A few years ago I was leaving home for work one morning when I was four young boys about 9 to 13 year old walking up my street. They were picking up rocks and throwing them at parked cars.

I confronted the kids and one of the smaller kids held a big rock up in the air and walked toward my as I sat in the van. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the kid and let him know I was calling the cops.

They dropped their rocks and ran. I followed them until they cut across the schoolyard. The cops called me back and asked where they were but did not catch them. I am talking 9-year-old kids probably from Mexico.

They could have stoned me to death.

If they thought I had a gun they would have run!
Luckily the cell phone did the job.

They are getting more ruthless…
If guns are outlawed I will get one!

Although you give the Left too much credit for understanding, your first argument is the strongest, “we finally have a state-rights issue that the Left can, must and will understand and fight to preserve.” Your second with regard to tabacco smoking really requires someone to stay in your echo chamber for awhile, “Legalized pot MIGHT force some on the Left to face their hypocrisies, like their confusion on property rights and freedom of association.”

In addition to states-rights, Amendment 64 goes further “permitting local governments to regulate or prohibit such facilities”. Also, you ask “Will the state heap wild sin taxes on pot and spend that money in ways that have nothing to do it?”, but it’s not clear in your article that indeed the first $40 million in revenue raised annually by such tax be credited to the public school capital construction assistance fund.

I’ve posted several articles, including this comment, on http://libertarianpartyplatform.net where I’ve recently focused the site entirely on this topic. You might also appreciated articles on http://libertarianpartyplatform.org

see libertarianpartyplatform.net/2012/11/reasons-to-get-high%e2%80%a6-no-really-from-jon-caldara/

i urge you to re-read the text of the tenth amendment, and then tell me what amendment in the constitution gives the federal government the power to enforce prohibition on ANY substance. why did alcohol require a constitutional amendment? how do you justify your limited government stance, while you support a huge government apparatus, created to enforce a laws the feds have no true power to create or enforce? the tenth amendment does not mean that states don’t have to codify or enforce any government statue, as you seem to think. rather, its true, and forgotten meaning is that the federal government in not allowed to enact these laws AT ALL. end of story. the federal government is not allowed to wield any power not specifically delegated to it by the constitution. of course that is not reality.