DRUGS!!!

[Spots]

Even bigger news day.

Thursday, Barney Frank & Ron Paul will propose legislation to completely legalize pot.

‎"The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal".

State's rights! (shouldn't be something that just rednecks yell) ;)

[York99]

... Barney Frank & Ron Paul will...

Not the two most widely respected voices in their respective parties. I think their names attached will actually weaken the chances of something happening.

I have a pretty conservative family, a lot of liberal friends and many people in the middle and everyone seems to want at least marijuana legalized. I just wish there were more centrist messengers than these guys. I like them both to a limited degree, but they're not exactly consensus builders.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

they would make a fun pairing for a sitcom, though...

"He's an easily angered mush mouthed gay lawyer. He's a cantankerous slightly crazy libertarian doctor. Together, they're going to turn this country around...if they can manage to figure out whose turn it is to do the dishes this week! Represent This, coming to Fox this fall!"

[Spots]

I think their names attached will actually weaken the chances of something happening.... I just wish there were more centrist messengers than these guys. I like them both to a limited degree, but they're not exactly consensus builders.

Barney Frank admits it won't pass. He's calling the proposal an "educational process."


Provided someone keeps pushing the issue, we will eventually reach a tipping point.

[York99]

Like nearly all progressive ideas, the way to make it work is to prove economic benefit.

I took a class in business school about environmental sustainability in corporations and a big part of the focus was making green choices also be the better financial choice for a business.

The same theory applies here. Proponents need to table arguments like the huge number of people we have in prison in this country and the personal freedom of live and let live, not telling people what they can and can't do. Proponents need to focus instead on how much money we can save and how much tax revenue we can gain through decriminalization. Period.

And the best time for those arguments to make an impact is when the economy sucks... like now.

[mpbrockman]

Like nearly all progressive ideas, the way to make it work is to prove economic benefit...

Proponents need to table arguments like the huge number of people we have in prison in this country and the personal freedom of live and let live, not telling people what they can and can't do. Proponents need to focus instead on how much money we can save and how much tax revenue we can gain through decriminalization. Period.

Yah, but we've had this information for decades. Read Mike Gray's "Drug Crazy" sometime - or hell, read Bloom County when the Bill and Opus '88 campaign gets a contribution from "Drug Pushers and Affiliated Scum" with a note saying "Keep those coke prices shored up or we'll shoot you".

The pro-drug war types have sounded like Reagan without a teleprompter for years. I'm not sure economic hardship is going to make them see sense. It's going to take a massive (and loud) public opinion shift so the politicians in favor of sustaining the "drug war" realize their position is costing them significant amounts of votes.