Pubdate: Tue, 10 May 2011
Source: Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
Copyright: 2011 The Gazette
Contact: http://www.gazette.com/sections/opinion/submitletter/
Website: http://www.gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/165
Author: Bill Moss

LAST HOPE LIES WITH STATE

When will our elected state officials, governor, attorney general,
district attorneys, sheriffs and police standup against the
Constitution-ignoring feds and protect the citizens of their states?

In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department (DOJ)
issued a memo stating that it would not prosecute medical marijuana
patients, suppliers or caregivers in states that have passed voter
initiatives to legalize the drug's use -- so long as they were all
abiding by that state's laws. Now the DOJ is sending letters to states
threatening to jail anyone associated with the medical marijuana
business, including state employees. This has been reported in several
sources, including an article May 3, in The Gazette.

In that article it was noted that Colorado's Deputy Attorney General
Michael Dougherty told a Colorado State General Assembly committee to
be careful regarding medical marijuana laws. What the Attorney
General's office should be doing is telling the feds that the state of
Colorado will arrest any federal agent, including IRS agents, that try
to arrest a citizen of Colorado who is doing business under Colorado
law.

The U.S. Constitution was written to limit the scope of the federal
government. I have read the U.S. Constitution and found nothing giving
the federal government the right to tell a person what they can, or
cannot, put in their body. Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution
states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people".

After a 40-year failed-war on drugs by the federal government states
are finding a better way to approach this. Our U.S. senators and
representatives, and the federal courts, have done nothing to limit
the reach of the federal government into areas not allowed by the U.
S. Constitution. Our last hope is with state officials.

Bill Moss

Colorado Springs
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.