SCOTUS decision in Raich is out.

The ruling does not strike down California's law, or similar ones in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. However, it may hurt efforts to pass laws in other states because the federal government's prosecution authority trumps states' wishes.
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Now, we all know the emphasized part to be the case. But how's that for a bit of NewSpeak. "The States are still Sovereign; except when the Federal Government disagrees."

Answer:
"Your legal activity in California is illegal in the United States. But don't worry, we won't enforce it."
Rich
 
It really is disheartening. I've always thought 'If only a case like this could get to the Supreme Court, they would do the right thing and put an end to this federal policing power...' I guess I was way off base thinking this. Too much policy tied up in the decision.

I wonder, since this court doesn't want to touch the 2A, but will overturn GFSZA, yet won't touch drugs... would a court packed with liberals have allowed the marijuana but then turned around and legalized every federal gun-grabbing attempt?

Scary either way, but the tides may turn eventually.
 
The new version of the GFSZA baiscally cut highway funding for states that did not ban students from carrying guns in the school zones. It is still legal to allow, say, licensed adults to carry guns in them or such.

Cutting highway funding for states in case they refuse to do X or Y is not considered a violation of the 10th Amendment by the courts, and in fact states often refuse said funding if they want to do the thing the FedGov doesn't like. For example, note seatbelt laws in NH.
 
Again, the Court brings up the feasibly of the Medical Necessity defense. Lord. It first mentioned that in the Oakland Cannibas Buyers Coop case in the '90s, and for some reason everyone pinned their hopes on it. Then Morrison confirmed the viability of Lopez (so we thought), and we ran with the Commerce Clause argument.

Dammit, it's a GOOD argument!

She grew it at home, smoked it at home, and never sold nor intended to sell a gram of it, yet because it's possibly a fungible item, the Wickard standard prevails.

Nevermind that Filburn actually DID barter some of his ill-grown wheat, that he was in fact a wheat farmer, who did in fact make his livelyhood off of that particular commidity that the Government was trying to prop up the prices of! Frankly, the Fed had a case (a weak one) with Wickard. But the dadgummed Aggragetion Principle ("think of the impact to the economy if EVERYONE did it!") just doesn't frickin' apply when the activity at bar is NOT economic, doesn't involve a person in that economy, and there is no "stream of commerce" (Swift)!

I may just work myself into a rant, here.

Damn, I'm furious.

And I still have to turn in a brief on this crap, from Raich's side, by August. :mad:
 
But the dadgummed Aggragetion Principle ("think of the impact to the economy if EVERYONE did it!") just doesn't frickin' apply when the activity at bar is NOT economic, doesn't involve a person in that economy, and there is no "stream of commerce" (Swift)!
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Yes, but if its part of a larger regulatory scheme that bears a substantial relation to commerce, it can still fall within the power of the commerce clause. In Raich, that regulatory scheme was the CSA. For Stewart its the NFA. No doubt mere possession (of pot, handguns in a school zone, or machineguns) is not an economic event that would not, without more, bring it under the power of congress to regulate through the commerce clause. The sticking point is that if mere possession of pot or machineguns was not able to be regulated through the commerce clause, it would frustrate the ends of the CSA (or NFA) which are both rationally related to the regulation of commerce. Since there was no overarching federal regulatory scheme rationally related to the regulation of commerce that would have been frustrated by allowing the mere possession of a handgun in a school zone that was beyond the scope of congress to legislate under the guise of the commerce clause.

And again, not that I like it, but I do understand it and think it was a completely foreseeable outcome.
 
Shaggy, as we both know, the Court could just have easily exempted Medical Marijuana use from the bounds of the CSA, as it pertains to the states themselves. Justice Thomas pointed this out, which I posted earlier. The Court was in no way bound to this rather sweeping power grab.

The ruling itself was simple. It was in the majorities dicta that the details become the devil. And this same dicta will be used as the basis for every subsequent usurpation of power by the Congress. The Court has laid out the road map upon which they have told the Congress how to enact law, that the Court will abide by, that will become ever more encompassing.

Part of the problem, if not the main problem itself, is the doctrine of Stare Decisis. The Courts hold this to be sacrosanct, when it is not. Precedence is good, only if used for the good.

But precedence has long been used to expand a little here, a little there, until we reach what we did yesterday. This is just the most glaring example of judicial activism yet. The Supreme Court, with its power of Judicial Review, is not bound by stare decisis, when such action conflicts with the Constitutional principles of enumerated federal powers as opposed to the powers and authorities of the states. The Court has shown that it no longer plays a part in the system of checks and balances, whether that balance is between the feds and the states or between the federal authorities themselves, or in protecting the rights of the people.

As Justice Thomas implied, the Constitution has been rewritten, not by Constitutional means, but by Judical fiat.
 
Madison, in Federalist 14

"In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity."
 
More from Mr. Madison:

"With respect to the two words ‘general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
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Illegal, yet commerce...?

