Poll: Should Police Enforce the Marijuana-Possession Law?

Bill December 11, 2011 at 02:27 pm

When we decide arbitrarily to enforce or not enforce, laws legally and constitutionally enacted by federal state or local government, we cease to operate under the rule of law i.e. a lawless nation.

mjjoan December 11, 2011 at 02:37 pm

Oh yes I'm sure the guy in his home smoking a little marijuana is a real threat to society. there are many more important laws that are being broken and over looked. I do understand that other drugs can be a real threat to society ( crack, coke, heroin, alcohol, prescription drugs) but what a person wants to put into his system in the privacy of his own home is nobodys business but his own. The REAL crime in America is being perpertrated by the government itself. Fleecing the American citizens so they can stuff their pockets is robbery and the last time I looked that was against the law but of couse they do it in the name of government so it's ok. Well it's not ok!!! AND IT NEEDS TO STOP!!! WE NEED A REVOLUTION!! EVERYBODY HAS TO BAND TOGETHER AND OVERTHROW THIS DICTATORSHIP THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A LAND OF THE FREE WHAT A SHAM THAT IS. IF A REGULAR CITIZEN DID THE THINGS THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND WALL STREET DOES, HE WOULD BE JAILED FOR LIFE. WE HAVE TO STAND UP FOR OUR RIGHTS THAT WERE GIVEN US OVER 200 YEARS AGO!! DON'T LET THIS BUNCH OF SELF CENTERED, THEIVES, LIARS AND PROPAGANDA SPEWING IDIOTS CONTROL OUR LIVES.

Tina Chamberlain December 11, 2011 at 02:52 pm

People seem to forget, it's the judge in the court room who lays down the sentence and if there is room in the jail. Maybe the Mayor and Gov. see the same thing, there is more important things that should be taken care of by the police and court systems time and money!

mjjoan December 11, 2011 at 02:53 pm

the problem with your statement is that there are so many stupid , nonsensical laws on the books that can't be enforced (it is against the law for a woman to sit on a mans lap in a certain city in the midwest, no spitting on the sidewalk....) you get my drift??? so really the major laws are the ones that need to be enforced such as murder , theivery, and the like. there are too many laws regarding a person's private life , this is supposed to be a land of the free but a person can't inhale the smoke of a plant in the privacy of his own home?? well he can but not the healthy one. That makes me wonder if the government was in cohoots with the tobbacco and alcohol industry years ago to promote cigarette smoking and drinking to aid the health industry to build their empire.it is a known fact that they knew the tobbacco industry was adding chemicals to cigarettes that had an addictive component to keep you smoking thus creating an industry for the health care field to capitalize on and get rich. Alcohol too.
We are already a lawless nation when it comes to the American government it seems they can commit most any crime in the name of government and get away with it. From the top right down to the police in your community no matter how big or small. there is corruption everywhere in government and we need to STOP it now!!! We are just starting to wake up to these facts and our best defense is to educate those who do not see the truth!! STOP BIG BROTHER BEFORE HE STOPS US!

Kevin Sterling December 11, 2011 at 03:37 pm

Mr. Bill, blind obedience is certainly not the American way or tradition. It is absurd to claim that if we don't kowtow to any inane law that's written in a law book that we have become a lawless nation, unless you have some weird, personal definition of the word lawless. This nation's tradition of intolerance to ignorant laws dates back to day one and has continued pretty much uninterrupted since that day in July of 1776.
If you want to kowtow to authority there are lots of countries where the sheeple act the way that you seem to believe correct. Perhaps you should consider emigration to one of those countries which better suits your philosophy of life.

Bill December 12, 2011 at 12:57 am

ok first of all, abiding by the law (law-abiding citizen anyone?) is not blind obedience. Certainly there are outdated laws that seem quaint or non-sensical to us now, but at the time they were enacted made sense and were usually put on the books for a reason that, though lost to us now, probably made good sense at the time. If you don't agree with a law, there is a process for changing it or having it repealed. When those who's job it is to enforce the laws of the land, as sometimes happens whether they are the police, judges or magistrates, or even our president, they are denying the citizens their rights. Laws simply put, come about when as a society we say "doing this thing is wrong, and if you do it, this is what we are going to do about it". Assuming it stands up to constitutional challenge, its the law. When someone like a mayor says for example, we in our city are not going to enforce immigration laws say, he is, as an individual is suborning the rights of those who made the law i.e the citizens through their elected officials. This in layman's terms is know as tyranny.
The question more properly should not be "should the law, any law, be enforced" it should be "should the law be changed."

