I don't like dope, and I agree that a big chunk of the medical-marijuana enthusiasm is a stalking horse for Legalize It, Mon. But I think it's a reasonable enough "medicine" for a terminal patient who's bummed out, needs to gain weight, and/or would like to be stoned now and then instead of just dying; and I don't think in any case that home-growing octogenarian cancer ladies are affecting Interstate Commerce.
Ideally, like John Paul George Ringo Stevens suggested, Congress will change the federal laws, though that won't happen anytime soon, given the general gutlessness. In the meantime, I'm not so thrilled that the burden of proof for using the Commerce Clause seems lighter even than my head after one hit.
Richard Bennett
· 4 years ago
I think the reality of Commerce Clause lightening depends on whether you go by the characterization that only little old sick ladies are toking-up under California's law or the reality that pot's legal for everybody. The latter is much closer to the truth than the former, of course.
Sigivald
· 4 years ago
The big question for me (which the Court has settled to its satisfaction long ago), is whether the Commerce Clause really allows Congress to say "X is covered by the Clause even to produce and use yourself, because that means you wouldn't be buying it on the market, or because you might sneakily sell it"; I certainly can't convince myself that the authors of the document or the plain reading of the text support that.
I've always had the crazy idea that the Commerce clause properly only let Congress regulate actual trade between states (or states and other countries), not trade or non-trade that somehow affects such trade without actually involving the stuff in question crossing state lines.
But I'm a troglodyte that way, really.
Richard Bennett
· 4 years ago
Yeah, the classical view of the Commerce Clause went out with Wickard.
All Comments
Ideally, like John Paul George Ringo Stevens suggested, Congress will change the federal laws, though that won't happen anytime soon, given the general gutlessness. In the meantime, I'm not so thrilled that the burden of proof for using the Commerce Clause seems lighter even than my head after one hit.
I've always had the crazy idea that the Commerce clause properly only let Congress regulate actual trade between states (or states and other countries), not trade or non-trade that somehow affects such trade without actually involving the stuff in question crossing state lines.
But I'm a troglodyte that way, really.