cannabisnews.com: Bush and Co. Lit Up Over Medical Marijuana
Bush and Co. Lit Up Over Medical Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on August 24, 2003 at 08:12:49 PT
By Christopher Brauchli
Source: Daily Camera
You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights. — William Lloyd GarrisonIt all makes perfect sense until you think about it. That's how a lot of things are in the Bush world. The most recent example came from Mark Quinlivan, a lawyer in the Ashcroft Justice Department. He addressed the annual meeting of the American Bar Association held in August in San Francisco. Individuals invited to speak are supposed to say something interesting. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy demonstrated how that is done.
Addressing the group on Aug. 9, Kennedy told the lawyers that too many people are imprisoned in the United States. He pointed out that one American in 143 is incarcerated, compared with one in 1,000 in many European countries. He called for the repeal of mandatory-minimum sentences for federal crimes, saying: "Our resources are being misspent. Our punishments are too severe. Our sentences are too long." He said mandatory minimum sentences can produce "harsh and unjust" results. Kennedy's comments were thoughtful and thought-provoking. They provided a nice contrast to Mr. Quinlivan, who propounded the preposterous to the assembled lawyers. Mr. Quinlivan told them that people in California who voted to legalize marijuana for medical use were exactly like the people in the South in the middle of the 20th century who espoused segregation. Until Mr. Quinlivan spoke, it is safe to say, that thought had occurred to no one outside the Ashcroft Justice Department. It is that kind of creative, if somewhat antediluvian, anti-Republican thinking that has distinguished that department under Attorney General John Ashcroft. The concept Mr. Quinlivan propounded was antediluvian because of its content and anti-Republican because Republicans claim to dislike it when the federal government tells states and individuals how to behave. Republicans are willing to set aside that dislike when marijuana is at issue, since it is a fundamental belief of the Bush administration that marijuana is bad. In 1996, California passed proposition 215, a proposition legalizing marijuana for medical use. Other states followed suit. The administration realized it had to do something. Following in the less-than-laudable footsteps of the Clinton administration, which was also upset by the introduction of those laws (although it never equated them with segregation), it began efforts to undo the wills of the people in the states that passed those laws. In Oregon, where voters approved a referendum permitting physicians to prescribe marijuana for their patients, the administration was told by a federal court that doctors cannot be punished for prescribing marijuana. Dissatisfied with that result, the administration is asking the United States Supreme Court to permit it to strip a doctor of the license to prescribe drugs if the doctor prescribes marijuana. The fact that the voters in Oregon, California and several other states think medical marijuana is OK does not concern the administration. What the few in the administration believe is right is right irrespective of what the many who live in the land may think. As Mr. Quinlivan explained to the audience: "You cannot cherry-pick your federalism." He went on to say that if a California initiative takes precedence over a federal ban on marijuana, then anything goes. The marijuana supporters are, Mr. Quinlivan said, similar to the recently deceased Lester Maddox, the former governor of Georgia who with his ax handle demonstrated his determination to keep African Americans out of his restaurant, and former Southern governors Orval Faubus and George Wallace, who didn't want them in their schools. Mr. Quinlivan said those men were asserting their independence from the national government on issues that were of national concern and that could not be tolerated by the federal government. Until Mr. Quinlivan spoke, few would have thought that depriving an entire group of people of the right to attend the schools of their choice or to enter public facilities was the same as lighting a marijuana cigarette that, when used for medical purposes, was intended to relieve the suffering of the terminally ill. With Mr. Quinlivan's enlightenment, the parallel was obvious to all but a few. Gerald Uelmen, a Santa Clara University law professor, is one of the few. He is representing some of those who are supporting the medical marijuana laws. He observed that civil-rights laws invoked in the1950s to outlaw segregation were based on the constitutional guarantee of equal protection and on interstate commerce provisions. As he observed, the use of medical marijuana in California does not implicate interstate commerce nor does it have anything to do with equal protection. Taylor Carey, a special assistant state attorney general who wrote the brief supporting California's law is also among the few. He said: "When the government acted to protect the civil liberties of the children of Alabama, they acted with the highest degree of moral force. When they act to prevent critically ill people from obtaining medication, they are not acting with the same degree of moral propriety." Someone might want to tell Mr. Quinlivan that he is fighting a losing battle. Prisons are overcrowded because the war on drugs is never-ending and victory is not in sight. The only result of putting people in prison for drug crimes is overcrowded prisons. Prisons have not produced victory in the drug war. Neither will depriving sick people of marijuana. Source: Daily Camera (CO)Author: Christopher Brauchli, ColumnistPublished: August 23, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Daily CameraWebsite: http://www.thedailycamera.com/Contact: openforum dailycamera.comRelated Articles & Web Site:Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmWhen Sentences Don't Make Sense http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17075.shtmlJustice Kennedy Speaks Outhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17050.shtmlBush Lawyer Blasts State Marijuana Laws http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17037.shtml
