Yes sir, it was a politically smart thing to say. For the next few weeks that’s all that matters.
(from the article)
“Ryan said that the federal government shouldn’t interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana.
“Ryan told KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn’t approve of medical marijuana laws. But he said that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.
“Ryan said the issue would not be a priority for a Mitt Romney administration.”
From some of the thoughts expressed here, you’d think he had proposed putting road-kill hobos in school lunches.
Ryan’s position is his affirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent in ‘US vs Raich’. It merely allows states to act as a test laboratory for such things, set apart from the Commerce Clause. Anyone screaming about medical marijuana clinics should be equally against states like Idaho declaring that in-state manufactured firearms are exempt from Federal taxation or prohibition. This all came out of ‘DC vs Heller’.
Recently, Raich took hits in the US Supreme Court contrasting to how SCOTUS ruled in previous years in remanding ‘US vs Stewart’ back down to the 9th Circuit Court in light of Raich, for instance. The whole thing needs to be revisited because much of what the case law against medical marijuana and private ownership of machine guns were founded upon would likely lose in front of this high court should they be argued again soon.
Conservatives just can’t pick and choose from a smorgasbord of Constitutional values and stay consistent, such as calling on limited government that only has the bare minimum prescribed powers, yet is powerful enough to send swarms of agents against cultivators of illicit shrubbery, even through the use of insidious airborne biological agents as one berserk poster in this thread wishes to do. How do sane people reconcile such nonsense?
Has Drudge picked up on it yet?