Even as the Heritage Foundation fights the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times Dispatch suggests that, on the issue of marijuana legalization (drawing on Raich), Heritage argued more like big government Republicans than small government conservatives. In urging the defeat of California’s legalization initiative, Hinkle notes, Heritage “tried to shoot down the argument from federalism” (among other things):
“Marijuana advocates claim that federal enforcement of drug laws, particularly in jurisdictions that allow the use of medical marijuana, violates states’ rights. The Supreme Court, however, has held otherwise . . . .In 2006, the Supreme Court held in Gonzales vs. Raich that the Commerce Clause confers on Congress the authority to ban the use of marijuana, even when a state approves it for ‘medical purposes’ and it is produced in small quantities for personal consumption. Many legal scholars criticize the Court’s extremely broad reading of the Commerce Clause as inconsistent with its original meaning, but the Court’s decision nonetheless stands.”
To which liberals might respond: Great! Thanks for dispensing with the individual-mandate challenge.
The Heritage paper goes far beyond the narrow question of Raich’s scope. It presents a full-throated defense of the idea that the federal government should tell you what you can do with your body. “In 1982, President Ronald Reagan adopted a national drug strategy that took a comprehensive approach,” it says. “Reagan was right to make drug control a major issue of his presidency. Illegal drugs such as marijuana are responsible for a disproportionate share of violence and social decline in America.”
Well, yes. But from the fact that drugs cause misery, it does not follow that the federal government has the power to prohibit their use.
About a year ago, conservatives hooted and high-fived when a reporter asked Nancy Pelosi: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Perhaps they should pause to ask: Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to forbid personal drug use? And how can they read that power into the Constitution, without at the same time reading into it the power to impose the individual mandate? If the government can make you put down a honey blunt, can it make you pick up a health policy?
As Cato’s Rittgers writes, “a principled stand on the limits of federal power does not begin and end with health care.” So far, many conservatives outraged over Obamacare do not seem to have reconsidered their enthusiasm for national drug prohibition. Whether they do so could provide a good indication as to whether they’re standing up for a principle — or merely against the president.
After reading the article, I sent Mr Hinkle an email noting that many here had rejected the California proposal not because they were against legalization per se (some, of course, were), but rather because they were unhappy with the wording of the referendum, which they felt might lead to legal complications down the line.
To which he responded that he is “not endorsing the CA referendum as written. Just noting that Heritage’s case against it makes the case for a federal government of infinite scope.”
Is this the case?
Discuss.
****
For background of my own position on Raich, see here and here.
Reagan was wrong. The federal government should fuck off when it comes to drugs. Not only can our failshit federal government not afford its drug policies cause of it has no money and its mama’s on welfare, its proven inability over decades to move the ball a single yard in its silly silly drug war makes it look… silly.
Somehow, the people must persuade their government that “manag[ing]” any “national market” is not within the government’s purview. How should we put what it is we require of our government in a positive sense where markets are concerned?
These things are not equivalent, in that proscribing not taking certain drugs without supervision is not the same as requiring a person purchase a certain service simply because said person exists. The latter requires a certain amount of labor or other revenue-generating equivalent to be performed I cannot think of any case in which the government has required such a thing without some kind of voluntary behavior being involved beforehand (car insurance for instance, though I know one can also post a bond or something instead). However, I can imagine that even more incidents of the like will occur if the mandate stands.
If the Heritage foundation’s position is “Drugs are bad, mmmkay?” then I would conclude that they are against state’s rights in at least one instance. That may well be a problem because once one starts making exceptions, others are free to do so as well. The violence from marijuana is pretty much tied to production and distribution, which would be greatly reduced in a decriminalized environment, and there are social costs associated with a host of other things that are legal. The cost of liberty often involves a host of side-effects, some of them deadly, even more of them costly in terms of treasure. Arguing the social costs or certain policies, however, is not a sound argument against liberty.
This kinda remind me of something I’ve been pondering. I had a crackhead that would come to my house at all hours of the day and ask for money. Now, what I should have been able to do was to beat the shit out of him with a baseball bat. But, then I’d be guilty of assault. My only “legal” recourse was to hope he got arrested for drug possession.
