Read How Absurd The Federal Government's Claim Is Regarding Marijuana Law Jurisdiction

[Xicano]

Of course we are all familiar with Nixon's creation of the DEA and the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. We are also familiar with how the Tenth Amendment restricts federal authority to what is enumerated in the Constitution with all else being reserved to the states and the individual. We are also familiar that in the landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court affirmed that legislative acts are subordinate to the Constitution, thus, making any legislative act contrary to the Constitution null & void. Of course it is on these facts when our country first had federal laws prohibiting the consumption of an intoxicant (alcohol), the government got a constitutional amendment. Obviously because this is truly the only way the federal government can lawfully have jurisdiction to create and enforce prohibition laws.

However, this is not the reality of today. Or is it? What's different about today vs back then? I would submit nothing except a much more apathetic population. In my opinion this is the reason why the federal government's erroneous claim that the Controlled Substance Act is constitutional through the Commerce Clause.

I would like to post an excerpt from the most recent case regarding federal marijuana laws heard by the Supreme Court so people can see in black & white how absurd the position is they take when claiming the Commerce Clause grants the federal government jurisdiction in this matter.

Gonzales v. Raich

(b) Congress’ power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic “class of activities” that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce is firmly established. See, e.g., Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 151. If Congress decides that the “ ‘total incidence’ ” of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class. See, e.g., id., at 154—155. Of particular relevance here is Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 127—128, where, in rejecting the appellee farmer’s contention that Congress’ admitted power to regulate the production of wheat for commerce did not authorize federal regulation of wheat production intended wholly for the appellee’s own consumption, the Court established that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” i.e., not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity. The similarities between this case and Wickard are striking. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress’ commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity. In assessing the scope of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority, the Court need not determine whether respondents’ activities, taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a “rational basis” exists for so concluding. E.g., Lopez, 514 U.S., at 557. Given the enforcement difficulties that attend distinguishing between marijuana cultivated locally and marijuana grown elsewhere, 21 U.S.C. § 801(5), and concerns about diversion into illicit channels, the Court has no difficulty concluding that Congress had a rational basis for believing that failure to regulate the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana would leave a gaping hole in the CSA (Controlled Substance Act).


:wtf:

• "Substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity." ???
  
  
• "Diversions into illicit channels" ???

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't one of the things which can be inferred by the language the Supreme Court chose to use is that there's a non illicit (i.e. legal) national market for marijuana? Not to mention just to draw the conclusions the Supreme Court is making here is to acknowledge marijuana as a recognized lawful commodity.

So the way I see it with respect to the Constitution's Tenth Amendment, Marbury v. Madison, Gonzales v. Raich and the legal history behind alcohol prohibition is that it is affirmed (if you're being true to Constitution), that either (A)The federal government's Controlled Substance Act doesn't have constitutional authority, or (B)The Supreme Court's Decision recognizes marijuana as a non illicit commodity. Of course we all know that (A) is the correct position on the issue.


:smoke:

[Peace Patriot]

1. What's different about today vs back then? BILLIONS and BILLIONS of $$$'s in privatized prisons and

prison services, in the weapons and infrastructure of repression, in police personnel, swat teams, prison guards, etc., and their benefits, in all the hardware--armored vehicles, helicopters, surveillance, helmets, bulletproof vests, Darth Vader costumes, uniforms, shoes, bullets, water bottles, food services, medical services, and all the paraphenalia of maintaining a security state--and in attorneys general offices and in courts and judges and court recorders and court guards and security at courts, to courts, from courts, and on and on and on and on, NOT limited to THIS country, but BILLIONS and BILLIONS to foreign governments, for instance to Colombia ($7 BILLION) where they use our money to murder trade unionists, peasant farmers, human rights workers, community activists, journalists and sometimes just kids standing around, whom the Colombian military murdered and whose bodies they then dressed up like FARC guerrillas, to up their "body counts," to impress U.S. senators.

And now we have the U.S. MILITARY involved in the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" as well, spending BILLIONS more on at least seven military bases in Colombia, bases in Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, military maneuvers in Costa Rica, the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean and on and on and on.

The driver of the insane, corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" is the 'MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX' itself. It is their fallback gravy train for when they're not slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East. And I stress the 'INDUSTRIAL' part of that phrase, for the corporate war profiteers are absolutely out of control--and this was not the case in the 1920s. Although the war profiteer motive was certainly alive and well back then, having feasted off WW I and then Prohibition, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING comparable to this POLICE STATE that has been created by means of the "war on drugs," never in our history. It is absolutely anathema to democracy. It kills democracy. We are looking at U.S. democracy's death throes right now--from this, from the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines and from the corpo-fascist media.

Prohibition was easy to overturn because they didn't have Halliburton, and Blackwater, and Dyncrop and thousands of other private corporations feeding off the security state. They simply ENDED it, and police went back to policing and not trying to stop commerce in a product that most people in this country wanted to be free to consume. But marijuana, which is nowhere near as dangerous a substance as alcohol, and, indeed, is a beneficial, medicinal PLANT, is all tied up with these war profiteers, and THAT IS WHY we can't just stop its insane prohibition. Common sense ain't in it. We are up against WAR PROFITEER WELFARE.

[krispos42]

2. There are 90,000 law officers in California

The DEA is about 5,500 people. Assuming they have 12% of their agents in California (which has 12% of the US population), then they have 660 there.


So, 660 federal agents are going to do the same job as 90,000?

:rofl:

[frazzled]

3. Don't try to practice law at home, kids

This was a 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court, with the opinion delivered by our beloved Justice Stevens: Justices Ginsburg, Souter, Kennedy, Breyer, and (yes) Scalia concurred. Dissenting were Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, and O'Connor.

Just think if a state passed some referendum reprehensible to us progressives (banning homosexuality or foreigners, or, say, making the imprisonment of abortion providers legal) and the Supreme Court decided that state had jurisdiction over the Federal government. What kind of precedent do you want in place? You can't pick and choose.

If Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter (the only liberals on the court) decided that the commerce clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary, I'm tempted to think their reasoning is sound.

If you want to make dope legal, work at the federal level: but don't start arguing States Rights, like some crazy right-winger from the Jim Crow South fighting desegregation.

[Fly by night]

5. Facts are important. The Raich case was a classic -- the Supreme Court's decision was pretzel logic.

Angel Raich, a very ill Californian, used cannabis provided to her by two friends who did not charge her for the medicine. The cannabis was grown by the two friends locally, and nothing about the case suggested that anything related to interstate commerce was involved.

When the Court ruled that pro bono marijuana cultivation for ill people would have an impact on the interstate commerce in (illegal) marijuana, my first thought was: "Why, yes, it would. IT WOULD REDUCE THE ILLICIT MARKET." Since reducing the illicit market has been a goal of the feds since Harry Anslinger, one would think that Raich's solution to obtaining medical marijuana would be in synch with federal objectives. But noooo ...

Why is medical marijuana still facing such difficulty? Because the farces of evil won't go away quietly, particularly when so many industries benefit from suppressing this beneficial plant.

[Gravel Democrat]

4. The commerce clause is how congress justifies mandating everyone purchase insurance

from a for profit company. Some think that's pretty absurd too.

"When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”...

(after regaining composure)...

"Elshami responded by sending CNSNews.com a Sept. 16 press release from the Speaker’s office entitled, “Health Insurance Reform, Daily Mythbuster: ‘Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform.’” The press release states that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55971

This question was never raised in the mainstream media.

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what you don't know about prop 19 might hurt you and everyone else...
http://votetaxcannabis2010.blogspot.com/