Am I wrong in reading that as Thomas suggesting he supports the removal of federal marijuana laws?
He has always been pretty anti-drug, but I can’t interpret his objection otherwise.
As fas I am concern Justice Thomas and Justice Altio are the only 2 Supreme Court justices that are following the Constitution.
Thomas and Alito carryon in the tradition of Scalia, while the other “Conservatives” defer to the federal executive and lower courts too often. denying to rule on issues that cry out for clarity from the court, while Roberts is a total waste.
“In 2009 and 2013, the Department of Justice issued memorandums outlining a policy against intruding on state legalization schemes or prosecuting certain individuals who comply with state law.”
That should be worth as much as Obama’s DACA - zilch.
The executive branch should faithfully enforce the constitutional laws passed by Congress.
I strongly suspect federal marijuana legalization bills have been typed up and tossed into the House & Senate hoppers.
Any case that shows Congress has exceeded its bounds on interstate commerce by declaring everything under the sun as "interstate commerce" when it really isn't has a chance to reign in Congress' abusive power bigly. For instance, we all know the Roberts' SCOTUS allowed Obamacare with the individual mandate to slide because the mandate was "just a tax". But without the mandate, the other issue is that Congress can't tell us what we have to buy or can't buy without calling health insurance an interstate commerce -- which they describe because the Affordable Care Act mandates that we all be allowed to buy insurance from companies in other states. So when Obamacare was being taken to court one of the arguments the libs were making for it was it's an interstate commerce and therefore within Congress' purview.
And that's just Obamacare. We could go on and on with other slight of hands to label anything Congress wants as "interstate commerce" to let them slide by the 10th Amendment's "not delegated" clause that protects us from Congressional overreach.
“A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government’s piecemeal approach,” he wrote.
Thomas said the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2005 upholding federal laws making marijuana possession illegal may now be out of date.
“Federal policies of the past 16 years have greatly undermined its reasoning,” he said. “The federal government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”
Thirty-six states now allow medical marijuana, and 18 also allow recreational use. But federal tax law does not allow marijuana businesses to deduct their business expenses.