Posted on 06/08/2005 6:54:42 PM PDT by Crackingham
The Hemp Evolution website (hempevolution.org) is in red- alert mode in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday upholding the right of the federal government to prosecute users of medicinal marijuana.
"The Supreme Court rules against the sick," is one of the milder headlines on just one of the Internet websites dedicated to promoting the wondrous benefits to be obtained by smoking marijuana.
A close reading of some of the latest mainstream media dispatches indicates that users of medicinal marijuana, now permitted in 10 states including Colorado, don't really have much to fear from the court's decision. Authorities in all of these states have rushed to the camera to announce that they have no intention of sending out search parties to find small stashes of marijuana.
Indeed, the five-justice majority opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens virtually sides with those who think state authorities should now ignore the court's ruling. Stevens writes:
"This case is made difficult by respondents' strong arguments that they will suffer irreparable harm because, despite a congressional finding to the contrary, marijuana does have valid therapeutic purposes. The question before us, however, is not whether it is wise to enforce the statute in these circumstances; rather it is whether Congress' power to regulate interstate markets for medicinal substances encompasses the portions of those markets that are supplied with drugs produced and consumed locally. Well-settled law controls our answer."
That passage suggests that if state and federal authorities wish to look the other way at future violations, it will be OK with the court.
It is also interesting that Clarence Thomas, who dissented from the decision, has suddenly become the darling of the pro-marijuana crowd. Thomas said that if the federal government can regulate home-grown medicinal marijuana, it can regulate "quilting bees, clothes sales, and potluck suppers."
Those planning a potluck supper need not panic. Nor is it likely that Congress will do what the pro-marijuana lobby would like it to do, which is carve out a medical exception to the drug laws.
The reason for this congressional reluctance is not hard to determine. The fact is, as Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in a concurring opinion Monday, it's hard to tell the difference between marijuana intended for intrastate use from that intended for interstate use.
"Not only is it impossible to distinguish 'controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate' from 'controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate' but it hardly makes sense to speak in such terms," he said. "As the court explains, marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal use is never more than an instant from the interstate market and this is so whether or not the possession is for medicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular state." Critics of the majority decision have decried the fact that the court has again turned its back on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states and its people. But in jumping to the conclusion that the Tenth Amendment is officially dead, they must ignore the impact of a number of prior Supreme Court cases that ultimately controlled the outcome in this case.
It sure isn't. LEO's depend on the arrests, and fines, court costs, etc. that follow, as a major part of their operating budgets. If MJ became legal, it would cut their budgets.
Once again over stepping bounds one law at a time.
Typical legal understatement. In fact it is impossible.
As was plainly proven when the "initiative" was passed in California, through misrepresentation, the dopeheads plainly celebrating the following day with broad grins on their faces looked healthier than I am. Medical marijuana is a scam to create a gray area for druggies, pure and simple.
Little wide of the mark. Raisch was not an attack on the 10th Amendment, it was a placeholder in an ongoing erosion of it that has been going on since 1939.
SO F'NG WHAT?!!!
Let the "dopeheads" stone themselves into oblivion. What do YOU care ? You don't care that hundreds of thousands of Americans are addicted to Alcohol and "legal" pain meds and causing untold criminal, social and economic harm ? We aren't rushing to BAN alcohol and pain drugs!
But lets spend millions in MY tax dollars on the hunt for MJ while we have a War on Terror and open borders going on.
Yes,and Oh MY God, some poor dying patient or sick person with MS or other chronic pain may smoke a joint to get relief.....Oh My god....let's rush right out and really make sure they can't get any MJ because
(get ready .... here's why.....)
"some dopehead may have a grin on their face ."
This is no different than Baker v Carr.
It is unwarranted federal interference into the internal affairs of an individual state.
It is not the job of federal bureaucrats to micromanage every single aspect of life within the individual states
Follow the Money ....sell out our Constitution for a few bucks and some easy, lazy jobs.
That is a clear abuse of the interstate commerce clause. As Clarence Thomas points out in his dissent (whatever happened to "Scalia Dissents"), if the interstate commerce clause permits the federal government to override state law and arrest people for growing something for their own consumption in their own house, then the concept of enumerated powers in the Constitution mean nothing.
This is a clear example of the difference between Scalia and Thomas. Scalia is much more willing to bow to precedent, even if the precedent (in this case, abuse of the interstate commerce clause) is wrong. Thomas believes that if the precedent is wrong, it should be disregarded.
As Thomas points out, what is there that does not meet this same criteria? What is there that is more than an instant away from the interstate market? Chewing gum? Earthworms? I challenge anyone who supports the court's decision to name any substance or activity whatever that can be excluded from federal control.
If the time came that I would need pot to relieve chronic pain, nothing the courts said would stop me. To deny patients the very thing that would ease their suffering is inhumane.
That's pretty much where the Roosevelt court started its broad expansion of the Commerce Clause, as I recall, except they were dealing with wheat, rather than pot.
As intact as it was before, which is to say dead and buried, right where it's been since April 1865
Uh, and they say they are Christians? I ask, "What would Jesus do ?"
And Budhha said," We are to alleviate needless suffering."
I'm waiting for the first Supoena to a dying patient handed to his hospice worker. Let the cameras role! and this from the same compassionate people who railed about Schiavo. I give up.
Don't give up. It may feel hopeless and unwinable most of the time, but we can't give up...that's what they want us to do.
Spoken like someone who doesn't have a loved one in great need.
"Rights are a scam for those who would abuse them" is no excuse for taking them away from those who don't abuse them.
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