Posted on 07/30/2012 10:38:42 AM PDT by Shout Bits
This November, as many as eight States will have marijuana ballot issues before their voters. Most are medicinal issues, but States like Oregon and Colorado will decide on full legalization. Just as judging the average alcohol drinker by observing gutter drunks is unfounded, most marijuana users are not actually wild smelly Occupy Wall Street hippies (as annoying as they can be). Pollsters estimate that 25 million Americans regularly consume marijuana, and there simply are not enough Rasta cab drivers and jazz fans to fill those ranks. Politically, the tide is turning in favor of recreational marijuana use, but for the 90% of Americans who are not regular partakers, the marijuana issue has more impact than getting high. In fact, the marijuana issue is a test bed for the entirety of the wrongs Washington imposes on the States and the People.
Marijuana has, of course, been proven to be medically benign. Contrary to government propaganda, marijuana does not engender violent or dangerous behavior – unlike tequila. Further, the drug's use does not seem to rise or fall based on its legality. In The Netherlands, where marijuana is more or less legal, its use is less prevalent than in the US, where marijuana is mostly illegal. Dreamers who think states can balance their budgets by taxing marijuana like tobacco or booze will be disappointed as marijuana usage cannot generate a large tax base as do cigarettes and liquor. Those who foresee a fall in crime as the illegal profit is eliminated are also overly optimistic. Until all vices are legal and regulated, cartels will still trade in violence. In short, should marijuana become legal in the US, expect essentially no impact.
Why, then is the marijuana issue relevant? The marijuana issue brings the 10th Amendment, the Commerce Clause, and the Supremacy Clause to a poignant head and is a colorful wedge for those who generally support individual liberty and responsibility. Washington's corruption withers in the light of the marijuana issue.
In Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court held that FDR's multi-year attempt to help farmers by forcing them to farm less acreage than they wanted was constitutional. They held that even if farm produce were grown in a single state with seed, fertilizer, and water from only that state, for consumption intrastate, the Commerce clause allowed Washington to dictate any aspect of that farm's operation because the activities of the farm might affect markets out of state. Nothing had to cross state lines to be regulated as interstate commerce. Fast forward 80 years, and this same logic (under a different name) allows Washington to force individuals to buy a minimum level of healthcare products. For those who think Washington knows best, these rulings are wonderful news, but for the libertarian they invite tyranny.
Regardless of Supreme Court decisions, the plain language and original intent of the Commerce Clause is to ensure that states do not enact trade barriers between themselves. It does not say that commerce may be regulated within a state; it does not say that the commerce of individuals may be regulated. The Commerce Clause puts regulating interstate commerce at the same level as trade with foreign nations and Indian tribes, clearly implying that Washington's role is to facilitate free trade, not to dictate how many acres a farmer may plant. Quite often the plain language reading of a law is truer than the convolutions of talented specialist minds.
FDR outlawed marijuana about the same time as he regulated farmers and under the same Commerce Clause authority (in the form of a tax, if that sounds familiar). Indeed, most of Washington's departures from the Constitution's enumerated powers stem from the abuse of the Commerce Clause. Should a State fully legalize marijuana this November, the very heart of Washington's bloat will be tested. Interestingly, Justice Roberts's horrid logic that Obamacare was illegal under the Commerce Clause but legal as a tax gains traction in such a showdown. Should a State's perfect document, its Constitution, be amended to legalize marijuana, that State would be obligated to take the issue to the Supreme Court unless Washington backs down. The marijuana issue may give libertarians another swipe at the Commerce Clause, a gift given by States broadly in favor of Obamacare.
Can Washington imprison someone for growing a plant in Colorado using Colorado materials, all for Colorado or even personal consumption? Is there any boundary to Washington's power over the States and the People? Is Washington's law supreme over a State's, even when Washington's law is not authorized under the Constitution? Does the 10th Amendment mean anything? Should marijuana be legalized somewhere this November, these questions might be revisited and the tide of Washington's tyranny over its purported masters could be reversed. Even for those who find the herbal libation distasteful, these are good reasons to vote to legalize marijuana.
Shout Bits can be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/ShoutBits
The Second Amendment didn't stop the Assault Weapons Ban, and pronunciations of "reckles endangerment" do not enumerate powers.
The New Deal "substantial effects" interpretation of the Commerce Clause is a very real threat to your RKBA, and you're blind if you can't see that.
“The largest danger it represents is the tendency of others to use it as justification for the legalization of drugs as an acceptable principle.”
Well, that’s the fault of the people who classify it as a drug, isn’t it?
Look 'gunner
Some "conservatives" are just fine with expanding government, militarizing the police, trampling the fourth and tenth amendments and perverting the Commerce Clause so long as it is directed at citizens they disagree with. And you will see a lot of excuses to justify all that too. Not many facts though.
Besides, those same "conservatives" drink wine and beer, so that's different.
Got it?
I’m thinking your guess is wrong.
I am firmly for the pro-drug agenda. Legalize all of it.
Every argument you make sounds to me like the arguments made by the anti-gunners - return to the Wild West, blood in the streets as cartels take over, etc.
For every loss of individual freedom due to the war on drugs, you are to blame.
