Pubdate: Sun, 16 Feb 2014
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2014 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/send-a-letter/
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Thomas Overbeck
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n157/a03.html
Page: 3P

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

I remember reading in an older article that Mark Davis warned if
cannabis were legalized, the streets would be filled with drug-addled
zombies. I called it the Bob Dylan retort - to paraphrase, "everybody
might get stoned" - and it looks like he still believes that fallacy.

I'll concede that there would be more people sampling cannabis if it
were legal, but I seriously doubt it would be more than a small percentage.

Mr. Davis also asserts that "the freedom to get high is nowhere in the
Constitution, but this is: the right to aggregately pass laws to allow
or disallow whatever we wish toward the goal of a better nation." Are
you saying, Mr. Davis, that you espouse the progressive interpretation
of the Constitution, that just because it says "promote the general
welfare," "regulate commerce" or "necessary and proper," that the
government has permission to make any laws it wants?

While I would like to see cannabis decriminalized across the country,
I'm happy with letting the states decide on their own, via 10th
Amendment, whether or not cannabis is bad for society. Hopefully
Colorado and Washington will prove that society can still thrive with
legal weed in their midst.

Thomas Overbeck, Garland
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