Posted on 08/28/2014 3:24:22 PM PDT by right-wing agnostic
In 2014, voters in Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize marijuana possession within their states. This November, voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia will get the chance to follow suit. Voters in Florida will also decide whether to join the approximately 20 states which allow marijuana possession and use for medicinal purposes. Whatever these states decide, however, marijuana will remain illegal under federal law.
Conservative Republicans often talk about the need to constrain the power of the federal government. On everything from environmental regulation to education policy, Republican officeholders argue that individual states should be able to adopt their own policy priorities, free from federal interference. Yet many of these same people are silent when the question turns to marijuana.
Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to cut off Drug Enforcement Administration funding for raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal. The measure passed with the support of 49 Republicans. This is a significant increase over the last time such a limitation on the DEA had been proposed, when only 28 Republicans supported respecting state choices on medical marijuana, but it still represents less than one-quarter of the GOP caucus. So many Republicans who believe it’s federal overreach when federal law regulates health insurance or power plant emissions think its just fine when the federal government prohibits the possession of a plant, even where authorized under state law.
Some prospective Republican presidential candidates appear to be more supportive of state prerogatives over marijuana policy than are Republican members of Congress.
I am absolutely opposed to decriminalizing marijuana possession or use in Washington DC unless it comes coupled with a piss test for EVERY Congressional lawmaker before EVERY vote.
That's a police power, and police powers are rightly reserved to the States.
Fed shouldn't be involved at all.
/johnny
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
As mentioned in related threads, regardless what FDR's activist justices wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause powers when it decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress's favor in 1942, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce. This is evidenced by the following excerpt from a Supreme Court case opinion.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, not only is agricultural production an example of intrastate commerce, but Constitution-respecting justices had clarified that agricultural production is off limits to the feds.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
So as Thomas Jefferson probably would have put it, federal laws not reasonably justifiable under Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers are, "altogether void, and of no force."
The District of Columbia, however, is not a state. Government 101.
/johnny
They’ve been doing it for at least my entire lifetime (50+ years) and nobody seems to be stopping them. I don’t see where they are authorized to regulate air and water quality either but they’re doing it. You’re going to have a really long list if you want to make one of all the things Congress has no Constitutional authority to regulate but have decided to do so.
For that matter, Congress has no authority to regulate prescription drugs either. Guess what? You can’t get past Step One without FDA approval.
I'll continue to work to put the feds back in the constitutional box they came in.
/johnny
Do you support the states’ prerogative under the Tenth Amendment to set intrastate marijuana policies?
My point was that A) Washington DC is not a state so the 10th amendment does not apply to them and B) As it is also where our federal laws are voted on and judged, I am against ANY person with voting power in our government being allowed to cast a vote while inebriated, whether that be from drugs or alcohol. Therefore I believe in drug testing all congresspeople before each and every vote so citizens can have it on public record which congresspeople were drunk or stoned when they voted on any bill.
“I’ll continue to work to put the feds back in the constitutional box they came in.”
Me too. Because the alternative is just too frigging ugly.
I don’t see where they are authorized to regulate air and water quality either but they’re doing it. You’re going to have a really long list if you want to make one of all the things Congress has no Constitutional authority to regulate but have decided to do so.
Of course that's the case, but when states do exercise their legitimate power under the 10th Amendment, should we not be supportive?
We should. We should!
God that would happen.
/johnny
In general, yes. But I’m talking about DC which is not a state. They have no 10th amendment right.
Now, let me ask a follow-up. If a state (let’s pick Idaho, just for grins) decided to pass a law making punishment of pot possession or use much more severe than federal law, would you respect that state’s right to choose their own course as supported by the 10th amendment or do you only support those who want to weaken anti-drug laws?
I would support ID’s 10th Amendment prerogative in the case you presented, even though I might think it’s an unwise policy.
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