DENVER — Ten sheriffs from three different states have sued Colorado for legalizing marijuana, highlighting a pervasive disregard for states having the right to make laws of their own.
“The sheriffs from Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska say that Colorado’s 2012 marijuana legalization vote violates federal law and shouldn’t be permitted,” Associated Press (AP) noted, indicating the supposed federal supremacy over pot laws. But the main issue here is not whether pot is “harmful” or “should” be legalized; rather, it’s whether the democratic decisions that the states make have any chance of surviving in this day and age of top-down federal control. Clearly, these “law and order” sheriffs don’t care or don’t know that the very concept of a county sheriff is to guard against unwarranted federal overreach, since elected sheriffs answer to the people of their county, not to federal law or the federal government. That’s rooted in common law and is not a “conservative” or “liberal” matter. “A state may not establish its own policy that is directly counter to federal policy when they noted that more hacks, stating the obvious against trafficking in controlled substance(s),” the zealous sheriffs argue in the lawsuit filed in US District Court in Denver.
Federal pot laws date back to the 1930s, yet they’re outdated, ill-advised and resemble booze prohibition. Nebraska and Oklahoma have separately appealed to the US Supreme Court to strike down marijuana legalization in Colorado.
“The Supreme Court hasn’t said yet whether it will hear that case,” AP also noted, adding: “And a group of Colorado residents has filed its own federal challenge, saying marijuana reduces property values.”
Since recreational pot also has medical applications, and its non-drug cousin, hemp, has a wide array of product uses and is a major cash “boom crop” (banned from being grown in the US under federal law) it’s rather difficult to see how pot could significantly reduce property values.
Those litigious sheriffs act surprised that more than half of Colorado’s recreational pot sales last year came from the wallets of out-of-state visitors.
Meanwhile, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson is forming a dragnet to stop Colorado pot from crossing into Nebraska. Aside from the costs that cops will charge to taxpayers for chasing small-time pot buyers and users, the effort will detract from catching more serious criminals with drugs that cause serious lasting harm, like cocaine, along with rapists, murderers, etc.
One is tempted to say that Colorado’s only option, in the big scheme of things, is secession — divorcing the union and becoming a separate nation. Ironically, that option is not all that far-fetched, since Nebraska officials (and those sheriffs) are treating Colorado like it’s another country with which it’s at virtual war—treating the state border like an international boundary that’s teeming with cartels smuggling pot into the Cornhusker State. AP, with a straight face, added: “The sheriffs say the weed is spilling across state lines.”
Imagine that: People live in one state, travel to another, buy something, and return. Good God!
Amid such normal commerce, Colorado is running public service ads telling its domestic pot users to keep their weed out of reach of children, and telling adult “outsiders” that if they come to Colorado to buy recreational weed, they have to smoke it all there and hang around a while, lest they get busted by roving bands of out-of-state cops, who desperately need to find something else to do.
This writer will stop short of saying pot is totally harmless, but in the scheme of things, if society’s problems peaked at widespread pot-smoking, we’d be living in paradise. Yet, many of those ridiculous private prisons built hither and yon are lacking “customers.” Busting young reefer-heads will help fill these iron-bar hotels just fine, you see.
Simply put, it’s “high time” for the feds and the aggressor states to drop the persecution of pot growers and users. We must end this mindless war on weed and move on. Americans are growing tired of the tripe spouted by prosecutors and cops that pot spells the very end of civilization. Grow up gentlemen, or hand in your certificates and badges, and get a different job. At least US Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who supports legal marijuana, stuck up for sanity.
“This lawsuit is a silly attempt to circumvent the will of Colorado voters and is a waste of time,” he said.
Exactly.
Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2015
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