In recent years nullification has become a bone of contention between the political parties, but now it appears even Democrats are on board with the notion. In 2013, the Republican-controlled S.C. House of Representatives passed a nullification bill striking at the heart of Obamacare. Republicans also spent the last few months of 2013 pushing for a nullification bill in the S.C. Senate, holding hearings around the state to discuss the issue.
However, this time it isn’t just Sen. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) discussing nullification. At a recent legislative workshop, S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg) stoked the issue by responding to a question about marijuana decriminalization.
“There is room in this state and in this country for decriminalization,” Cobb-Hunter said, as quoted by reporter Corey Hutchins.
Now, this wouldn’t pass as nullification if it weren’t for the fact marijuana is currently listed as a ‘schedule 1 drug’ by federal law – which means it is illegal under the Controlled Substances Act and other federal laws. These laws also form the basis of the war on drugs, which has sucked billions of dollars out of our economy over the years – leading to hundreds of thousands of arrests and chaos in our prison system due to its overpopulation with nonviolent offenders.
In my opinion, fighting human nature by legislating morality has never been a successful strategy – but the federal government (and state governments) have pursued it for years regardless.
Normally Democratic members and operatives are decidedly opposed to nullification, including the S.C. Democratic Party’s third vice chair Tyler Jones – who recently urged nullification supporters to “read the constitution, and take a civics course, and for God’s sake turn off Glenn Beck.”
It will be interesting to see if members of South Carolina’s political class take such a view as it relates to the concept of legalizing marijuana.
Just the thought of legalizing marijuana should bring a shock to the eyes of South Carolina voters. If these legislators and political operatives are to be taken at their word, it presents a logical conundrum as to how Democratic complaints of Republican legislation limiting the scope of Obamacare in South Carolina can truly be taken seriously.
In other words what is wrong for one side may not be wrong for the other.
While I am not personally advocating for the nullification of any federal law, the left’s complaints against nullification as a strategy only appear to go so far. As the loyal opposition in South Carolina, Democrats can be expected to oppose legislation wishing to limit federal law – especially the Presidents chief legislative accomplishment. In the end though, obviously, political expediency is the tactic of the day – which explains why the Democratic Party isn’t helping farmers by pushing hemp growing in South Carolina but is greedily eyeballing the tax revenue of legalizing marijuana.
At the peril of their own “anti-nullification” message.
John Osborne is a military veteran and a recent graduate of the University of South Carolina.
41 comments
Nice … although Cobb-Hunter will likely say her statement “in this state AND in this nation” covers the question. In other words, she was advocating decriminalization within the context of getting rid of the federal laws you cite in this piece. Still, a good read John … and thanks for sharing it!
I’ll tell you what has become a bone of contention with me…these non-swimming democrats.
Holy cow, are you a Dixiecrat?
No. I’m a pixiecrat. I’ll scatter glitter and paint rainbows for you. I ride a unicorn, too.
+5 for the Pixiecrat comeback
Marijuana should be legal. I really wonder where the SC anti-big government politicians are on that issue. Waste of time and money incarcerating pot smokers.
and you can tax the hell out of it and use that money for roads and bridges
Not to mention it would cut the legs out from under gangs, as marijuana is their bread and butter industry. Without it they would have way less money to traffic sex, buy firearms and proliferate dangerous narcotics.
traffic sex…
TBG ranks bad driving practices from least dangerous to most dangerous….
Speeding
DWO*
DWEWOI**
Cellphone usage/standard DUI (Tie)
Traffic Sex
Texting/Looking up #s on phone/physical altercation with significant other(3 way tie)
*Driving While Oriental
**Driving While Elderly on [the] Interstate
Fools who chose to ignore History are doomed to repeat it.
Check out legalized drugs in China and the USA 1850 to 1930.
Alcohol is a man made drug ? They make big money taxing it, your point ?
With all due respect to your question. I would point out that we already have 2 legal drugs: cigarettes, and as you so rightly pointed out, alcohol.
Now, how has that worked out for the health and welfare of our nation??
I’m afraid your claims concerning China are patently untrue; the Opium trade was aggressively forced upon the Chinese by the western traders, primarily the British.
In his excellent and comprehensive History of China, John Keay, a professional historian, explains, that if the Chinese had legalized the Opium trade, and taxed it, the drain on China’s silver reserves may have been reversed, leading to a strengthening of the Qing Dynasty –also known as the Manchu Dynasty.
