
And that's exactly what the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Justice have done under Presidents Bill Clinton and Bush. People using and distributing marijuana for medicinal use have been prosecuted and convicted - even in states like California, where it is legal. The upset caused by federal law enforcement actions has made medical marijuana an issue in the current presidential campaign, with candidates increasingly being asked by reporters and medical marijuana activists whether they will promise to call off the DEA raids.
According to Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana ( www.granitestaters.com), most of the Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, have promised to call off the dogs. The leading Republican candidates, including Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, have refused to so pledge, worrying, as John McCain put it in also rejecting the request, that marijuana is a "gateway drug." (Fred Thompson did not answer the question.)
But this is both the wrong question and the wrong solution to the controversy. The problem isn't the DEA raids. They are a symptom. The real illness, if you will, is the Federal Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970, which explicitly lists marijuana as a "Schedule I" drug. This means that under federal law, marijuana has a "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." Because marijuana is listed under Schedule I, doctors may not legally prescribe it, and the federal government can ignore state medical marijuana laws.
People can debate marijuana's potential for abuse, but it is increasingly clear that cannabis has definite medicinal benefits. Studies and abundant anecdotal evidence demonstrate that marijuana can stimulate the appetites of people with AIDS and cancer, reduce nausea in chemotherapy patients, and help people with such debilitating conditions as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and glaucoma. And the American people know it: Polls show support in the 70 percent range for medical marijuana.
The good news is that just because marijuana is currently on Schedule I, doesn't mean that it has to stay on Schedule I. The classification can be changed in two ways: Either by the DEA - a highly unlikely course - or by legislation. Indeed, Congress could pass a law tomorrow listing marijuana under Schedule II of the controlled substances law. This means that marijuana would still be considered a drug with "a high potential for abuse" but one that also "has a currently accepted medical use."
This would hardly be a radical move. It would merely allow doctors to prescribe cannabis according to the same rules currently permitted for far stronger and addicting drugs such as morphine, opium and cocaine. Moreover, and here's a bitter irony, Marinol - the synthetic version of marijuana (which many patients contend does not work as well as the real McCoy), is listed as a Schedule III drug, meaning it has less of a "potential for abuse" than drugs on Schedule I or II.
Given these facts and the high public support for marijuana as medicine, one would think that the Democratic Congress would be galloping to reclassify marijuana into either Schedule II or III. But you can hear the crickets chirping: Even though most of the Democratic presidential candidates are currently in the U.S. Senate or House, there is no bill pending to reschedule marijuana. Moreover, while there is discussion among medical marijuana supporters about introducing a bill of some sort, past proposals have not attacked the heart of the problem, which is the Schedule I classification.
To be sure, reclassifying marijuana would be resisted. But this isn't because opponents are heartless. They worry that marijuana promoters are cynically using the medicinal issue as a subterfuge for outright legalization. This is undoubtedly true in some quarters, but so what? If morphine and cocaine can be prescribed without being legalized as an intoxicant, why can't marijuana?
Opponents are also concerned that legitimizing medical marijuana would increase abuse. But it is the Schedule I listing that actually forces medical marijuana to be distributed through a semi-anarchic system in which doctors write notes, instead of properly regulated prescriptions, and patients pick up their drug from pot "clubs" instead of pharmacies.
This is a prescription for chaos. "None of us would have advocated for the current model of distribution," Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the marijuana legalization advocacy group the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told me. "The government's actions have led to the law of unintended consequences: People are literally getting cannabis for writer's block." The best way to prevent such shadow legalization is to change the law and thereby cut medical marijuana off from the broader advocacy movement.
This much is sure: Marijuana's Schedule I status breeds disrespect for government, forces the DEA to waste resources raiding the homes of sick people, leads to chaotic distribution schemes, and prevents reasonable medical testing to see which maladies benefit - and which do not - from marijuana use. Worse, the stigma of federal illegality deters some sick people from seeking a drug that could help them feel better.
So the time has come to put the presidential candidates on the hot seat. Merely asking whether they will halt the DEA raids allows them to expediently wiggle past the real issue, and indeed, seeks a promise from a future president to violate his or her oath of office by pledging not to enforce valid federal law.
What we really need to know is whether the next president will remove marijuana from Schedule I classification. That would help sick people, remove the issue of medicinal use from the broader debate over legalization, and bring the federal law in alignment with empirical realities.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. These are his views and not necessarily those of any group with which he is affiliated.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/02/INLSTK07H.DTL |
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socrateez
Moderator
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 1370
Location: I'm your next door neighbor
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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Since this is a government declared War. Wouldn't the government be open to litigation and class action suit for war reparations and reconstruction efforts for the victims? Or is there, or has there to be an official declaration of such action through congress?
Either way, this is a civil war and not a drug war.
Hmmn... civil class action suit for millions of people. Is it working for the Indians? |
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dawsonspaw
anonymouse tipster
Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 398
Location: Somewhere in the temporal space inside my mind
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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| AWESOME post,really good information......thank you |
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Mr.C
Anonymous Tipster
Joined: 15 Jan 2008
Posts: 782
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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good question socrateez would be nice to try if someone had the money to burn,,if the case made it to the supreme court i wouldnt see them siding against the GOVT but who knows for sure a miracle could happen,,,
off the top of my head,i cant think of any times the supreme court made the GOVT pay for anything,,,but i havent researched it either,,
and as you know and sorta said its not a declared war by congress and im sure that would be part of their out.
i dont really hate many people,,thats not my disposition,,i could probably count the people i hate on one hand and Nixon and Reagan are two of them.
my hatred for Reagan is for enacting drug tests.
dawsonspaw: i thought that article cleared alot of things up for me too,,im glad you brought that up
but as the writer Smith said you can hear crickets chirping on this subject ,,now we just need to figure out a way to change it,,
ohh and you was wondering who the pettitions should be sent to hell if they had even 1 million (but i still think it would have to be more) i myself would say send it to ALL of the agencies and make sure the right people seen them you know.
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Nixon's modern-day War on Drugs began in 1969. He characterized the abuse of illicit substances as "public enemy number one in the United States" at a press conference given on June 17th, 1971 [2], although the Shafer Commission recommended legalizing possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana [3]. Under Nixon, the U.S. Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This legislation is the foundation on which the modern drug war exists. Responsibility for enforcement of this new law was given to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and then in 1973 to the newly formed Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 1988, towards the close of the Reagan administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy was created for central coordination of drug-related legislative, security, diplomatic, research and health policy throughout the government....(Wiki)
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i put that as a reminder that congress didnt declare war nixon did
passed the controlled substance act and based the drug war on that without,,,,,outright declaration,,,those sneaky bastards |
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