@Draug - I like it!

Legalize prostitution, and let them form a union. Than we will see how much sex gets done. The term scab would also have double a meaning.

"It's still illegal according to the feds. IMO as long as prostitution is illegal, so should marijuana."

What's the connection? Marijuana is a drug that causes mild confusion and consumption of junk-food. Prostitution is the sale of sex.

@ ulyssesflynn "What's the connection? Marijuana is a drug that causes mild confusion and consumption of junk-food. Prostitution is the sale of sex." Maybe when he gets high he gets horny.

@warsprite

Wise, very wise.

@TylerDurdern
While I don't doubt that those issues will be ironed out, I am just pointing out some of the flaws in the prop. I am a minor, so I cannot vote, but I would vote Yes on Prop 19 if I was of age.

In addition, there is a minor loophole, that may or may not be able to be used. A person running a marijuana business might be able to avoid paying any taxes on it through the 5th amendment, because paying taxes on the sale of illegal drug is self-incriminating. But, since you'll need a license to sell marijuana, I don't think that would hold up in court, because simply getting the license for your business is self-incriminating under federal law.

@Kingdroid "A person running a marijuana business might be able to avoid paying any taxes on it through the 5th amendment, because paying taxes on the sale of illegal drug is self-incriminating." If that was true than Al Kapone should not have gone to jail, along with many others.

That's Capone

@ulysses - prostitution isn't illegal at the federal level. Only state and local ordinances control prostitution. That's why it's legal in several counties in Nevada

SCOTUS regarded the ambit of Congress as substantively less than they do now before NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel. The Marihuana Tax Act came out months after NLRB v. J&L Steel. It's not a coincidence.

@Draugnar I was responding to a chap who thought that if prostitution were illegal, then therefore marijuana must be as well.

I've never been a small-government advocate, but I would agree heartily with anyone who made large issue out of the fact that the federal government is given privilege to ban drugs and drug cultivation because of the commerce clause. The argument is such that, even if you're growing marijuana on private property for your own consumption, because you are not purchasing marijuana and therefore affecting the market value, your actions fall within in the scope of the commerce clause. Good lord.

Oops, I should have addressed that to Iceray0. Sorry 'bout that ulysses/

Iceray0 - see my former comment. You comparison of prostitution and pot is apples and oranges. One is federally regulated, the other is the domain of local, county, and state ordinances.

OK, maybe this is a ridiculous question. Is everyone on this website a politician or a lawyer? Why does every debate get bogged down in inane details of like, American constitutional law. I mean, I realize that's relevant to the discussion, but the constitution is a means to and end, not the end itself. The real question is something like What impact does this have in a society where this substance is widely used? Should the government be allowed to tell us what we can and cannot put in our bodies? Should the government legislate morality. If so, why is marijuana relevant to morality. Instead here we all are asking "What constitutional clauses complicate this decision in a legal sense? Please cite in mind numbing detail, historical precedent to make your case." Seriously. WTF?

Two fold answer, Mafia.

If what you put in your body makes you a danger to the people around you (try driving drunk or high) then it needs to be regulated.

If what you put in can have serious side effects on your health and force society to foot the bill to try and save you, it needs to be regulated.

What you put in your body can affect others around you and government has a right to control that so your freedom to abuse your body doesn't infringe upon anothers rights.

I'm not a libertarian, I do completely agree with you draug. I was more just making a frustrated point about how the direction that all conversations tend to go on this website. I obviously realize the importance of that point.
In this case though I'd say that marijuana doesn't really cross that line in the same way that something highly addictive like opiates or amphetamines would. That said, I'm not the sort to have completely jumped on the "marijuana is good for you because it's made from nothing but smiles and nature and rainbows bandwagon" either. If it's fun it has to be bad for you somehow.

@Draugnar

That is a pretty weak argument, Draugnar.

-

Woah, truncated.

As to driving high/drunk: Driving high or drunk IS illegal. It is the driving part that is the problem. We have not banned alcohol because in this instance it makes one dangerous.

On the second point -- Would you ban people from eating too much cheese? Would make being fat illegal? Would you make skydiving illegal? Would you make essentially all sports illegal? Would you make driving illegal? Would you make sex without a condom illegal? Would you make working in a factory illegal? Would you make working on a farm illegal? Would you make working in hospital illegal?

The list of things that can have serious effects on a person's health is infinite. It is no grounds for their outright banning.

@Ulysses (and by extension Mafia) - I'm not saying anythign should be banned. Regulated, yes, just as tobacco and alcohol are. Mafia wanted to know where the feds had the right to step in. I just laid out why. But I'm not for making/keeping it illegal, just controlling it.

