Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Constitutional conundrum

I know the constitutional issues at play here are a little more complex than this, but:

Isn't it strange that the Supreme Court says doctors in Oregon can kill people but aren't allowed to give them medical marijuana?

2 comments:

Micah Daigle said...

"In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." -- Francis Young, Administrative Law Judge for the DEA, 1988

Perhaps doctors in Oregon are allowed to feed their patients ten raw potatoes.

Micah Daigle said...

Interesting commentary, but I'm not sure what it is in response to. Was there a claim made in this post or in my comment that legalizing drugs would get rid of street crime?? Silly me, I thought this post was about the apparent hypocracy of the Supreme Court allowing doctors to euthanize patients while restricting doctors from giving patients marijuana. Once again, you've gone way off-topic.

In your off-topic rant, you rely on the ridiculous assumption that criminals are somehow inherently drawn to committing crime: "Most of the people who commit crimes for drugs will still be committing crimes."

So you are saying that if we remove the criminal black market, those engaged in the black market will need to fill this criminal vaccuum with other crimes - say, rape and murder. That's right, because drug dealers sell drugs out of some sort of crime fetish, and the pocket full of cash is merely an added benefit!

If we follow this line of logic to its logical conclusion, then we should start banning all sorts of non-violent activities to give these crazy crime-fetished people something to do besides rape, assault, and murder!

Your idea of criminal psychology is about as simplistic as the justifications for the Drug War. The fact is, most people are lured into the drug trade primarily because of the money and power involved. Get rid of the cash incentive and you get rid of the criminal.