In the early 19th century, when opium smoking was gaining popularity in China, the Emperor took counsel from his mandarins. One party argued for taxation and regulation, the other for prohibition. The prohibitionists won, with the result that the profitability on opium sales to China rose over 1000%. The consequence was an unparalleled wave of smuggling, the penetration of opium to every corner of China, a rate of addiction never seen before or after, and ultimately the collapse of the Manchu dynasty into civil war, invasion and famine. Had the Emperor chosen the pragmatic choice of regulation and control, the use of opium in China would never have followed the course it did.
“In my era everybody smoked and everybody drank and there was no drug use.”
—DEA Chief Thomas Constantine, July 1, 1998
“Abusus non tollit sum.” [Abuse is no argument against proper use.]
—Latin proverb
A very nice retort with some interesting facts, unfortunately you left out many key historical facts. Mostly, and I will consolidate for this small space.
The horrible drug addiction in China became rampant far into the 20th Century. Religious leaders from many faiths with workers in China saw the parallel and dangers in the USA. They were the ones that got the USA to take notice and outlaw these drugs. Not until the Chinese Communist, and other nearby countries massively enforced the drug laws by executing: drug dealers, drug users, drug user’s families, even whole neighborhoods where drug users lived; did China finally rid itself of the scourge of drug addiction. Tens of thousands were executed to stop it.
Now we are repeating the exact same mistakes that were being made in the USA from 1850 until just after World War 2.
That’s the rest of the Story.
ELCID,
It is Saturday and TBG is lazy. Also TBG knows a bit more about the history of drug usage in the US than most. (Knowing that they were legal before the ’30s probably puts you in the top 10%, also)
Anyway, if you’ve some time, please make a case that legalized drugs were more destructive to society then , than prohibition is now. Thanks
Thank you for your comment.
Please see my response above. to Mr. Deo Vindice SC
Surely you are not advocating a new prohibition on alcohol? Talk about not learning from history!! prohibition brought usd organised crime as well as the Kennedys, for God’s sake!!!
Certainly not. I enjoy a nice Kentucky Bourbon now and then myself. The point is: we must not allow another drug to be legally sold uncontrolled into the USA. I’ve lost many close family members to Lung Cancer from Cigarettes, and I bet everyone on this blog including you has too. And, alcohol is a major problem for individuals who lack self control, or self medicate. We don’t need a third uncontrolled drug to add to the mix.
Nobody’s talking about legalizing opium, heroine, crack, cocaine, meth, etc. Let’s at least be rational and examine each individual drug on its own merits and not just go with “DRUGZ R BAD FOR U BECAUSE SOMEONE I KNOE DIED OF CRACK ADDICTION” argument.
There is no waste of money. It is real real huge money money in the way the system is now. That is the biggest thing to over come.
““There is room in this state and in this country for decriminalization,” Cobb-Hunter said, as quoted by reporter Corey Hutchins.”
Kudos to you Mrs. Cobb-Hunter!
Secession is the only method states have to combat the tyranny of DC.
If there’s one glaring hypocrisy under the Obama administration, it’s the continued Federal enforcement of the drug laws that clog the systems with thousands of people that have committed victimless crimes(taking/buying/selling illegeal drugs) that take up state resources and displace truly violent offenders.
Obama has admitted to not only being a former big time pot smoker, but having done crack cocaine as well. I don’t say this as a slur against the man, though some will take it this way, I say it because he was just lucky he wasn’t caught or he might have landed his ass in jail just like the hundreds of thousands of other that have and never have ascended to the Presidency.
Instead, he’d have continued to have declined debit cards and probably would have lost his wife with just one conviction…thereby ruining the rest of his life.
Additionally, we all know that the drug laws disproportionately affect minorities.
Sessesion is the wor
Secession is the only method states have to combat the tyranny of DC.
Damn straight.
Additionally, we all know that the drug laws disproportionately affect minorities.
As do laws against theft, murder and rape…..
Gilda Cobb-Hunter AKA Gorrilla Lips needs to shutup..
Racist assholes like you is why South Carolina remains the asshole of the nation. Until we are rid of your kind “last” is all we deserve.
I’ll give you an 5/10 on that rant. Needs more cussing, more than two sentences and more butt hurt comments.
So GC-H doesn’t have gorilla lips? When she talks it looks like someone cut a slab of meat in half and starts slapping the two together.
Of course jerry is a racist asshole – as are many others on this site. BUT you better be careful pointing it out. The little clique that rules this site frowns upon comments such as yours. So tread carefully – if you thought for some reason that Free Speech was protected on this site you are mistaken.