Main Entry: com·merce
Function: noun
1 : the exchange or buying and selling of goods, commodities, property, or services esp. on a large scale and involving transportation from place to place : TRADE 2 —see also COMMERCE CLAUSE Fair Labor Standards Act in the IMPORTANT LAWS section
Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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I don't recall there ever being any exchange here, or buying or selling, just that the plaintiffs wanted to grow their own pot for medicinal consumption.
Forgive me, but if the SCOTUS accepts the notion that the substance is part of larger stream of commerce, it seems that they would have a difficult time squaring a conflict re: Wickard. Wheat was a regulated, legal substance, in the stream of regulated commerce (I have a hard time accepting the ruling from a philosophical perspective but understand how they got there) but commerce in pot is specifically prohibited. Any attempt to introduce it into the stream of commerce is simply not acceptable under current statute, and this exposes a weakness in the government's case. The gov't, in arguing the stream of commerce theory, creates a dichotomy by saying prohibited substances are part of a larger commerce stream. If the substance is to be regulated as commerce, then perhaps they should remove the prohibitions and tax it like they do the rest of the economy.
Are the prohibitions against and regulation of fully automatic firearms found in the, say GCA of '68, upheld only under the commerce clause? It seems to me that the stare decisis argument and ruling in this case is intellectually lazy and rife for further controversy, and that it demonstrates the weak legal and logical underpinnings of the prohibition of pot. In fact, it seems to reject the limits on the CC found in Lopez and Morrison.
I agree with Clarence Thomas here. As such, I'm determined to make an egg and sausage muffin this morning, no matter how much it may potentially hurt McDonald's, and I will even customize my own Mauser, just so I don't have to give Remington any $ for a new one.
 
In fact, it seems to reject the limits on the CC found in Lopez and Morrison.
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Certainly seems that way to me. In Lopez, they said that being near a school w/a gun was an activity too far removed from commerce to be regulated as commerce. OK, makes sense.

But if growing a cannabis plant or building a machine gun for yourself are close enough to interstate commerce to be a national concern, and not "objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State," why were both originally regulated under the power to tax, not the commerce clause? And why did alcohol prohibition require an amendment, when clearly the same commerce clause argument used in Raich would apply to moonshiners?
 
The supreme court is reading "commerce" as "economics." They read "economics" as including production, transfer/exchange, and consumption.

Because carrying a gun in a school zone is not any of those three things, it's not open to federal regulation. Because rape is not any of those three things, it also is not open to federal regulation.

Manufacture and use of marijuana, however, is economic activity, and therefore is open to federal regulation as long as the other conditions apply (rational basis test, and in furtherance of regulating interstate commerce).

(Why did alcohol prohibition required an amendment? The Supreme Court would probably say it didn't, and that congress could have passed a ban on alcohol without the amendment.)
 
Tyme, if an when you are correct, does it mean there's utterly nothing useful the 10th Amendment may be applied to in the fight for repealing Federal gun laws?
 
As I understand the Supreme Court's commerce clause jurisprudence, anything that's not production, transfer, or consumption is technically still beyond the reach of Congress. So if congress passed a law against open or concealed carry, that would be unconstitutional. Anything congress wants to do regarding gun manufacture or transfer is fine as long as there's a skeletal argument that the law has to regulate intrastate activity in order to make interstate regulation effective.

The other hook, however, is that congress may be able to pass laws regarding mere possession of items on the grounds that the items used to be in other states. So if I have a furby that was manufactured in Illinois (I have no idea where they're manufactured), tomorrow Congress might pass a law that "anyone possessing a furby that has travelled in or affecting interstate commerce shall within 60 days of possession under this act apply to the secretary of homeland security for a license.... fingerprints... $100 fee... and upon receipt of a furby license shall carry it at all times, even when not in possession of a furby."

As I understand it, as long as the furby really did come from another state, there's no way to challenge [prosecution under] that law.
 
Hmm, stop the war on drugs, save a bunch of money budgeted for the war on drugs, for housing those judged guilty of use/sale/distribution. Legalize or at least de-criminalize MJ, regulate its sale and manufacture, tax it like tobacco and alcohol.

Route money from the savings+taxes to local law enforcement to continue to deal with meth labs and other drugs that are truly killing people, to effective treatment programs for those that are caught up in addictions to alcohol and other drugs, to schools, to filling potholes (had to use the word pot), and so on. Heck maybe even another tax cut...

I know the pharm. companies wont like it, they don't get to patent it and make obscene amounts of money off peoples suffering...

I don't use or smoke anything anymore but I do see tremendous business opportunities if something like this were to ever happen.
 
What on earth do drug patents have to do with whether drugs are illegal without a prescription? The only relation between them is that both illegal drug syndicates and drug patentholders can make obscene amounts of money because in both cases the legal system opposes any competition. In the case of drug syndicates, the legal system opposes the syndicate itself, but as long as it can evade the law it can earn massive profits.

In the case of drug patentholders, obscene amounts of money aren't so obscene when you consider development costs... those development costs being due largely to regulations imposed by the FDA.
 
Antipitas: That is a highly depressing, yet observant article. Am I correct, when summarising it in plain English, that we're screwed?

And if yes, what is to be done?
 
It says what it says. I don't think Mr. Barnett would agree to a statement like, "we're screwed."
 
What on earth do drug patents have to do with whether drugs are illegal without a prescription?
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I was inferring it is unlikely that MJ will ever be decriminalized in part due to the lobby effort put for by the pharm. corps. It can not be patented and if legal the supply would be large and would easily keep up with demand.

I suppose if the "manufacture" were highly regulated it could still turn a large profit if legal, but would never reach the profit margins of the patented pain killers, nausea medicines, anti psychotics, and so on it would be competing with.

I am probably way to cynical about this kind of stuff and it is probably not as bad as some people make it out to be. It just looks like this country is run in the best interests of big business and not for the citizens.
 
Are pharmaceutical companies really anti-legalization? They can't patent marijuana because it's a plant. They could patent things made from marijuana though.
 
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