191–200 of 208 posts
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Was it ever decided?
Yes, sort of. After the end of the war, it was ruled unconstitutional (by SCOTUS), but only applied to 1869 onward. (perhaps meaning it was legal in 1861). The actual ruling is still being debated. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/2056/was-the-sec...
I doubt that prosecutors in liberal states with legal markets (Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada) will clamp down on the industry, in fact under certain conditions I could see them clarifying their stance and perhaps clearing confusion as to how federal law will be enforced. However, I do think that this may halt the spread of the industry into midwest and north east markets.
I think it may already be too established in the midwest for anything like this to threaten the spread of the legal pot industry. I suspect this is a tactic to justify Federally taxing marijuana, and would be consistent with Trump's broader approach of making tax policy tweaks that hit the bluest states and regions the hardest.
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The doctrine of States' rights is presupposes federal supremacy and a legalistic viewpoint. Marijuana can't be a State's rights issue because it's a federal issue. This is why you often hear the states' rights advocates call for a smaller federal government - states rights can only flourish without the shadow of federal jurisdiction. Right now marijuana is illegal federally - all States' rights proponents acknowledge…
> Thankfully, Sessions is legalistic. If congress got off their butts and legalized it/returned the legality decisions to the state, Sessions would surely respect their decision. This is a bit like saying "Thankfully, the black hole hurtling toward us is influenced by gravity, so all we need to do is move a star into its path and it will be flung off course." The fact that a terrible situation could theoretically be…
That you'd rather argue about the degree of failure that's acceptable contributes towards the perpetual failure.
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The doctrine of States' rights is presupposes federal supremacy and a legalistic viewpoint. Marijuana can't be a State's rights issue because it's a federal issue. This is why you often hear the states' rights advocates call for a smaller federal government - states rights can only flourish without the shadow of federal jurisdiction. Right now marijuana is illegal federally - all States' rights proponents acknowledge…
Vouched for your dead comment. I believe you're shadowbanned, but I personally don't see a problem with the stuff you've written...
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> There are so many laws on the books, many of them horribly outdated, and legislatures are overworked / grid locked. Often, the only way for us to have a working body of law that makes sense is for the government to simply stop enforcing the outdated ones. Normalising this is a dangerous precedent. It leads to the situation where every citizen is technically a criminal according to the letter of the law, but it's no…
> Normalising this is a dangerous precedent Not really, and even if so, we are a few centuries too late to do anything about it. Having unenforceable laws in a necessity of how the legal system works. If a law is ruled to be unconstitutional it does not magically get removed from the books. That requires legislative action, but why waste time in the legislature on something with no practical effect?
The minors on trial for sex crimes for sending nude pictures of themselves, as well as innovative business being stifled buy outdated protectionist regulations, may also have something to say about it.
Outdated, unreasonable, misinterpreted, and in some cases know unconstitutional laws, can be used as tools to attack and harass.
The fact the Constitutional action is not being taken to remove these laws and regulations from the books is not an argument for them to continue existing, but rather an argument for the need to change how the government operates in regards to updating and clarifying the law.
I think weed should be legal. I also think Sessions should enforce every law, lest he pick and choose what is illegal and what is not, thus becoming the most powerful law-maker ( or unmaker ) in the land. Passing a law is the act of the legislative, and repealing a law is too. If he does not enforce all the laws, he basically is seizing the power of congress and repealing those laws, for his term. Imagine Sessions ch…
BUT, in the last ten years, we have seen same-sex marriage go from "cops looking the other way" to legitimate laws in many states (37) to a SCOTUS ruling which overturned the ban.
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/same-sex-marriage-civil-un...
And thanks to Obama and the State of Colorado, we have evidence - albeit subject to interpretation - instead of Summer of Love / Reefer Madness conjectures.
At the very least, the Congress should consider amending the meaning of Schedule I to distinguish marijuana from heroin -- a phrase similar to "toxic in large doses." IOW, the danger posed by a drug should have weight in its scheduling.
Schedule I - drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
> as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal I am for the legalizing of marijuana, but considering the majority of Americans live in only 9 of the states, decisions should not be made based on the "majority". Federal law based on what the majority wanted was one of the things that the framers were afraid of. 9 states should not be able to dictate what occurs in the other 41 states an…
>Federal law based on what the majority wanted was one of the things that the framers were afraid of. Some framers were afraid of like Jefferson. Hamilton and Washington were federalists and favored a strong central government. I personally like state power over federal. If your state sucks, you always have the option to move to another state. That's a pretty fantastic option. Of course it has it's problems too. The…
Its really simple, if you don't understand this, you need to question your own logic. Basically the Marijuana issue should be a state decision, not dictated by the Fed Govt. What don't you understand here?
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Why just marijuana? Why not every drug? In fact, why is possession of anything a crime? We already have laws about improper storage of hazardous materials. Possession of anything should be legal. Now distribution and sale is a trickier subject but pretty easy as well. As long as you don't misrepresent what you're selling, it should be legal as well. If we are for a small government, we have to walk the walk.
> In fact, why is possession of anything a crime? Child pornography. Do you want possession to not be a crime? This is one of the most fascinating cases since it is one of the core limitations of free speech. Richard Stallman actually has some very interesting and very controversial arguments about this in regards to speech.
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That's not how this works. The court operates under the rule of stare decsis which would already make this a tough hill to climb. Even more, the line of reasoning in the decision agreeing to federal restriction of in-state marijuana sales goes all the way back to the great depression and is really unlikely to be overturned in just over a decade since it was decided last time.
> the court operates under the rule of stare decsis Yes and no. If you have a decision on one set of facts made on one basis just come up with another set of facts and another basis where you can get a opposing result without necessary logical conflict and you are all good. The rat's nest of federal law and prior opinions makes this trivial, so at the end of the day, all legal opinions are arbitrary, and the only act…
Even if they also raise the Constitutional argument, a Court that fears public opinion as much as you suggest would likely take the less precedent-disturbing approach to the popular result by resting a decision on Rohrabacher-Farr (even if that took a somewhat expansive interpretation of that prohibition on DoJ use of funds) rather than overturning Gonzalez v. Raich.
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Correct, and in specific, the supremacy clause of the constitution guarantees that federal law overrules state law. I don't see any state AG's having much luck suing the DoJ against this as it is clear as mud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause
That's only half the picture. There's also the 10th Amendment, which says that powers not delegated to the feds belong to the states or the people. Federal drug laws rely on the interstate commerce power, even though they also regulate conduct that is sometimes purely intrastate and/or purely non-commercial. The most natural reading of the Constitution is that the feds have no authority here. The Supreme Court disagr…
It probably didn't; the Wartime Prohibition Act was passed before the 18th Amendment was ratified and generally viewed not to require the amendment; this was never tested because by the time it went into effect, the amendment had been ratified.
The Amendment made prohibition a permanent policy as long as it wasn't repealed—which at that point was unprecedented—and was considered valuable for that reason.