And who are apparently in short supply on the SDMB. As for me, I’m all in favor of medical as well as recreational use of marijuana being perfectlyy legal.
The republicans, according to a recent survey, are all at church today. 
We’ll probably hear from them later.
Forgot my freakin’ cite
Is anyone surprised?
Yeah. Right. :rolleyes:
How about: conservatives want less control by the federal government, more power to the states, more power to the individual and slower, more deliberate change.
Maybe the big drug companies have something to lose if marijuana is legalized, but that doesn’t mean that conservatives as a whole are opposed to it. Consider the issue of federalism.
Well, there are consertives, and there are conservatives.
WF Buckley, surely a conservative by anyone’s definition, favores legalization of marijuana. Ditto for Goldwater, IIRC.
But I’d be surprised if more self-identified conservatives than self-identified liberals favored legalization of medicinal pot. In fact, I’d expect there to be a pretty big spread on those numbers.
So does Dana Rohrabacher.
I saw at least one physician on TV say that, in his experience, the only people who truly needed medicinal marijuana were those who were already using the substance illegally.
No, I don’t have a cite. Like I said, I just saw it on TV. I was flipping channels at the time, and didn’t take note of which program it was.
Don’t you :rolleyes: me, sleeping. “Embrace” means to accept something, a concept in this case, with open arms. Conservatism calls for power to states and indivuduals (corporations are individuals, right?) as it pertains to capitalism. Conservatism is not especailly big on many “human” rights.
I think drug companies have the least to lose in the face of legal pot. Corporations with large labor forces claim to have the most to lose.
You want to consider something? Consider that virtually all companies are, as I said, anti-legalization and conservative.
Sure, there are conservative people who, for whatever reasons, support legalization. Mostly intellectuals, I’ll venture. 
I’d daresay most people who are vehemently against legalizing pot are in the law enforcement field.
Despite the fact that the “war on drugs” has been a miserable failure, many cops & other law types would be out of a job if they were no longer needed to protect the masses from grass.
This makes absolutely no sense. Human rights and individual rights are two terms for the same thing.
And I find that while there are many religous conservatives who are anti mary-jane, there are also many liberals who are anti mary jane in an elitist, snobbish, social sort of way.
After all, liberals tend to see drug use as some sort of ‘problem’, some sort of abnormal behavior, just like conservatives do; its just that the liberal solution to this perceived but non existant problem is different than conservatives’. The view of recreational drug use as being some sort of problem (abnormal behavior) that needs to be fixed (to ‘normal’ behavior) is itself a pretty tainted view, whether its paternalistic as is the case with many conservatives, or patronising as is the case with many liberals.
After all, Joe Six-Pack is an increasingly inaccurate stereotype of working class conservatives; in many places, definately here in Cal, it would be more accurate to say Joe Dimebag or Joe Ragweed.
I’m trying to find a poll that answers the question by party affiliation, but haven’t had much luck. In general, polls say that 75% of americans support leaglization.
The republicans, supporters of individual power, are in charge right now. Let’s go, pubbies!!! Legalize. The “folks” have spoken.
No, no no. Not even close. “Individual” includes companies, but that’s another debate, done to death already. A company is a person, but not a human.
I think the definition of conservative, in Joe Dimebag’s view, is changing to “I wanna keep my whole paycheck”. And liberal is becoming “I wanna give your paycheck away”.
Anyway, does anyone know (and can prove) if the OP’s assertion is valid?
Uh…no.
Despite what Clinton’s own drug policy chief said, Clinton’s own stand on the matter of the medical use of marijuana was made clear when he vetoed an appropriations bill:
From the NORML website:
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/15/1438.html
If you will permit an old woman’s observations from the last thirty-five years of interest in the legalization of marijuana, it has consistently been the conservative citizens who have objected to the legalization. They were not the only ones. I think that most of the GI generation, with some exceptions, objected to any use. For most all of that generation, use = abuse.
The liberal boomers made usage common during the 1960’s. When that happened, use spread to the generation a little older than the Boomers and, of course, younger. When we didn’t have two headed babies or become violent under its influence, younger generations, both conservative and liberal, recognized it for what it – basically pleasant and harmless.
But politicians of both sides are still caving in to the fundamentalists and older Conservatives. In so doing, especially on the issue of medical use, they are doing the citizens a great injustice.
It’s nice to see the younger generations on both ends of the political spectrum agreeing on its medical use. If you speak up, maybe your Senators and Representatives can quit being such stuffed shirts and er…blouses.
Under one of the Presidents, there was a Presidential Committe to Study the Effects of Marijuana. The report was favorable toward the use of MJ. So naturally, the report was stashed away somewhere and ignored. Was that Nixon?
Agreed. But I was making a distinction between the nature of conservatism and its political roots, and the actions of corporations (to whom, for the most part, conservatism would be more appealing).
Well, when I speak of “individual rights” it’s more in the sense of individual liberties, so there is room for your distinction.
Gasp! You couldn’t possibly be suggesting that people in general want to just declare their opinion without actually considering the facts.
JRDelerious:
You hit the nail on the head, but this calls into question how the term “conservative” can encompass such a glaring contradiction.
John Mace:
What this indicated is that the Democrats aren’t as liberal as the Republicans are conservative. The Clinton Admin. was worried about appearing soft on drugs due to pressure from the Right and needed to make a show of cracking down.
I know I mentioned this in another thread on this subject, but it’s worth repeating.
It’s kind of funny how Bush’s stance on medical marijuana has gone from “I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose” on the campaign trail to not only ignoring the states’ rights, but even going so far as to try to threaten doctors who so much as discuss the option of med pot with their patients.
No… They would get little or no high. Needs to be heated along with a lipid, like butter.
Mmmm. Tollhash chocolate chip cookies.
Who was it, J.Elders?, who got into trouble for suggesting that the war on marijuana should be looked at with some common sense?
She got fired for talking about sex education for kids.
Who was it, J.Elders?, who got into trouble for suggesting that the war on marijuana should be looked at with some common sense?
She got fired for talking about sex education for kids.