Similarly to underage sex. There was a day when and if some 17 y/o had sex with your 14 y/o … the dad (or brothers ) would pay a “visit” to the lad. Can’t do that now, so you have cases like the one here in Michigan where (rightly or wrongly) the boy was charged with rape, the girl was vilified by everyone, and she killed herself.
For many conservatives, this is seamingly one of those issues where reason is tossed out the window and gut emotion insists drug use is evil.
Like I said in the other argument, it is often like trying to argue the divinity of Jesus. It’s all predicated on a differance of assumption, which is ‘epistemically closed’.
Some see the use of certain drugs (but not others, with no reason I can discern) as not only unredeemable but neccessarily disasterous, regardless of whether or not we can see how it is so.
As far as the source of that goes.. I don’t know, but I suspect it has something to do with Reefer Madness propoganda and DARE programs for impressionable yutes.
There is a missing “.” in paragraph 1, second sentence, after the word “performed.”
Although both the Pot legalization and Obamacare issues can be broad brushed as being fundamentally about what you can do with your body, I think they are very different.
Regarding Obamacare, you are being compelled to purchase a service, not necessarily being told to do with your body; although some claim that is one of the ultimate goals of the legislation.
With pot, you’re being told you can’t buy, sell, grow for personal consumption, or even possess it. But, unless operating a motor vehicle, it is generally not a crime otherwise to use it; although being stoned usually leads to being searched and probably charged for possessing it.
All that said, it probably shouldn’t be a federal issue at all, but the purview of the individual states.
And Heritage is probably on the wrong side of this if for no other reason than from the state’s rights perspective.
These things are not equivalent
That is perhaps true, but I think it’s nit picking, because the basic point of broad and nearly limitless over-reach is still present, and merely restricting them from mandating active action is not any comfort to me. So they cannot mandate that you must breath, but they can still ban you from holding your breath.
They cannot then, say, force you to buy health insurance. But so what? Can they ban you from recieving or paying out compensation that isn’t composed partially of it? Can they ban you from driving a car or purchasing a potentially hazardous substance (which, let’s be frank, the FDA may say Cheerios) without it?
If they can make you put down the honey blunt, can they make you put down the happy meal?
Making them phrase things in a negative tense just forces them to excercise creative semantics. It’s as meaningful a barrier as having to phrase your answers in the form of a question on Jeopardy.
The master requires the effective labor of his slave. Therefore, the master will see to the health of the slave’s person and insist the slave not injure himself.
“States Rights” died when Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. And the Supremes rewrote the commerce clause long before Gonzales v. Raich. Not very helpful perhaps, but I just have a hard time thinking of medical marijuana as the hill from which to launch the counter-attack that stops Leviathan.
Maybe that’s just my socially conservative complacent conformitism to community values showing.
No this, perhaps, is a more appropriate comparison, because both issues revolve around being forbidden from ingesting what you think is perfectly appropriate for you.
The biggest problem with SCOTUS, and this includes the conservative justices, is that they appeal to judicial precedent rather than the Constitution. Which means each instance of such precedence makes it harder to roll back bad law.
So yes, Raich matters.
My point was the argument being used was faulty. As such, it did not need further study IMO, because the foundation it rested on was incorrectly constructed.
Arguing that both criminalizing marijuana and requiring the purchase of health insurance are examples of overreaches of state power is a different thing entirely (and one I happen to agree with). The problem then becomes coming up with a way to determine when an overreach has taken place and when it has not. At that point, we are playing a line-drawing game, and we all tend to draw such lines a little differently.
Entropy
IMHO it’s that forest v trees thing. Self-medication is a morally neutral act — it covers everything from a double shot of espresso to crack & meth (including all prescribed pharmaceuticals inbetween). When looking at street drugs, most people consider the overall effects, not whether or not any particular individual can use the substance responsibly. Most people know someone who uses pot reasonably, I dare assert no one knows a reasonable methhead.
In proposing law for a protracted problem of “what the fuck do we do with drug addicts and the destruction they cause to others besides themselves?” we want a simple answer: just get rid of the drugs.
Didn’t work for Prohibition specifically because that most people use alcohol responsibly regardless of the pervasive and real problems heavy drinking and alcoholics were having on families and communities. All those reasonable people just circumvented the law and made beer and wine at home or frequented speak-easys.