So no, I wouldn't ban people from eating cheese and outlawing something that people with glandular disorders can't control (being fat) is unconstitutional discimination. But more to the point, Where the frack did I say ban anything. Try actually *reading* what I wrote. I said "regulate". When you go scuba diving, you have a regulator on your air tanks. Does this regulator stop all air from getting to you? No! It controls the mix of nitrogena nd oxygen and keeps the rate of air flow in check so the pressure on the tanks the deeper you go doesn't push too much air into your system.

R-e-g-u-l-a-t-e. Regulate. K?

Relax Draugnar, seriously. I really am just playing devil's advocate. I do understand the arguments on both sides of the issue and understand enough about harm reduction principles to say that decriminalization is probably for the best, and that decriminalization doesn't necessarily mean deregulation.
To be perfectly honest I think the way any drugs are legislated is problematic. Arresting people for having harder drugs like opiates or amphetamines on their person won't solve anything. People need help, not jail time.

@Mafialligator "Why does every debate get bogged down in inane details of like, American constitutional law." Invictus started it!

Wasn't you Mafia. It was Ulysses asking if we should ban everything when I never said ban. You and I are on the same wave length completely it sounds like. We should help addicts, not through them in jail. Dealers of the hard stuff, now they need jail. But their victims (and they are victims even if they chose to ride the roller coaster) need help.

*throw, not through. Stupid fingers...

@Draugnar. Driving under the influence of marijuana is not that difficult, or dangerous. However, I honestly think that it should be treated in a similar fashion to alcohol. I'll be honest when I say that I partake in a variety of drug abuse, and from my experiences I can tell you that the legalization of marijuana is not dangerous.

And I have no problem wiht legalizing it and using it, like tobacco and alcohol, to raise money for the state. Call it a stupidity tax (why do you think they call it dope, dope?). Oh, and I have seen pot heads drive. Some of my friends in high school (west chester was farmland when I grew up there) were pot heads and we pulled more than one truck out of a ditch with my Jeep cause some waste-oid had gone offroad for one reason or another. It's just as dangerous as drinking and driving. Your reaction times are slowed and you can't respond to even mundane things like a green light turning yellow and then red.

Actually it's not apples and oranges. If anyone here know American history they would realize that the banning of hemp and prostitution happened because someone didn't like them. They were Quakers and they blamed all of the injustices of the world on hemp, liquor, and prostitution. The only one of those three, it was the same group of people BY THE WAY, that is legal right now is liquor and if you remember, they succeeded, temporarily, in getting that banned. If you're going to lift the ban on grass, lift it on prostitution too and quit listening to Quaker bitches.

It's against federal law to be a prostitute, they don't regulate it for shit, but it is against federal law.

Show me a federal act or statute that makes it illegal to be a prostitute. You can't because none exist. The only federal laws involve aliens (slave labor/prostitution) and child laws or those involving interstate commerce.

Iceray0 - at the sake of overstating the obvious, you are an idiot who doesn't know jack about the history of prohibition.

@Draugnar

Sorry you got so hung up on verbiage, because you missed the point:

You wrote:
"If what you put in your body makes you a danger to the people around you (try driving drunk or high) then it needs to be regulated.

If what you put in can have serious side effects on your health and force society to foot the bill to try and save you, it needs to be regulated.

What you put in your body can affect others around you and government has a right to control that so your freedom to abuse your body doesn't infringe upon anothers rights."

Banning or regulating, they both stem from the same absurdity. The idea that because it is expensive to allow people to be free -- How much money on elections could we save if we just did away with them? -- that therefore we can limit and regulate that freedom, whether you ban things outright or just restrict them, is really missing the point of why freedom is important. If you take things being cheap to society as your primary interest then your reasoning makes sense, but if instead you take as your primary interest that society should allow individuals to live in freedom (to choose their own interests), then your argument is just trite.

Furthermore, loads of things that might end up costing society (whatever the hell that means) are also to the detriment of the people who do them. Not wearing your seatbelt is probably the best example. You do not need to punish people in for not doing it. If people are rational, all you need to do is to educate them about why a certain thing is bad for them and they'll deal with it on their own. Turning to regulation -- a force that inevitably oversteps its limits -- is unnecessary in many more cases than are recognized, at least in the United States. It's the reason people in Amsterdam aren't all huge stoners. They know that marijuana will keep them from doing other things that they are interested in and might damage their health. They don't need a law to make it illegal, they just follow their own self-interest.