At 1:14 PM -0500 11/1/00, Trei, Peter wrote:
Bill Stewart[SMTP:bill.stewart@pobox.com]
Massachusetts looks like the kind of state that has more pot smokers than registered Republicans. Somebody ought to be able to use that....
Bill
Somebody is. Prop 8 would allow drug offenders (including low level dealers) to opt for treatment over prison, and would require all fines, seized funds, and profits from the sale of stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hforfeited property in drug cases to be used to finance treatment.
I think one other state has a similar proposition this year, and another (New Mexico?) has had a similar law in place for a while, to great success.
California passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative (more than once, as I recall, as the Fedgov found "technicalities" to strike it down the first time it passed). No "interstate commerce" is involved (*), for most home-grown pot, and yet the Fedgov has asserted the claim that federal dietary laws take precedence over local dietary laws. (* As we know, the interstate commerce clause was oriented toward making sure that only the Federal government could imposes tariffs on goods moving between the states. This was to head off a flurry of opportunisitc tariffs imposed by the states. It had _nothing_ to do with the notion that if a book publisher, for example, ships books across state lines that the Federal government then has some means to regulate the content. This seems to be commonly misunderstood; not by Cypherpunks, but I'm repeating this just to make sure.) If these United States were functioning as intended, this and similar cases would go to the Supreme Court and the Court would find that the states cannot be told what to by the Fedgov in matters like this. But we have not been functioning as intended for most of the past century. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.