John December 12, 2011 at 01:45 am

For years hitting your wife was ok. Society looked the other way. That changed as it should have. What the NL mayor proposed superseded state law. Speeding is not a threat to society in the big picture. Should that not be enforced? Possession of less than 2 oz of MJ is only an infraction as it is now. A fine, no jail time or court. Just mail in a check. Now people like mjjoan want a revolution. Please. Yes let's let the inmates run the asylum. I shudder to think what this country would be like without laws. Drug addicts having kids. Serial welfare abusers. The breakdown of the family. Entitled youth not willing to do their share of work. Yes changes need to happen but the whole occupy movement and "revolution" are not the answer. People need to get off their asses and take responsibility for themselves!

Bill December 12, 2011 at 03:13 am

The Problem, or one of them, with someone like a misguided mayor, or a group of someone's deciding that One or more laws should not be enforced is, by what right do they do so, by what right do they decide to bypass the normal process and change law. It puts person, or a small group of people above the rights of the governed. We fought against that sort of thing a long time ago'

Darrell Lucas December 12, 2011 at 06:37 am

Forget weed. Go after the hard stuff.

Cindy Sanborn December 12, 2011 at 02:29 pm

LIKE DARREL GO AFTER THE HARD STUFF. THESE PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN FACTS ABOUT DRUG ADDICTION NO ONE REALLY KNOWS THE PROBLEMS WHY PEOPLE HAVE ADDICTIONS EVERYONE HAS ONE OF SOME KIND. IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE DRUGS. THEY ALWAYS THINK THAT U WILL GO TO THE HART STUFF IF U SMOKE BUT IT ISNT ALWAYS TRUE. LEAVE THEM ALONE.")

mjjoan December 12, 2011 at 02:36 pm

John, A revolution IS taking responsibility for ourselves!!! How else do you propose that this change take place? do you really think that voting is the answer?? think again. your vote means nothing, the government is going to do what ever they want, they are tyrants who ignore the will of the people and follow their own beliefs and adjendas (who ever they get the most payola from) A revolution and the occupy movement are what needs to happen for the American citizens to take back their country from a budding dictatorship. This is not what our forefathers had in mind for this country!! And as for "the inmates running the asylum" what do you think is running it now??? they lie, steal, cheat, embezzle, and even kill sometimes all in the name of law, government and free enterprise. It's not just the government that needs to be overthrown it's the whole ecomonic system. We already live in a lawless society especially in some cities and if you think I"m kidding go to inner city Detroit sometime.
there is no one source that is to blame for the mess we are in but a culmination of events, when big business got greedy and wanted to make more money (and this movement began back in the 50's with the dawn of tv) the American public was brainwashed into thinking they needed all the fancy clothes, new gadgets and fine homes, and cars, that the credit world was born and put this nation into a frenzy of purchases that had no monitary back up.

Jon Drucks December 13, 2011 at 02:10 am

Please see "Legal" on http://livecalif.com - We need to Legalize now.

Matthew Barnes December 13, 2011 at 04:34 am

Bill, the biggest problem here is that marijuana has only ever been enforced arbitrarily. Passed under the color of the worst racism, these laws were written to target minorities. Enforced in the worst ways, they have been used ever since in severe disproportion. If you are a black man, you are 13 times more likely to go to prison on a marijuana arrest than a white man.
Constitutionally speaking BTW: Federal laws that try and supersede state law are specifically un-constitutional. The God-given natural rights of marijuana patients should be of the highest concern to a good constitutional patriot.

William Brighenti December 13, 2011 at 06:41 am

In 2011 the federal government will spend $24 billion on the war on drugs, and all of the states will spend more. And it's as pointless as prohibition and most wars. We could use those billions much more effectively elsewhere.

