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LOS ANGELES — The Department of Justice says it intends to prosecute marijuana laws in California aggressively even if state voters approve an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot to legalize the drug.Interesting timing on this because Obama was recently asked at a town hall event...
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Not criticizing, just curious - I know fuck all about US law, particularly How the constitution can affect things.
Now that I'm looking at the information, while State law does not trump federal law thanks to the Supremacy clause, Nor does it mean that states can nullify federal law, I'm pretty sure it means that it can cause federal laws to be ruled unconstitutional, or at least, parts of them.
However, it might also go if they do decide to try a challenge using the 10th amendment, that the federal government will invoke the commerce clause.
As one final note - The feds DID try to go after California for Medicinal Marijuana - there were widespread raids and a large scale crackdown by federal agents that only ended last year, on Obama's order. Apparently, in 2007 alone, they conducted 50 separate raids.
I take this opportunity to explicitly remind everyone I'm a lawyer of any sort, I'm just regurgitating information.
Makes you wonder if this was in the works or a response to the town hall question.
Highlights - you can get your pot card for such horrific ailments as nightmares, stuttering, tobacco dependency, "cough", Headaches, colour blindness, Forearm/wrist/hand pain(wankers take note), Multiple joints pain(I've had that before, but not in the way they mean), Testicular torsion(you're breakin' my balls, here), Writers cramp, and my personal favorite - hiccups.
You can get weed for having the hiccups, for fuck's sake.
However, I still say that medical marijuana is no good. If it really is supposed to be a prescribed medicine, then it should be prescribed like medicine. First of all, it should only be delivered in a non-smoke form. It needs to have a controlled and pure dosage without burning plant matter and other contaminants in there. You don't prescribe mold for pneumonia, you give penicillin. Likewise, you should never prescribe marijuana, you should prescribe THC. Secondly, it needs to actually be prescribed. It shouldn't be a card that lets you buy whatever you want whenever you want. It should be take X mg per day for Y days for Z specific ailment, and then you get it at the actual pharmacy.
If you want to make it legal, just make it legal. But don't make a mockery of medicine and the prescription system while you are at it.
As for proscribing just THC alone - you don't know so much what you're talking about. THC is a mildly psychoactive analgesic. What about CBD? Or CBN, or CBG? Or the 62 other cannabinoids found in marijuana? That's the reason - smoking, vaporizing, eating, and so on, are the easiest methods of using medicinal pot in most situations, because we don't know yet what benefits all of the cannabinoids have, or how to properly exploit them or synthesize them without a lot more research.
As for the length of time it's proscribed - well doctors will just find a way around that, trivially - they already do. I know someone who gets migranes all the time, and has an open-ended, unlimited refills proscription for her migraine meds, so that she isn't in at the doc wasting everybody's time as well as taking up a valuable appointment slot, just to get a script for her migraine pills. I know a few people with open ended perscriptions, for a whole double rainbow of pills and potions, including some very serious stuff, like Hydrocodone, benzodiazepines from alprazolam to Zoipiclone including that nasty old bitch diazepam, and many more.
It would work, curiously, the same way I'm told it works now, were that the way it went - you have an open end prescription, you show up at your legally sanctioned drug dealer, and get your proscribed amount. When you run out, you go to the chemist, and you get more.
pardon any odd grammar or wierd, out of place words, typing this on my phone. Also, pardon if it's rambling and makes no sense, it's three am, and i'm going from memory now.
Anyway -- this news from the DOJ isn't surprising, but it may just be posturing. We'll see how much they want to piss off CA when Prop 19 passes. Besides, even if they do prosecute, they're almost certainly only going to be going after people trying to grow commercially. They don't have the resources to go after people smoking in their house or growing a plant in their backyard. That's the local police's job, and they won't be doing it anymore.
How would you mix grass clippings into that? Granted, you could poison it, but why the fuck would anyone want to do that? You want return customers, don't you? Really, the same goes for any kind of trying to rip your customers off. They won't come back, and word will get around, and you'll be out of business. The only people who try to pull shit like that are street dealers. Maybe, like The Tick said, your view of the situation is skewed. The vast majority of weed dealers I've encountered are just nice people providing a service for small group of friends, generally only making enough profit to smoke for free.