I would take that back, if I were you. You’ve never met Ms. Gilda. I have, and you have offended me and many others. People as yourself are the problem in the USA. Raciest Bastard ! She and many others in SC have heard your BS. She is a fine woman that cares for all of us in SC, proberly even your ignorant ass ! Hope you have no children ?
Bullshit, she’s like any other politician, she cares only about the people who vote for her. Female version of Jim Clyburn.
Let’s see if I have this straight – the guy using the official motto of the Confederacy as his screen name is accusing someone else of racism and he’s not using the $arca$m font.
One way to control the masses while you steal them blind is to drug them into not caring.
Looks like it’s working in Colorado and soon is several other States.
I agree El Cid. Look what a civilized paradise Afghanistan is…peer at the wonders produced by a country of pot heads and opium addicts….just what what we need…more unproductive citizens sitting on their collective asses waiting for another hand out…makes good zombie democrat voters, though…
Throughout the 1980s, in Afghanistan, the CIA supported the Mujahedin rebels (in their efforts against the pro-Soviet government) by facilitating their opium smuggling operations. A small local trade in opium was turned into a major source of supply for the world’s markets, including the United States. Thus Afghanistan become the largest supplier of illicit opium on the planet—a status only briefly interrupted when it was under Taliban control.
“CIA are drug smugglers.”—Federal Judge Bonner, while head of the DEA
For far more detailed information kindly google any of the following:
* The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic by former DEA agent Michael Levine
* Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Gary Webb
* Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
* The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy
* The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Governments Embrace by James Mills
* Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed, (a former Air Force Intelligence operative) and John Cummings (a former prize-winning investigative reporter at N.Y Newsday)
Thank you, looks like our Government is already in the business of controlling the masses with drugs. Sad but true.
Can’t you do the same with booze?
Seems to be working on K Street in Washington, DC.
We are actually experiencing a de facto civl war between the majority (those who embrace reason and function in the real world of cause and effect) and the prohibitionists, who, numbed by their isolation and despair, are seeking meaning in a mythical world that can never, ever, be reality-based. A world of deceit and lies, of blood and corpses—a world of complete social and economic collapse.
Prohibitionists are not only infantile, their insatiable need to inflict suffering on the rest of us and their greed for both money and power is a threat to every single civic institution of our “once proud and free” nation. Their final objective, a drug-free society, toward which all their deceit is directed, is not even obtainable in a single maximum security prison anywhere on this planet.
Prohibitionists claim to be protecting society, but they would gladly destroy every single liberty guaranteed by the Constitution, or even commit murder rather than admit defeat:
“Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.”
—an extract from: The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.
So Cobb Hunter said “we need a bill decriminalizing this”? Or simply as noted above – there is room in this country for decrinialzation? Hardly a nullification manifesto worthy of J Caldwell Calhoun. The only thing interesting in this article was to find out dem’s have a third vice chair – and that there are “news” writers out there desperate enough to quote them. Ugh.
Glenda Cobb-Hunter is apparently smoking something!
Gilda may be a liberal Dim. but her constituent service is second to none. Gotta give that to her. The prison industrial complex and the stupid drug laws for the 80’s have ruined more lives than they have improved. There is now about three generations of younger folks that have criminal records with all the baggage that goes with that who should be leading normal lives but aren’t thanks to “drug enforcement”.I am a conservative Republican to the core but when one form of drug (crack) can get many times more punishment than another form (powdered) that isn’t right. Charge everyone the same or don’t charge anyone. Follow the money- stupid laws = more money for “law enforcement”= more money for courts and judges = more money for the prison industrial complex, Dose anyone besides me see a trend ????? Then there is the scenario of the rich kid that gets caught, goes for “treatment” , rehab, community service, while the poor kid goes straight to jail. Just another day in the “justice system”. But don’t get me started.
Who is the DUMB ASS on this issue? Just read the comments. British proved it was a cash crop and the Kennedy’s understood the money. You want to believe the elected thinks of the citizen first. When are you going to grow up and understand that NO ELECTED OFFICIAL opens their mouth unless there is money connected. Look what would happen (again); it would be made legal then your greed of elected jumps in to find out how it can bring them the most money. It is a new source of money and the elected are salivating to get to it. Grow up and get with the times. The only reason it is not legal is because look at the money that would take out of the law enforcement, lawyers and the court systems. Oh yea, when you look don’t forget about under the table. Any body heard of organize crime. OH DEAR! SHOW ME THE MONEY. Hey dumb ass don’t think the harbor is being dredged deeper for the SC Citizens.