Posted on 06/18/2010 5:47:00 AM PDT by marktwain
Oregon's 32,929 medical marijuana users can't be denied concealed handgun licenses, despite the efforts of at least two sheriffs who want to keep concealed weapons out of those hands.
The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled this week that Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon and Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters were mistaken in their interpretation of the federal Gun Control Act. The act states that "an unlawful user ... of any controlled substance" can't own a gun, and the sheriffs contended the federal act trumps Oregon's medical marijuana law. Though federal law prohibits marijuana, Oregon's 12-year-old law legalizes pot possession for patients with qualifying ailments and a doctor's approval.
10 0 19Share Leland Berger, who represented four medical marijuana users who were denied concealed handgun licenses, was relieved by the Court of Appeals decision. He sees the sheriffs' denial of licenses as discrimination against patients who use cannabis to treat debilitating health problems -- including cancer, glaucoma, seizures, nausea and severe pain.
"They are opposed to the law generally, and this is how they express their opposition to the law," Berger said, adding that fighting the cases was expensive for the counties. "The downside is it's a huge waste of taxpayer resources."
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
"Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a case in which the United States
Supreme Court ruled on June 6, 2005 that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which allows the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce... among the several States," Congress may ban home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes."
Question - would a potsmoker remember where he’d last left his gun?
A non-issue. Do we enforce the 10th Amendment, or do we kowtow to an all powerful federal government? If Oregon wants to allow people to use pot for medical purposes, let them, and see how it works out.
“They are opposed to the law generally, and this is how they express their opposition to the law,” Berger said, adding that fighting the cases was expensive for the counties. “The downside is it’s a huge waste of taxpayer resources.”
Well, gee, they’re suing in the courts, aren’t they? It sounds like they’re engaged in the law and legal issues.
If the taxpayers don’t like spending all that money to oppose these suits, maybe they shouldn’t oppose them?
Walk though a Kingston, Jamaica slum and see.
I think the more important question here is the form 4473 question about being addicted to alcohol or marijuana. How could a marijuana user (regardless of legality) be permitted to purchase a firearm if they answer that question in the affirmative? If you answered in the negative but used pot for medicinal purposes, wouldn’t that be considered perjury?
I’m not sure what to think about this one.???
On the one hand they’re stoners and inclined as stoners.
on the other, what’s the difference if they’re smoking dope legally or illegally?
“addicted” might be the key word...
I know you’ve said you’ve had experience,
so maybe you can tell us. Can one really be physically (not psychologically) addicted to marijuana?
No it wouldn’t be perjury if you weren’t addicted. In fact one could make a compelling legal arguement that medical science has demonstrated that marijauna is not a physcially addictive substance.
There are no markers for physical addiction to marijuana. One can become psychologically addicted to it, however. Having been a pot smoker up until 10 weeks ago, I can say that I was psychologically addicted to it, but it’s definitely not as bad as the “thirst” for another drink.
Being an alcoholic and understanding my lifelong battle with addiction, I don’t use either anymore, so I can safely assert that I’m not addicted to either. I take your point though.
Agreed. I suppose “addicted” is the keyword here.
There is a HUGE difference between using a substance, and being addicted/dependant on or abusing that same substance.
I always chuckled when I filled it out since “addicted” is a subjective term. I know a lot of alcoholics who are in denial and would say that they’re not addicted.
The substantial effects test is easily manipulated for another reason. This Court has never held that Congress can regulate noneconomic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. Morrison, 529 U.S., at 613 (“[T]hus far in our Nation’s history our cases have upheld Commerce Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where that activity is economic in nature” (emphasis added)); Lopez, supra, at 560. To evade even that modest restriction on federal power, the majority defines economic activity in the broadest possible terms as the “ ‘the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities.’ ”7 Ante, at 23 (quoting Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 720 (1966) (hereinafter Webster’s 3d). This carves out a vast swath of activities that are subject to federal regulation. See ante, at 8—9 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison’s assurance to the people of New York that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined,” while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.” The Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison).