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on August 25, 2003 at 17:50:33 PT
Lehder
I am a realist about life. I don't expect much and when something good happens I'm happy. I think why I avoid supporting any one politican is that I don't believe any of them. I'll try to answer a political question the way they all do no matter what party they are affiliated with.Question:How do you feel about the marijuana issue?Well, I feel that we need to look into it. We need to spend some serious time discussing it and figure out what can be done.This is me now. That kind of answer isn't an answer and that's why politics drive me crazy. Thanks for reading my rant.
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Comment #11 posted by The GCW on August 25, 2003 at 06:08:05 PT
Also notice Mark Quinlivan
has a larger platform than Christopher Brauchli.When typing in Mark Quinlivan on MAP's search engine, in the "body" space, http://www.mapinc.org/find?1042 (at bottom)and set the year back a bunch...We get 47 news items, where Brauchli who speaks the truth, only has 5. Of course it is not Brauchli's job... but...Qyinlivan's mouthing ground is California.The lying Feds. create quite the circus act. Clowns, going from town to town.If Quinlivan was in Nazi, Germany, would He be one of those insisting to follow the Federal laws?
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on August 25, 2003 at 05:35:10 PT:
You have to keep something in mind
Mr. Quinliven is seeing things through the Republican tunnel vision tube strapped to his head. Then he tries to compensate for the differences in perception that his audience might have, coming from a completely different background. So he tries to equate the the sabotage that Republicans engaged in against the civil rights movement - which most Republicans during the 1950's and 1960's were dead set against, citing *Constitutional grounds* - with the attempt to regain those same 'State's Rights' that Republicans are supposed to be so enamored of. As to Mr. Quinliven's remarks regarding 'federalism': the term he refers to is something that it is near and dear to Ashcroft's heart...or it was before he came to power and began working in exactly the opposite direction.The idea being, of course, protecting and strengthening what's left of *those very same 'State's Rights'* against encroachment by the Federal government.John Ashcroft is even part of a society that is supposed to be working on just that: The Federalist Society http://www.fed-soc.org/ which is supposed to be working to roll back Fed suzerainity and give States that much more breathing room in deciding how they will govern themselves.Like in deciding to make cannabis legal for sick people through the ballot box, as was done in California.Seems like some rank hypocrisy is being ladled out by the slopful onto the nation's plate by ideologues who talk the talk of State's Right's but seem to 'cherry pick' when it comes to practicing what they preach...don't they, Mr. Quinliven?
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Comment #9 posted by Lehder on August 24, 2003 at 22:49:14 PT
just kidding, FoM
but i share your revulsion. it's already unbelievable, unreal, and more and more frightening to contemplate the future.this is disappointing too - Arianna has gone politically blind. It's
from an article about the California recall and a speech given by davis wherin he correctly but belatedly places his own predicament into the context of the Clinton impeachment, the stolen 2000 election and the gerrymandering republicans in texas. now even the host of the 2000 shadow convention can be buffaloed by propagandists, imho>>Arianna Huffington, the “media personality” who has agreed to campaign
jointly with Camejo, issued a typically unserious statement,
simultaneously dismissing the notion that any political conspiracy was
involved in either the Republican campaign for recall or the attempt to
impeach Clinton. Describing Davis’s remarks as “boilerplate,” she stated,
“I liked the speech better when Bill Clinton gave it in 1998."from the same article:>>In a speech that was otherwise characterized by banalities and
duplicitous justifications for his own administration’s reactionary policies,
Davis dropped what amounted to a political bombshell. His description
of the sinister political process that is at work in California and
nationwide essentially portrayed the party that now controls the White
House and both houses of the US Congress as an organized political
conspiracy against the democratic rights of the American people.>>While Davis accused his opponents of trampling over basic democratic
procedures as part of a national drive to amass power in the hands of the
Republicans, he made no attempt to explain why this is taking place or
spell out the political motives behind this “right-wing power grab.” He did
not warn that those promoting recall are bent on effecting a massive
transfer of wealth from the working majority to those in the top income
bracket.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/cal-a25.shtmlgee, any idea why they'd want to impoverish and effectively disenfranshise so many people?