Gene Bartholomew December 13, 2011 at 01:49 pm

I have to laugh at people who say "marijuana is the gateway drug" while they're standing there with a cigarette in one hand and a scotch in the other.

Gene Bartholomew December 13, 2011 at 01:54 pm

Just like politics I like to do research when my BS meter is going off.
The entire Marijuana situation is a classic political joke on the people of the U.S. and the World. There is no such thing as marijuana. There is a plant called Cannabis that was used for thouands of years for a great many things from medicine, to clothing, rope, canvas was all made from cannabis, get it? cannabis-canvas and even U.S. and other monies were printed on it, it was also our paper, IN FACT our Constitution was printed on it. The history books are full of lies. Hemp and Hemp Oil were a huge commodity, that was until some jerks we still deal with today and who cause most of our problems came along, yeah I'm talking Big Oil and other Corproations......I feel a blog coming on. ; )

Darrell Lucas December 13, 2011 at 03:23 pm

I feel the same evil is in the cancer business. If a cure was found it would be kept secret or destroyed. Sad how the world we live in could have things that help everyone but business and power keep it away so they can maintain the business and power. Money and Power take precedence over People and the Planet.

Gene Bartholomew December 13, 2011 at 03:30 pm

Yes, sadly we have allowed this to happen, we are easily led.
Was a time when Big Oil, paper mills, and plastics attacked hemp, now it's the Rx companies, they don't want people medicating themselves, they have a pill for that. Also sadly cancer patients are better off smoking hemp than taking the Rx co's pill equivelant for naseau from chemotherapy treatments, they told me they could still function but with the pills they were too out of it.

neighbor December 13, 2011 at 04:59 pm

The law is the law. We don't get to choose which ones we obey and which ones we don't. If the law is wrong, we should work to change it. I believe marijuana should be legalized. It's no worse than alcohol which is surely an abomination when one thinks of the lives it has destroyed.

Gene Bartholomew December 13, 2011 at 05:23 pm

Good points but Congress doesn't listen to reason and can't think logically.
Your alcohol point makes me wonder, the problem with alcohol is it makes some people violent, hemp does not. The Progressives pushed for the ban on Alcohol in the early 1900's and got it, but they never mentioned hemp which was still legal and many people smoked it, perhaps they did not see hemp as a problem?

Ebben Flow December 13, 2011 at 05:36 pm

Cures for cancer are being found all the time, Darrell. There are a multitude of types of cancer. Almost all forms of cancer were a death sentence in the past, but many are now quite easily cured if caught early. We can't cure all cancers, but obviously as cures and better diagnostics are found, they are being used. It would certainly be a better situation if we all paid for the research, and then shared the developments at cost, or with just enough profit to fund more research. Every human endeavor does not have to be "for profit". Sometimes the "profit" should be in the form of a better world.

Darrell Lucas December 13, 2011 at 06:12 pm

Agreed. But I make the comparison from watching the Burzynski documentary. Its shocking when a new treatment comes out that has no harmful side effects and has proven results that the medical industry viciously attacks a new form or treatment.

Ebben Flow December 13, 2011 at 06:59 pm

I think what you are seeing is various business interests attacking competitors to try and get or retain a business advantage. It doesn't keep the cures from being available. They aren't being kept secret at all. Whomever finds a new cure or treatment and gets it approved wants nothing more than to get it to as many people as possible so they can make money. The thing that keeps folks from getting these new treatments is the interference of the profit motive by gatekeepers such as insurance companies who don't want to pay, and pharmaceutical companies who want to charge far more than they should. Our government favors those business interests over your well being. Nothing new there.

pat December 14, 2011 at 08:51 pm

Whenever some people feel that a law might pertain to themselves, they object to its enforcement.

Gene Bartholomew December 14, 2011 at 09:03 pm

excellent points

Gene Bartholomew December 14, 2011 at 09:08 pm

To a degree yes, but many people who do not smoke like myself also see it as rediculous.
I also think the cops take the easy marks that don't shoot back, I mean c'mon they can mobilize in an hour and pepper spray a bunch of elderly people at an Occupy rally, or arrest a bunch of guys playing cards at a private club, or get some kid with a joint, but they can't do anything about the illegals or gangs with automatic weapons that are pushing heroin and meth???