Moreover, even a Court interested more in the modern than the original understanding of the Constitution ought to resolve cases based on the meaning of words that are actually in the document. Congress is authorized to regulate “Commerce,” and respondents’ conduct does not qualify under any definition of that term.8 The majority’s opinion only illustrates the steady drift away from the text of the Commerce Clause. There is an inexorable expansion from “ ‘commerce,’ ” ante, at 1, to “commercial” and “economic” activity, ante, at 20, and finally to all “production, distribution, and consumption” of goods or services for which there is an “established … interstate market,” ante, at 23. Federal power expands, but never contracts, with each new locution. The majority is not interpreting the Commerce Clause, but rewriting it.
The majority’s rewriting of the Commerce Clause seems to be rooted in the belief that, unless the Commerce Clause covers the entire web of human activity, Congress will be left powerless to regulate the national economy effectively. Ante, at 15—16; Lopez, 514 U.S., at 573—574 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The interconnectedness of economic activity is not a modern phenomenon unfamiliar to the Framers. Id., at 590—593 (Thomas, J., concurring); Letter from J. Madison to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 3 The Founders’ Constitution 259—260 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). Moreover, the Framers understood what the majority does not appear to fully appreciate: There is a danger to concentrating too much, as well as too little, power in the Federal Government. This Court has carefully avoided stripping Congress of its ability to regulate interstate commerce, but it has casually allowed the Federal Government to strip States of their ability to regulate intrastate commerce–not to mention a host of local activities, like mere drug possession, that are not commercial.
One searches the Court’s opinion in vain for any hint of what aspect of American life is reserved to the States. Yet this Court knows that “ ‘[t]he Constitution created a Federal Government of limited powers.’ ” New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 155 (1992) (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457 (1991)). That is why today’s decision will add no measure of stability to our Commerce Clause jurisprudence: This Court is willing neither to enforce limits on federal power, nor to declare the Tenth Amendment a dead letter. If stability is possible, it is only by discarding the stand-alone substantial effects test and revisiting our definition of “Commerce among the several States.” Congress may regulate interstate commerce–not things that affect it, even when summed together, unless truly “necessary and proper” to regulating interstate commerce.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
I Respondents’ local cultivation and consumption of marijuana is not “Commerce … among the several States.” U.S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3. By holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempt to enforce the Constitution’s limits on federal power. The majority supports this conclusion by invoking, without explanation, the Necessary and Proper Clause. Regulating respondents’ conduct, however, is not “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” Congress’ restrictions on the interstate drug trade. Art. I, §8, cl. 18.
Thus, neither the Commerce Clause nor the Necessary and Proper Clause grants Congress the power to regulate respondents’ conduct.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1454.ZD1.html
President Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted to bring all sorts of business activity under the federal government’s control, in an honest but unsuccessful attempt at ending the Great Depression. As Roosevelt appointees to the Supreme Court became the majority, the definition of “interstate commerce” became increasingly broad. What is often considered the high point of this view was a 1942 case involving a farmer named Filburn who was growing wheat: some for sale; some to feed his livestock; some to make bread for his own consumption. Filburn was threatened with a fine for growing more wheat than the government had decided was appropriate; the federal government’s marketing program tried to keep total wheat production down, in the hopes of driving wheat prices up. (If you try to work out that same cozy deal with your competitors, it is a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act; see you in court.)
The Court decided that even if Filburn’s wheat never crossed state lines—indeed, never even left his farm—he was engaged in interstate commerce. Home-grown and consumed wheat, at the time, appears to have been a significant part of the national wheat crop, and the Court argued that Filburn’s “own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.”7
If you don’t see how broadly this defines interstate commerce, consider the well that I just had drilled for my new house. As a result of having my own very pure water supply, I will probably reduce my purchases of Brita water filters and bottled water. To the extent that I have withdrawn my purchases from the interstate market for these goods, my decision to drill a well has affected interstate commerce. If Congress wanted to regulate my decision to drill a well in southern Idaho based on the “interstate commerce” clause, it would make just as much sense as the decision involving Filburn’s wheat, grown on his own farm, ground into flour, and baked into bread for his own consumption.
