Democrats For States Rights???

Wow. Talk about a reversal of the norm. The liberals who feel strongly about the medical marijuana laws are now really enamored with the Tenth Amendment and its concept of states' rights.

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.

Essentially, the medical marijuana users are arguing that the Constitution doesn't give Congress the right to outlaw the use of mind altering drugs. The other side is arguing that the "common good" clause, which has been used to justify the unchecked expansion of government so often, is sufficient enough reason to allow the government to ban the drugs.

Now I'm not interested in debating the morality of medical marijuana right now. I go back and forth on my position with it. Sometimes my compassionate side (yes, I do have one!) comes out and says it might be okay in certain, narrowly defined circumstances, yada, yada, yada. Other times, the "retentive" side of me comes out and says it's against the law, it's a drug being self-administered in varying dosages, it appears to affect intelligence, yada, yada, yada. So at this point, I don't have a really opinion one way or the other. I'm open about the whole thing.

The real shame here is that, while the proponents of legalization are actually working through the system properly, they are still whining to the point that it turns me off to their argument:

...federal raids confiscated the pot stocks of very sick people who consider marijuana to be a benign medicine.

This is the perfect example of what ticks me off so bad. Marijuana is still illegal. Regardless of what very sick people believe, it is still against the law and if you have or are using it, you have to expect that there will be consequences, regardless of how badly you wish there wasn't.

Go about it the right way. Change the laws, then pass the pipe.