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Comment #8 posted by John Tyler on August 24, 2003 at 19:44:23 PT
History
Here is another interesting historical metaphor for Mr. Quinlivan and his Justice Dept. pals. Lets go back a little farther in U.S. history to say, the pre-1860s. There was a Federal law against harboring or aiding run away slaves. It was even upheld by the Supreme Court. (This is U.S. history 101) Was that law right or wrong? According to Mr. Quinlivan and his morally defunct thinking that was perfectly right and legal.People, think for yourselves. You know what is right and wrong. Just because there is a law still doesn’t make it right. Does anybody remember the Nuremburg trials? Oh, and by the by, it was the civil rights workers and protesters that forced the Fed. to come to their senses and do the right thing. Poor Mr. Quinlivan and his fellow shills are so twisted they can’t keep the facts straight.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 19:39:37 PT
Lehder
No problem. I don't have a big choice of icons and thought I'd try this one. I turn the tv channel when Bush is on. I can't listen to what he has to say or bare to even look at him. I feel sick when I do. I mean that too. I'm not being sarcastic.
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Comment #6 posted by The GCW on August 24, 2003 at 19:19:47 PT
Christopher Brauchli, rolls Saturday's
US CO: Column: Unhealthy Weapons In The War On Drugs
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1793/a10.html?1331
Sat, 21 Sep 2002US CO: Column: Fighting Terrorism In Colombia?
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n762/a06.html?1336
Sat, 20 Apr 2002US NY: OPED: Ashcroft's Agenda Undermines States' Rights
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1950/a04.html?1336
Sat, 17 Nov 2001US CO: Column: Ashcroft Shows His True Colors
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1949/a06.html?1336
Sat, 17 Nov 2001US: Column: Vietnam, El Salvador And Now Colombia?
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n501/a05.html?1336
Sat, 15 Apr 2000
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Comment #5 posted by Lehder on August 24, 2003 at 19:12:43 PT
it's incendiary
get rid of it. thank you.this thread is now finished. thanks for understanding.
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Comment #4 posted by SoberStoner on August 24, 2003 at 18:56:31 PT
harsh and unjust
Does that sound like cruel and unusual to anyone else?Manditory minimums are unconstitutional, they fly in the face of the very definition of justice.20 years for stealing a loaf of bread, serving the same amount (or more) for growing a plant, there is no justice in that only downright cruelty.They cant burn us at the stake, so they'll take everything away from us EXCEPT our life. And say that WE are the criminals. Maybe the supremes are getting a conscience after seeing what their appointee has done in the last few years. SS
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 24, 2003 at 16:15:50 PT
The GCW
I can't change this one but I won't use it anymore. I thought I'd give it a chance and see if I got a comment about it and I did now. I don't like it either.
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on August 24, 2003 at 16:09:25 PT
FoM
I like Your icons... but the picture of Bush has got to go.I like Your site, as You know, but the pic of Bush is going to make Me dizzy and puke.Please, please, I beg of You, get rid of the picture.The Green Collar Worker(with warm regards and humor, of course, but please...)
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Comment #1 posted by Motavation on August 24, 2003 at 11:29:02 PT:
HOW TO MAKE TOILET PAPER FROM INTERNET
GO HERE http://www.dea.gov/agency/administrator.htmPRESS PRINT
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