Law-Immigration-Elixirs

Mountebank is defined as follows: 1. A person who sells quack medicines, as from a platform in public places, attracting and influencing an audience by tricks, storytelling, etc. 2. Any charlatan or quack. Synonyms 1. Pitchman. 2. Phony, pretender, fraud. You might encounter a mountebank on a late night TV infomercial explaining how you can lose weight without dieting by taking this nutrition supplement, which is sweeping the entire European continent. If you call the toll-free number and mention the secret password "chump" you will double your order for free! (Just pay additional shipping and handling.) Does that sound familiar? These ads have been great fodder for Saturday Night Live skits and comedians in general. This whole concept of a mountebank originated around 1575. The American version most closely associated with these phenomena is the Medicine Show or Snake Oil Salesman of the 1800s. These hucksters would travel mostly from one county fair to the next selling their "medicine" as part of an entertaining show. The quintessential show would include a couple of "plants," those who were in on the scam. These plants would come forward to try the snake oil when the mountebank asked for volunteers with an ailment that needed curing. They would claim to be cured after a few sips and the crowd would cheer! "We only have a limited supply, folks. Purchase yours now before we run out!" Substantial amounts of money could be made plying this trade. The secret ingredients in snake oil included anything from alcohol to morphine. It did mask the discomfort, but it did not treat the cause of the discomfort. When you ran out of the snake oil, your "cure" ran away too. The rise of empirically based medical studies put an end to these road shows. The first state to pass laws against such conartists was Connecticut. Connecticut passed an antimountebank law against those who lured people into purchasing "unwholesome and oftentimes dangerous drugs" in the early 1920s. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 sought to control the distribution of morphine for only purely medical reasons. If a patient suffered from a list of various ailments; then a doctor could treat them. Barely a month and a half after the passage of this act, The New York Medical Journal reported: "As was expected ... the immediate effects of the Harrison antinarcotic law were seen in the flocking of drug habitues to hospitals and sanatoriums. Sporadic crimes of violence were reported too ... ." The Harrison Act was later replaced by the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. This act sought to classify various drugs with corresponding levels of potential for abuse. The DEA and the FDA control how the drugs are classified on a day to day basis. It is important to note, however, that Congress can and has amended the Controlled Substance Act multiple times. The Arizona governor recently signed a bill, which was written by the state's elected representatives. This bill essentially tries to enforce laws that are the responsibility of the federal government. Because of political posturing our federal elected officials have abdicated this responsibility. If people were streaming over our northern border illegally, would the good people of Montana sit by idly as private property was destroyed and Havre was turned into one of the top 5 places for kidnapping in the world? Would we worry about a member of our community who was shot dead on his ranch by someone who was not here legally? Would we worry more about the rights of that person and his remaining friends and family or would we worry more about alienating the potential voters who were illegally moving in from Canada? George Washington proclaimed (and many have echoed) these sage words, "We are a nation of laws and not a nation of men." Unfortunately this is not the case as of late. The Supreme Court ruled in Raich vs. Gonzalez (Ashcroft) that state medical marijuana laws are illegal as defined by the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. If you want marijuana to be legal petition your elected official to change the law. Allowing each successive executive of our federal branch to pick and choose which laws he will enforce and which laws that his attorney general will ignore is turning our country into a nation of men and not laws. The fatal irony of this reality is that the innocent people who are trying to get into America and live free are trying to escape from countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and others where they are governed by men and not laws. Our system allows for changes. Please work within it, so that we can keep our system of laws. America is not a "Direct Democracy" for some pretty darned good reasons. We have lasted this long due to our system of a representative republic. Let's not lose it out of falling victim to apathy or LIEs. (Rick Dow is a conservative activist who lives in Havre.)