Marijuana Showdown: The Feds vs. California

[Final addition: the Iranian government is implicated in an assassination attempt. Bad; but what's worse is they were outsourcing the actual labor to the Zetas on the ground in North America, one of several large, paramilitar criminal organizations that have been assassinating public figures in Mexico for over a decade. A failed state on our southern border is at least as big a problem as Iranian regional ambitions, but oil politics ensure we care more about the safety of Saudi officials more than Americans living in border states. The Zetas would have nothing without the revenues given to them by our big-government marijuana laws, and they wouldn't be getting hired by the Iranians to do hits in Washington D.C. Somehow that's getting lost in this story.]

[Added later: much scarier than the coming dispensary raids and shutdowns is the IRS ruling described in this article that will cripple the marijuana industry, and drive it entirely back underground. Because it's essentially an accounting law change it's much less mediagenic than the specter of jack-booted DEA agents busting down doors, but it's actually a much bigger threat. This is the cheapest trick the Obama adminsitration has used so far because it's not apparently a law enforcement effort but it will be no less effective for that.]


Above: a small business that Obama's thugs are trying to shut down. Not a joke. If you call yourself pro-small-government and you aren't outraged by that, you have to stop calling yourself pro-small-government.

Medical marijuana is legal in California, but still illegal under Federal law. Despite Obama's promises to the contrary, he's continuing to waste your money pursuing marijuana dispensaries that are legal in their own states. There's about to be a showdown in California. Jerry Brown, here's your chance to show voters what you're made of, and if you're really serious about defending civil liberties.

Having sub-national entities with their own governments is a good idea because as they experiment locally, the rest of us can benefit from what works, and avoid what doesn't. Of course that's only the case if those sub-national entities are allowed to continue the experiment. It's also worth asking what the results of the experiment have been. What's happened in California since these dispensaries proliferate that's been so bad? By the way, here's the SoCal map.

If your rallying cries are "small government" and "states' rights", now would be a great time to come to California's defense. Somehow I'm not holding my breath for any collective outrage from the Tea Party. The Tea Party and the right wing in general only seem to worry about keeping government small in those cases where it intrudes on Southern cultural values.