Clarence Thomas Suggests Federal Marijuana Laws May Be Unconstitutional While Balking About Case the

[Calista241]

Source: Law and Crime

Clarence Thomas Suggests Federal Marijuana Laws May Be Unconstitutional While Balking About Case the Supreme Court Didn’t Take

Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed with the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari — that’s a refusal to hear — a tax case Monday, and the conservative justice’s statement strongly suggests he believes any federal marijuana ban is unconstitutional.

The case is Standing Akimbo, LLC v. United States, in which the owners of a Colorado marijuana dispensary appealed an unfavorable tax decision that treated them differently from other business owners. The Internal Revenue Code does not allow a tax deduction or credit for expenses incurred by establishments whose business model “consists of trafficking in controlled substances” in violation of federal or state law. Despite marijuana being legal for both medical and recreational use in many states, it remains a controlled substance under federal law. As a result, business that dispense marijuana are denied tax benefits that would be available to other businesses.

Thomas began his statement disagreeing with the Court’s refusal to hear the case by commenting that the legal landscape with regard to marijuana has changed dramatically in the past 16 years. In 2005, the Court held in Gonzales v. Raich that Congress could prohibit the cultivation and use of marijuana — even when done entirely within one state’s borders — to avoid causing a “gaping hole” in Congress’ “closed regulatory system.” Since then, however, many states have legalized both medicinal and recreational cannabis use.

The result is that the federal government now has what Justice Thomas called a “half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/clarence-thomas-suggests-federal-marijuana-laws-may-be-unconstitutional-while-balking-about-case-the-supreme-court-didnt-take/

[Ocelot II]

1. Was that a member of the species Sus scrofa that just aviated past my window?

I am actually agreeing with the worst justice on the Supreme Court.

[iluvtennis]

3. agreeing with Thomas - I know, how can we. n/t

[jmowreader]

20. You need to update your opinion of him

Clarence Thomas’ legacy has a problem...while he’s still a walking disaster, he’s now far from the worst justice. The three Trump stuck us with are much worse than Thomas.

[Ocelot II]

23. I still think Thomas and Alito are tied for the worst.

Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett have all occasionally written or joined in opinions that were not terrible. Thomas and Alito, on the other hand, have been consistently and rigidly terrible.

[BootinUp]

33. I agree. Nt

[IcyPeas]

28. meanwhile his wife Ginni gives awards to James O'Keefe. and she is a super Trumper

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/04/ginni-thomas-trump-conservative-group/

.... “Ginni” Thomas is launching yet another project ...This time, however, her plan will include a project to “protect President Trump” using at least two new campaign-related political entities,
...
More recently, Ginni Thomas has been involved in an ad-hoc coalition known as “Groundswell,” touted as a plan to wage a “30-front war” on left-wing activists and the GOP establishment.

In January, Thomas met with Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, according to a report in the New York Times. The story claimed that Thomas used the hourlong meeting to sharply criticize the president for not doing more to place Trump supporters in administration positions.
...
“We all have guns and concealed carry,” Thomas said, “to handle what’s coming.”

[Walleye]

2. Marijuana makes strange bedfellows

[PSPS]

4. "a 'half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.'"

Hmmm. I guess the same applies to other things like sedition, insurrection, obstruction of justice, perjury, etc.

[Chainfire]

6. If it is unconstitutional to ban pot

wouldn't that also apply to any other drugs? Could we just take down the barriers in the Drug Stores across the nation?

I think that marijuana laws are ridiculous as long as there is legal alcohol and tobacco; and there will always be legal alcohol and tobacco. (too much money to be made)

[LiberatedUSA]

11. Everything in this world has degrees.

I have no problem with people running around with a marijuana high, great for social anxiety, but people running around strung out on meth? No.

I am sure most cops would prefer a traffic stop with someone high on weed over black out drunk. I am sure most cops would like to avoid the meth head all together.

[AZLD4Candidate]

16. Meth is synthetic. . .and the logic is "if they are strung out, you're still criminalizing physical

illness." Drugs is a medical issue, not a criminal.

[LiberatedUSA]

21. The reason we have FDA regulations is for the safety of all.

Not thinking in degrees leads to the belief of a the zero sum game. Either ban all drugs or legalize them all. Either ban all guns or legalize them all.

Drugs like marijuana should be 18 or 21 and over and taxed like alcohol. Meth, and those similar to it, should remain illegal. Penalties can be lowered, money poured into rehab and lower income areas, but flat legalizing the drugs that make you think you are petting your dog when you are really stroking a hot stove should not be encouraged by being legalized.

