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Title: "Why do Republicans Respect Marijuana Prohibition Like it Came From Moses?"
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/blog/2016/07/20/ ... s-against-marijuana-prohibitio
Published: Jul 20, 2016
Author: Anthony L. Fisher
Post Date: 2016-07-21 09:08:33 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 7120
Comments: 76
"Bad law needs to be dealt with, we don't need to follow it blindly," says 86-year-old Ann Lee, the founder and executive director of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition (RAMP). In an interview with Reason at a Cleveland hotel near the Republican National Convention (RNC), Lee adds, "The mystery to me is why Republicans respect this law like it came from Moses, and when you read how it came about in 1937 under FDR...why Republicans support that is beyond me." Lee is a staunch pro-life social conservative who had her come-to-Jesus moment in when it came to marijuana prohibition after her son suffered a devastating accident in 1990. While recovering, he told his mother that unlike synthetic painkillers and other drugs, marijuana actually provided him physical relief. Lee, who grew up in Jim Crow-era Louisiana, says she grew up living under bad racist laws that needed to be changed. She argues that drug prohibition is the modern-day version of Jim Crow and also needs to be changed. RAMP's treasurer Bonnie Lugo tells Reason that she was also a staunch drug warrior until she met Lee while running against her for a spot on Texas's Republican Executive Committee. Lugo's first impression of Lee was that "she was this crazy lady" advocating for drug legalization but that the "tenacious" Lee ultimately convinced her to do her own research on the subject. When Lugo learned about how much safer marijuana is than alcohol or cigarettes, combined with the fact that people's lives were being ruined in myriad ways because of its criminalization, she did a 180 on the issue. Lugo says, "Once you figure out that your government has lied to you, it's easy to figure out all the rest." Lugo laments that too many of her fellow Republicans have bought into "60 years of indoctrination by our government that marijuana is a gateway drug, that it leads to harmful acts." Lee adds, "it's very hypocritical" of her fellow Republicans to be "pro-life and anti-medical marijuana." In trying to sell marijuana legalization to fellow RNC attendees—who are very much of pushing a "law and order" agenda this week—Lee says she is trying to convince her party cohort that they can be for law and order but need to "remember laws can be bad, too." When asked if RAMP has any plans to advocate for the legalization of drugs other than marijuana, Lee says, "this is all I can say grace over. I can't handle anything else. But I know this issue." 
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#20. To: Deckard (#0)
(Edited)
Marijuana, and other psychedelics, do not produce the same physical withdrawal sysptoms as opiates and other drugs. This leads to an argument of harmlessness of marijuana. However, marijuana produces the same mental debilitation as opiates without the immediate physical effects. Someone can live in a dung pile and stay oblivious as long as he can light up another joint. That same person can obliviously require the people around him to live in the same dung pile while he lights up another joint. I am of the unalterable belief marijuana is more dangerous and destructive than heroin, individually, socially, and institutional/culturally on a larger scale. Partially extracted from RLK- The Analytic Papers.
So the less physically harmful the more "dangerous and destructive". Wow. By that logic, shouldn't drugs with "immediate physical effects" be legal? How exactly do they "require" that and enforce that requirement?
#25. To: ConservingFreedom (#23)
How exactly do they "require" that and enforce that requirement? Ask the woman with one or two kids and trying to raise them married to a pothead for an answer.
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#23. To: rlk (#20)
(Edited)
marijuana produces the same mental debilitation as opiates without the immediate physical effects. [...] I am of the unalterable belief marijuana is more dangerous and destructive than heroin
Someone can live in a dung pile and stay oblivious as long as he can light up another joint. That same person can obliviously require the people around him to live in the same dung pile while he lights up another joint.
Replies to Comment # 23. Someone can live in a dung pile and stay oblivious as long as he can light up another joint. That same person can obliviously require the people around him to live in the same dung pile while he lights up another joint.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 23.
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