Interesting idea. We should have a name for that. I propose “republic”.
Be a man, humblegunner, shibumi, and whatever else you call yourself.
You are the same poster under two different screen names, at least. Many know that you do this already, most do not.
Stop posting with multiple screen names on the same thread pushing the same opinion.
Blog Pimp?
If just the possibly of constituting a danger is enough, then we aught to ban alcohol as well. All those six packs sitting in fridges across the US could be ticking time bombs.
More so than you may realize. In my family there has been a long association between tragedy and alcohol. The stuff kills 100,000 people per year, and is in reality more dangerous than is pot. We did try banning it, but humanity has a many thousand year old history with the stuff, and the effort to get rid of it did not reckon with how ingrained it was within some societies.
Be that as it may, Marijuana is not harmless. I know several people who are just worthless slugs because all they want to do is get high. Marijuana seemingly renders some portion of the population useless to themselves and as a result, usually needing the support of society. (As with the pot smokers I know.)
Presumably there are some people who can smoke the stuff AND maintain a functional lifestyle, and for such people as these I see no larger problem for society. However, we make laws that apply to everybody, and we cannot accept the principle that laws should apply to some one way, and to others a different way. The conclusion is, if some significant portion of the population cannot use something responsibly, we either have to ban it for everyone, or somehow license it to people who will not misuse it.
That is the situation in a nutshell.
It's existence made those who supported the ban on semi-automatic firearms pay for their temerity. Second Amendment activists were woke up by that Clinton Era piece of legislation, and as a result turned the Democrats out of Congress, and then proceeded to enact gun carry laws all across the land. They have subsequently pursued protection of gun rights through the courts until we have reached the point where the Highest court itself has issued a decisions solidifying the legal protection for individuals to own and carry firearms. The Second Amendment has attained the highest level of protection for the rights it guarantees for the first time in a hundred years.
The New Deal "substantial effects" interpretation of the Commerce Clause is a very real threat to your RKBA, and you're blind if you can't see that.
I do not disagree with you here. Wickard v. Filburn has emerged as a great threat to freedom in this nation, but excessive misuse of the commerce clause is not a valid issue regarding drug usage. Drugs fall into the catagory of attack upon the nation, and their interdiction is justified under the national defense portion of the U.S. Constitution. Just as we ban nerve gas, biological agents, and fissionable Uranium, so to do we have the right and the authority to ban dangerous substances that constitute a threat to our nations ability to defend itself.
Drugs are dangerous, and if not stopped, they will destroy our Nation, the way Opium destroyed the Nation of China. They constitute a military threat, not an argument about where the commerce powers begin and end.
“Blog Pimp?”
Every once in a while I get this. Yes, I wrote the blog entry and posted it in its entirety to FR. My intent is to get more people to read the blog, but why write one at all if that is not part of the goal? AFAIK, I comply will all the FR guidelines.
I do not apologize at all.
Maybe so, but it has been so classified for most of a 100 years, and now it is simply accepted that it is.
We can do either one, but the question of what we should do is a different question than which division of government is legitimately authorized to do it under the Constitution.
Study shows medical marijuana laws reduce traffic deaths; Leads to lower consumption of alcohol"
Anyone who is perscribed pot should be ineligible to drive, own a gun, operate any machinery (heavy or light), etc.
So should the same apply to alcohol?
I'm thinking that about, say, fifty such regions would be a good number.
Is this too radical a concept for FR these days??
You can SAY you're only lighting your field on fire over on your side of the boundary, but should I object because of the possibility that your fire won't STAY on your side of the boundary?
So do you support the Tenth Amendment authority of states to regulate intrastate mj - yes or no?
“Interesting that these referendums are coming up in Red States, with the exception of Montana. WA, OR, CO, MN, MA and even Detroit will be voting on this. Seems like the Dems are afraid voters will stay home for the next Pres election so they got something else interesting to get the vote out...just like they did with the gay marriage vote in CA during the last Pres election. Wonder what the percentage of pro-legalized cannabis voters are Dems, maybe 85% of them? Who will undoubtedly pull the BHO lever while they are in there getting their weed freak on. :
I think your analysis is generally correct, however, the MJ issue is a perennial in states like CO, CA, and OR. The issues come up even in off year cycles. I think the people working the issue are not aware of the broader political calculus, even though they are probably serving broader Dem goals.
But you forgot your sense of humor, so you are even.
Nothing in the Constitution, or the New Deal interpretation of the Commerce Clause makes that distinction. The standard is the Congress can regulate anything it "finds to have a substantial effect on interstate commerce". That is the basis of their claim of authority to conduct the drug war, and the reality is that the price of accepting that is accepting everything else they do under that claim of authority.
If we want federal government to wage a domestic drug war, then we need to enumerate the power for them to do that.
Not in this case, Sarge. He has posted his entire essay here, and he’s not trolling for hits to his blog.
He has returned to the thread to discuss his essay with us rather than dumping and running.
Definitely not a blog pimp, but a regular contributor to Free Republic.
I do agree with him on this one in that these decisions should be left up to the states. Fedzilla is just too big and too controlling of the small details of our lives, and we need to give them the boot.
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