[Polybius]

18. That's what they thought about banning alcohol in the teens

They thought it would be unconstitutional to ban alcohol by federal law, so they went through the Constitutional Amendment process. They were right then, and Thomas is right now. The 10th Amendment is the least respected Amendment.

[manicdem]

27. This is right

The federal government is limited to powers specifically listed in the constitution, and banning things like alcohol and drugs wasn't one of them.
It's a state not fed issue

[Progressive Jones]

36. True, but I personally respect the 2nd Amendment the least. It's pathetically simple minded. nt

[Angleae]

19. Not just drugs.

Anything that was banned "for the public safety" or similar reasoning.

[MarcA]

7. Maybe he's just trying to make the Oligarchs look cool. n/t

[Mysterian]

8. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

I agree with Justice Thomas.

[Midnight Writer]

9. I am surprised the RW media has not been harping against marijuana legalization.

It is, after all, a Democratic Party agenda, a liberal concept.

Pot has been used effectively in the past as a Right Wing scare plot.

I wonder why they have not seized on it lately?

[Calista241]

12. Probably because a fair share of wingnuts have smoked the reefer from time to time.

[Midnight Writer]

14. They should smoke some more.

[lark]

10. Broken clock theory proven.

Thomas can be rarely said to have made a good decision for the people so this is obviously accidental or personal on his part.

[twodogsbarking]

13. Let my people grow.

Book of Cheech 4:20.

[Paladin]

15. Nice one, Clarence. You must be tired.

Have one of your clerks prepare a nice big spliff for you, smoke it, and then go back to sleep.

[efhmc]

17. There are federal banking laws in play here also.

[Prospero1]

22. He missed a more compelling argument...

If congress needed to pass the 18th amendment to prohibit alcohol (indicating that they had no such power without an amendment) then how were they able to ban marijuana absent another amendment? Both substances were legal prior to the legislation.

[Warpy]

24. he's right, drugs have needed a reclassification for decades

especially since research is showing the enormous benefits of many of them in treating addiction, PTSD, depression, and other illnesses.

Antidrug hysteria was a Republican project and it has long proven to be useless in preventing drug abuse or controlling access to drugs. About all it has done is increase street crime and violence while pushing worse drugs onto the street to fill the demand.

Thomas is right about this one, Congress needs to act. They don't want to, most of those idiots don't want to take responsibility for doing the right thing.

[fescuerescue]

25. He's not wrong

Sometimes people we don't like can be correct.

[not fooled]

26. Well, well, well

It's almost as if he has firsthand knowledge that Reefer Madness is BS.

[Klaralven]

29. Gonzales v. Raich

In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the commerce clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary. Stevens argued that the Court's precedent "firmly established" Congress' commerce clause power to regulate purely local activities that are part of a "class of activities" with a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority argued that Congress could ban local marijuana use because it was part of such a "class of activities": the national marijuana market. Local use affected supply and demand in the national marijuana market, making the regulation of intrastate use "essential" to regulating the drug's national market.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/03-1454

Pretty weak reasoning for the majority. The majority were Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer.

Dissenting were Rehnquist, O'Connor and Thomas.

[BootinUp]

34. Reefer madness. Lol. Nt

[PoliticAverse]

30. There was a reason banning alcohol required a constitutional amendment you know. n/t

[marble falls]

31. That's a clean and clear position. And from Justice Thomas? Whodathunk.

[ancianita]

32. Isn't the half-in, half-out regime the same one that Biden holds? He's for medical but not

legalizing recreational marijuana, right?

So even if Congress were to take up a bill to legalize it nationally, even with a Senate pass, he probably wouldn't sign it and would make a speech about why, right?

[Pluvious]

35. They figured out why...

Link to tweet

[J_William_Ryan]

37. Thomas is more libertarian than conservative.

And this is about Thomas’ hostility to Federal regulation and advocacy of “states’ rights” – he’d like to see Wickard v. Filburn overturned; Gonzales v. Raich being its progeny.

With both cases overturned, conservatives could seek to overturn Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. US and move ahead with gutting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, particularly the Act’s provisions authorizing public accommodations laws.

Private businesses open to the general public would be at liberty to discriminate based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.

So no, this isn’t a case where Thomas ‘happens to be right,’ it’s about Thomas’ war on the rights and protected liberties of the American people, and to allow racism, bigotry and hate to flourish.