Posted on 06/06/2005 7:16:18 AM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
I should have known it would be the Commerce Clause. And they quote one of the worst Supreme Court cases ever. Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio who grew more wheat than he was permitted to under FDR's rules. He argued that he used the wheat to feed animals on his farm and wasn't covered by the commerce clause.
If I was able to sneak into the national archives with a quill pen and a bottle of white out, the top changes I would make to the Constitution would be:
1. Remove the commerce clause.
2. Eliminate the 16th amendment.
3. Remove the militia clause from the 2nd amendment. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
4. Eliminate the 17th amendment. States controlling their senators would provide more protection to the states than directly elected senators.
I hope I am reading this decision correctly but it seems once again that liberal activist justices RULE......States RIGHTS are further diminished to a point that makes the 10th Amendment null and void.
The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug’s use to treat various illnesses.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.
Bush administration had appealed The closely watched case was an appeal by the Bush administration in a case that it lost in late 2003. At issue was whether the prosecution of medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act was constitutional.
O'Connor backs states In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that states should be allowed to set their own rules.
“The states’ core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,” said O’Connor, who was joined by other states’ rights advocates.
I am very disappointed to hear this, there are a lot of people especially those suffering from aids and cancer who find great physical and mental comfort from marijuana, it's a pity the supreme court has no compassion, I'm betting if one of their friends/relatives use this drug for medicinal purposes the ruling would have been different.
Nothing short of a revolution (bloodless or otherwise) will bring that about. Sometimes I wonder if, by electing Republicans, we're just prolonging the agony. If the liberals got control of everything, surely the revolution would happen sooner.
It seems often we're angry when the court declares the laws created by congress, and supported by the american people to be unconstitutional. We say the court is legislating from the bench. This time the court has upheld laws created by congress, and supported by the majority of the american people, and we're still angry??
Of course! Think of all the jobs that will be created.
They likely based it on a reasonable reading of the commerce clause. The commerce clause is subject to being abused, and in my opinion often has been abused in the past to extend federal power over matters clearly beyond any reasonable interpretation of its reach.
It is also my opinion, and apparently an opinion shared by a majority of the court, that it is not an overbroad interpretation of the commerce clause to read it as giving Congress the power to regulate or prohibit the sale or use of marijuana.
Now please note this well: This decision does NOT mean the pro-pot voices have lost the war. It merely means they will have to continue the fight in CONGRESS, and not in the federal courts.
Alternatively, they could try to amend the commerce clause to disempower Congress from legislating in such cases.
The pot heads still have all sorts of options. You should not look to the federal courts for salvation to practice their favorite vice. Debate and persuade, elect and remove. If the facts really are on the pot heads' side, they should win in a walk whether via legislation or by amendment.
That is always the best way in a Republic. That is how it is designed to operate.
Not just any court case. It was Wickard v. Filburn, which the current case used as precedent. FDR's cowed Supreme Court reaches up from the grave and slaps us again.
The farmer in question, Wilburn, made a choice to sign up for the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which among other things, paid farmers to only grow certain amounts of crops and livestock.
Like was stated on an earlier thread, you can't have the bacon without the squeal. It was not a good case, but noone put a gun to Wilburn's head and made him sign up in federal government's agricultural program. If he had not, he could have grown all the wheat he wanted and the Feds could not have done a darn thing about it.
What exactly makes the "jillions" of painkillers, many of which are extremely powerful, have numerous adverse side effects, and are highly addictive, better then medical marijuana, except that the put money into pharmaceutical companies, their lobbyists, and the politicians they buy?
...I hope that the DoJ uses its good judgment in this area...
I'm sure they can't wait to beat down the doors of some wheelchair bound MS patients and burn some cancer hospices.
What a terrible headline. The SC has done the exact opposite of siding with the States. Instead it has taken yet another step in allocating every last bit of power to the federal government.
Just another sign that there's nobody left to fight for States' Rights I suppose.
The federal drug laws have never done so. Hysterical rascist (at the time, early 1900's -- the KKK was redux and ascendant the drug laws were viewed as needed to control the wastrel and violent negro.)
The Federal drug laws are unConstitutional Legislative overreach.
O'Connor wrote the dissenting opinion. Who are the other 2? Scalia? Thomas?
Pot heads? Do you call advocates of religious freedom for for Mormons "Mormon heads?"
Eliminate every Amendment after the 15th.
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