[tpaine]

I agree that Federal rulemaking on this subject is inappropriate, but if Nevada and Louisiana decide they want to allow unrestricted smoking while Utah shoots smokers and confiscates their property, that's the way federalism is supposed to work. Don't like it? Get a majority of your local voters to vote the other way, or start a boycott, or whatever, but don't pretend you are upholding some sacred Constitutional right to blow smoke in my face.
-ccm
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Ever hear of the 14th? Any law that violates our rights to life, liberty, and property, without due process, is unconstitutional.

Obviously, if a law allows Utah to shoot smokers and confiscate their property, we do NOT have due process.
Prohibitory laws, - laws that decree some activities 'illicit' or criminal just because you "get a majority of your local voters" to vote them so, are not based on due process, or on the constititional principles of free republics.
They are based on raw majority rule democratic tyranny.

[ccmay]

Obviously, if a law allows Utah to shoot smokers and confiscate their property, we do NOT have due process.

Actually, if the legal processes of arrest, arraignment, indictment, trial, conviction, and sentencing are conducted in accordance with statute, there is no due process violation.

There might be an appeal under the "cruel and unusual punishment" provisions of the Bill of Rights, in the Eighth Amendment if I recall correctly, but the way jurisprudence in the realm of drug law is developing, I wouldn't bet my life on it.

-ccm