Over/under on how long before Obama goes after CO/WA’s marijuana legalization laws?

Personally, I probably would have voted for either if given the opportunity – I don’t touch the stuff myself, but I’m familiar enough with it to decide that pot’s about as problematic as booze is – but I just can’t see any administration that includes Joe Biden being blase about these two states’ blatant attempts to conscientiously object to the War on Some Drugs.  Heck, Obama even goes after medical pot producers; recreational users are going to be even more in the cross-hairs.

What’s that?  Federalism?  Well, that’s certainly an issu…wait, hold on, I gotta check something.

  • Colorado: 51/47;
  • Washington State: 55/43.

Hm.

Federa-what?

Moe Lane

PS: Hey, it’s not my fault that the Western states aren’t voting their class interests.

17 thoughts on “Over/under on how long before Obama goes after CO/WA’s marijuana legalization laws?”

  1. Similar in MI, all the union proposals went down in flames but Obama and Stabenow won the state. How to circle that square, i dont know

    1. I don’t think this is rocket science. People voted for their own perceived best interest, and that means defeating bills that make Michigan less business-friendly while voting for politicians who ensure the money keeps flowing from D.C. to Michigan.
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      Mew

      1. The impending bancruptcy of Detroit should be fun to watch, the emergency manager law that could have the city also went down.

        1. Heh. The eventual bankruptcies of New York, Illinois, California, and maybe New Jersey would also be fun to watch .. if I were a bit further removed from ground zero.
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          Mew

  2. I’m a social conservative who voted pro-dream act, pro-gay marriage, and would vote to legalize pot. The Republican party is going to have to “go libertarian” on more social issues aside from abortion and hope that they can fix the country’s financials enough that people who make dumb decisions (like get too high to hold down a job) are deterred by the possibility of suffering the consequences rather than falling back on the feather bed of the current, expanding welfare state. Social Conservatives and conservative Christians like myself have to rely more on changing hearts and minds than on legislating morality.

    1. One thing that I cannot find, jbird, on the CNN site Moe linked to .. is how well Johnson did.
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      If the GOP needs to “go more libertarian”, then .. how well did the Libertarian actually do?
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      Mew

      1. Libertarians don’t have the political infrastructure and have a built in bias from people like me who don’t want to “waste” their vote. Also they suffer their more mainstream potential candidates staying in the GOP and from being more pro-choice as a whole.

        I guess the more important aspect of my comment that I failed to emphasize was the dream act part. We have to peel off the hispanic vote which ought to side with us anyway. That’s much more important than (and perhaps mutually exclusive to) “legalization” or “marriage equality” for the future of the party. I have great respect for all the hispanics I’ve worked with in the past, most of whom have iffy immigration status yet hold down 3 jobs.

        1. Thus my question, jbird. If the goal of rebuilding a winning coalition starts with libertarians, then .. let’s look at a reasonable metric of whether they’re a viable group. Did Johnson get enough votes to matter?
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          As for “Hispanics”, there’s no such bloc. The GOP need to, as Moe alluded to a few days ago, dump the “white tails” and figure out how to get white evangelicals to relate to brown catholics.
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          The two should get along better than either will get along with the hard left, but .. here we are.
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          If we can’t do that, then .. we’re done.
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          Mew

          1. I agree that Hispanics aren’t as monolithic a bloc as the African American vote. However, when the demographic analysis comes back on this election, we will have not “won” hispanics, and we should. So, what changes can we make around the edges to increase the appeal without selling out. Will Rubio’s dream act move the needle or will this be the Civil Rights legislation all over again where it passed because of Republican votes but the Democrats got all the spoils because LBJ was president.

          2. Long time no talk, acat. Much like you I’ve abandoned RS after the changes. Anyhow, just wanted to get your thoughts on the result in Illinois 8.

  3. I won’t do any over/unders about marijuana anymore, given how much I would have lost had I actually done one on how my state, Arkansas, would have voted last night for medical marijuana. I was thinking we’d be more like 70/30 against, but it was almost a squeaker.

    Still, it’s becoming a state’s rights issue, even if most liberals like myself will bristle at the idea of “state’s rights” — thinking it a codeword for racism. Just like gay marriage, liberal states are passing laws that other states might not agree with.

    *Is* there a Constitutional justification for Federal interference in a state-run regulatory system for marijuana? Is this a solution for states who have severe budget constraints, and is there a way to add an additional Federal excise tax — perhaps as a justification for any additional Federal expenses that might be incurred to ensure that regulated pot isn’t being sold across state lines — that would be an income stream instead of a budget drain?

    I think most citizens would rather pay an extra 15-25% for a product to buy and consume it legally, rather than risk prison. Just like most people would rather go to a liquor or ABC Store (like they have in North Carolina, very state-regulated on hard liquor sales there) than buy moonshine. But it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

    BTW: Just wanted to say this to my Conservative friends on Redstate — I feel your pain today, and I hope that it does not discourage you from continuing to actively participate in our electoral process. I spent yesterday as a poll worker. I’m confident that in our precinct, at least, the election was fair. I also hope that those of you who have a technical bent will consider helping with the elections next cycle in your county, especially given the prevalence of the electronic voting machines — I was the youngest poll worker at my precinct by over 30 years, but even though I’d never seen the machines before I was better equipped to change the audit log printer rolls than anyone else at my precinct. Had either of our machines broken, we’d have had much longer lines and turnout would have been discouraged.

    1. (Well, I’d seen them because I voted early on one the day before, but I’d never been trained on the machines before that day, and was better with them in less than an hour than the precinct captain, who was the only other person even willing to touch them.)

  4. If Colorado and Washington react the same way as California has since legalizing medical marijuana, Obama won’t have to be the one going after them. Local officials will be begging the feds to intervene to shut local clinics down throughout the state. Classic case of using the feds to undermine state powers.

    I haven’t read Washington or Colorado’s propositions, but until there are more specifics re: suppliers, growers and sellers, these propositions are destined for defeat because they are too vague and leave local officials feeling too vulnerable to enforce them. So they turn to the feds for backup. It’s a mess here and I don’t see that changing soon.

    1. Link to Colorado’s proposal:

      http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/filings/2011-2012/30Final.pdf

      It gives a lot of favor to those currently running grow operations for medical use — taking the application fees down from $5,000 to $500. I presume either a) the people who crafted the proposal think the state would have already done most of its due diligence in trying to find out who was legit by now and not diverting or b) the people who currently grow for medical MJ operations in CO had a heavy influence in writing the proposal, because that’s a nice kickback.

  5. ffc99, my thought is that you were correct, the nature of DuPage County and other former “conservative counterweights” has changed.
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    I cannot remember, prior to 2008, DuPage voting for a Dem for federal office, but they’ve now done so repeatedly.
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    I will admit, you were correct, and I was not.
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    Mew

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