Bush lawyer likens power struggle over pot laws to civil rights standoffs

[Nambe]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)

California and other states that want to make marijuana available to sick or dying patients are flouting federal drug laws in much the same way that Southern states defied national civil rights laws, a senior Bush administration lawyer said. --

``There is a basic question of what power does California have,'' said lawyer Gerald Uelman, Quinlivan's opponent in two cases. The federal law regulating drugs ``is not a federal takeover of the medical system'' or the duty of doctors to help the very ill, Uelman said.

Uelman and a California attorney general's office lawyer objected to the civil rights analogy and the notion that California is asserting the same kind of states' rights argument that Alabama used to try to avoid desegregating its schools.

When government agents shut down marijuana growers who serve sick people, it is ``not acting with the same degree of moral propriety as it did to end civil rights abuses,'' said Taylor Carey, a California special assistant attorney general who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief backing medical marijuana. ---

[Itascapark]

1. Twist foot

Insert in month. What a bloody moron...

[lazarus]

2. the hypocrisy is rich

They love their states' rights, unless it's about drugs or gays or voting rights.

[HawkerHurricane]

3. Let me see if I have this straight:

In the 1950's and 60's, the Federal Government stepped in to prevent states (mostly southern) from using laws and customs to prevent citizens from exercising thier rights as citizens.

Now, the Federal Government is stepping in to prevent states (mostly western) from using laws to allow citizens to use substances as medicines.

Yes, I can see how that is equivilant. :eyes:

edited to correct emoticon

[Fovea]

4. If this is the best argument they are presenting

then they need to call it a day.

What a hypocritcal and moronic statement!

[Khephra]

5. Even if I was baked out of my mind

That argument would never make sense to me. I guess I've never gotten the "good stuff". Wow...after reading that, I really do think they save the best drugs for themselves, because I've never been that out-of-it to say something like that.

[madrchsod]

6. although i failed logic class in college

even i know this is nonsence..where do they get this reject? this guy must be a c student like bush ..wow! says alot about this guy`s class standing ...

[sweetheart]

7. the image lie of progressivism

The first amendment right to medicate oneself as an act of free speech and free expression is and has been a right for centuries, yet behind the pervert lies the unfulfilled desire to fuck people. They want to fuck over some weed smokers, and fuck over some IT workers, and fuck over some veterans, and fuck over some black folks, and fuck over some women.

One thing for sure about the neocon's is that they fuck over people... and maybe the drugs war subsidy is indefensible and absurd, but all the more to fuck someone over. America is a nation of fucking people over... one nation, under AWOL that fucks over its weak and aged... a nation of perverts after all... a republican fantasy as they all pull out their date rape fantasies. These are sick, sexually perverted men who can't get laid... clearly.

Isn't it sad, that in the only moment we have in life, some ducktape asshole has gone and destroyed the peace of our lives with an artificial war to fuck over our children and to line republican pig-fucker pockets. It never was about justice. In new-mao's america resistance to the new reality is punishable by prison and reeducation to becoming a disenfranchised prisoner in an underclass of fucked over people. All along, these perverts are fucking chickens every night in the white house chicken fuckery... and the congressional one... all with camera footage. Chicken fucking is the new healthy way to be a republican progressive... its better than liberal fucking, and less fattening... but grossly less satisfying.

In the old days, they used to call it a witch hunt. History has not changed, only time has.

[mike_c]

9. very well said, sweetheart!

xoxo
mike_c

[Lost4words]

16. I love your post sweetheart :-)

I feel the same!

[TahitiNut]

8. In a related argument ...

... White House lawyers are pressing for the arrest of every surgeon who takes a knife and cuts into an unconcious victim. "It's a stabbing!" argued the Reich.

[robbedvoter]

10. The other day Condi likened the Iraqis "fight for freedom" with civil

rights - they should be moving to other absurd methaphors by now, non?

ational security adviser Condoleezza Rice likened Iraq's halting steps toward self-government to
black Americans' struggle for civil rights, imploring black journalists Thursday to reject
arguments that some people are incapable of democracy. (snip)
"We should not let our voice waver in speaking out on the side of people who are seeking
freedom," Rice said. "And we must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege
that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom, they're
culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren't ready for freedom's responsibilities."
Rice said White House officials often turn to her on issues of race, and she infused her
discussion of Iraq with references to slavery and America's civil rights battles of the 1960s.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030807/ap_on_go_pr_wh/rice

[TahitiNut]

11. I love malapropisms!!

So, they're huffing methamphetamines and making silly comparisons, huh? :silly:

Mais oui!

[jamesinca]

12. I had forgotten about this one

Maybe this is how they are attracting the minority vote, everything they do is like the civil rights battles of the 60's Liberating Iraq was like liberating the blacks in the south in the 60's, see we are the all in clusive party. Fighting marijuana use for any reason is like the civil rights struggles of the 60's, see we are the all inclusive party.

It is also telling these people that the Dems are doing things that reject the minorities in this country.

Can you see it, this is good. I bet there are a lot more civil rights comparisons in the next few weeks.

[Boreas]

13. "Federal law

recognizes no medical purpose for the drug and bans its private production, sale or use."

Well then it's a bad law isn't it? How do medical users get rid of the bad law before they end up in prison like thousands of their fellow citizens whose only crime is use of this weed? Wait for legislatures to do it? Yeah, right.

If they're on a jury they can do it themselves. They're supposed to. The jury has the right to judge both the law and the facts. Don't expect a judge to tell you this, quite the contrary, judges often tell jurors how to vote. In Sparf vs US, 1895, the Supreme Court ruled that juries have the right to ignore a judge's instruction on the law, but do not have the right to be told that they have such a right. Go figure, but that's the way it is. Legal decisions by Appeals courts on this issue are clear.

Juries have the final say on bad laws.

http://www.caught.net/juror.htm

[depakid]

17. But the judge controls what the jury hears

which is why Ed Rosenthal was convicted. The jurors in that case didn't find out what the real facts were until after the trial- prompting eight of them to write the judge asking him to free the guy.

Plus, even though jury's can do as they please, ttorneys cannot tell juries to disregard the law, they'd be disciplined for that- so jury nullification is pretty rare.

[Boreas]

18. Too true

Judges do control what the jury hears, so maybe here's another case of the system doesn't work unless everyone is informed before hand. (Let's hear it for an informed electorate, the bedrock of Democracy!) It's true; the jury, properly outraged when they found out after the trial that pertinent information had been kept from them, took correct action to petition the judge for a new trial. Rosenthal is appealing his felony conviction because of this.

Seems like US District Judge Breyer was eager to eliminate potential jurors who were familiar with California Prop. 215, (Compassionate Use Act,) which passed with 78% support in San Francisco where the trial was held. I guess he was ok with the idea of eliminating jury nullification from the start.

Do judges, in general, think that jury nullification of a bad law is a good thing? I doubt it, else we'd hear more of it and no one would be surprised to learn the power juries have to do such a thing.

[stickdog]

14. Protecting civil rights is the same as making sick people miserable

by outlawing their medicine.

Yep, a BUSH lawyer said that, right?

[Zhade]

15. George, hit the bong softer next time.

You're not thinking clearly. Toke slower.