In the last few years, the Supreme Court has taken a new look at this broad notion of interstate commerce. In U.S. v. Lopez (1995), the Supreme Court struck down a conviction under the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 because the carrying of a gun to school did not “substantially affect” interstate commerce.8 Similarly, the Court struck down a federal law that allowed for civil suits for violence against women, arguing that the violent crimes in question did not “substantially affect” interstate commerce.9 This insistence that the Commerce clause means something is good; I’ve seen gun control advocates argue that the federal government has the authority to completely prohibit possession of handguns, on the theory that the metals used to make them, or the ore from which that metal was smelted, or the coal used to smelt that ore, must, at some point, have crossed state lines.
Now, back to Gonzales v. Raich, the medical marijuana case. We ended up with an interesting split: six justices agreed that the federal marijuana law applies to the defendants—because the defendants’ personal growing and use of marijuana, entirely within California, affects interstate commerce. Interestingly enough, it was the five most liberal members of the Court, plus Justice Scalia, who took this position—and dashed the hopes of potheads across America. Justices O’Connor, Thomas, and Rehnquist wrote dissenting opinions, of which Justice Thomas’s opening paragraph really captures the absurdity of this reading of the commerce clause: “Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.” As I said at the beginning of this essay, you don’t have to be interested in the question of marijuana to be concerned about this decision. The liberal wing of the Court looked at where following Lopez and Morrison would take future decisions about the commerce clause—and recognized that an astonishing amount of federal regulation would almost certainly fall, if the federal government lost this case. It would unleash a storm of suits challenging whether the federal laws prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations, protecting the environment—and many of the gun control laws—really were constitutional under the commerce clause.
Certainly, many of these laws would still be applicable. The Atlanta motel that refused to rent to blacks, and was the case that upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was clearly engaged in interstate commerce. It advertised in national magazines, and three-quarters of its business was from out of state.10 There might be legitimate argument, however, about whether some much more local businesses that discriminate are actually engaged in interstate commerce. Of more interest to gun owners, what about someone who makes a machine gun from scratch, and does not sell it? Does his action “substantially affect” interstate commerce? You can see why the left wing of the Court had no choice but to uphold the federal government’s authority to punish sick people growing and using marijuana for personal use. Watch carefully how the Supreme Court handles not only your rights, but also how it handles larger issues of the limits of governmental power. It may not be your ox being gored this month, but overreaching power seldom stops with the death of one animal.
http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/DrugsGunsAndMoney.htm
Question 5e on Form 4473 is more broad than "addicted."
e. Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
One might argue the meaning of "unlawful user," if the issue was purchase of a firearm.
This case, though, is not about purchase of or possession of a firearm. It is about obtaining a permit to carry concealed. The court's logic is that a person can have the permit, but no gun. The decision is a completely hollow "victory" of state law over federal law.
Thank you for the language. I was looking for that but could not find it.
Yes, the unlawful user section was what I was contemplating since marijuana is illegal, simply using it, even for medicinal purposes, would technically disallow someone from answering in the negative.
Most people are not limited to purchasing a gun from a federally licensed dealer.
“President Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted to bring all sorts of business activity under the federal government’s control, in an honest but unsuccessful attempt at ending the Great Depression.”
I do not believe it was an honest attempt. Roosevelt campaigned on a limited government platform. He had thousands of economists tell him that his ideas would prolong what was then a recession. He and his “progressive” buddies wanted power. They wanted to play god with the country. They caused untold, needless suffering, and they did most of it because they had no honor and ruled through the use of lies.
I think it was along the lines of this...
http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/docs/The_Revolution_Was.html
IOW, I agree.
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