Comparing government forcing an individual to purchase and government denying the opportunity to purchase seems inapt.
Speak-easy’swere a cool thing. There should be a modern equivalent.
the yoots in South Africa are diverse diverse diverse but every one of them is smiles and smiles when the creepy middle aged dj guys come round with the free drugs
they appeal to judicial precedent rather than the Constitution.
and when said conservative judges don’t appeal to [liberal] precedent, one hear’s screams of IMPEACH!!!
They’re called raves. Or bars.
Depending on what you meant by ‘equivalent’.
Here’s my thought on the why’s of what works. Prohibition didn’t work in the Roaring 20’s, because everyone had cash money and free time and life was mostly swell. You could afford illicit booze.
That, and also the fact that booze has always been way way more prevalent than marijuana or similar drugs, at least in European cultures it has, for a few thousand years or more.
Pot was not illegal in this country until the 30’s! It was legal throughout prohibition even. But when they banned it, it was the 30’s. Great Depression. People didn’t have no damn food. You can eat pot but I don’t think it’s very nutritious, and not even the weeds could grow in the dustbowl.
By the time the war ended, it was 15-20 years later and people already had a decade of “The DEVIL’S Garden!” misinformation in them. Wherein an innocent young teen in a sweater vest and a varsity jacket smokes a J some greasy leather-clad dego rock’n’roller gives him and he goes into a berserk zombie fugue state and eats his prom date (and not in the good way).
You left out the part where after prohibition was over, the government had the enforcement agencies lying around with nothing to do, so they decided to go after drugs instead.
#5
No.
Heroin, meth , and crack are almost always fatal. I’ve watched it happen. None of them are recreational.All are addictive. Not to mention that once addicted there is virtually no occupation that can pay enough so that the user does not resort to theft. Everything is edgy and cool until until somebody ODs.
Go ahead and legalize them all. Just make getting them as difficult as possible.
Heritage spends a lot of effort outlining why pot is bad, but its analysis of where the Feds get their power to ban it nationwide is limited to “because Raich says so.” Followed to its natural conclusion, this argument says that the Feds can outlaw anything that’s been defined as “bad” and can get shoehorned into a Commerce Clause that has far outstripped anything the Founders had in mind.
So yeah, I’d say Hinkle is right on the money here.
sdferr, that was Woodrow Wilson, wasn’ it?
An excerpt, chased down from the comments at Higgs’ blog.
#14 – Well said.
[…] here: Speaking of giving government broader powers… Video : Speaking of giving […]
Again, Happy Meals and a blunt are not equivalent; one makes you fat (but you can still drive) and the other makes you a stoned immediate hazard behind the wheel.
My position on all of this has never changed: Let anyone take any damn thing they want. Just don’t force me to hire them or subsidize them, and treat being under the influence of anything as an aggravating circumstance showing intent. Killing someone with your car isn’t manslaughter, it’s murder one, and we send you to the electric bleachers.
Again, Happy Meals and a blunt are not equivalent; one makes you fat (but you can still drive) and the other makes you a stoned immediate hazard behind the wheel.
Bullshit on a stick. You can smoke pot and not drive. You can get into an accident because you were stuffing a cheeseburger in your face while driving and spilled your soda in your lap.
I know a guy – no shit – he drove to work one morning eating a bowl of cereal. Driving down the road, eating cereal. With a spoon, milk and all.
The amazing part? The car is stick shift.
Boggles the mind.
The two are equivalent. They’re on inequivalent when you intentionally put them in inequal circumstances. Besides, what about alchohol… allergy medication… lack of sleep…
Like the real metric here of what the government should allow you to do is whether or not it impairs your driving ability?
Note to self: masturbating in public does not impair my ability to drive so therefor it is legal.
and treat being under the influence of anything as an aggravating circumstance showing intent.
I don’t have a problem with that.
Killing someone with your car isn’t manslaughter, it’s murder one, and we send you to the electric bleachers.
That’s just stupid, like “0 tolerance” school policies. Overly simplistic. People get into ACCIDENTS and kill each other without being under the influence of anything at all.
But if they’ve happened to have had a beer, the beer is now automagically the assumed cause of the accident and they’re charged with murder in the first degree?
That’s what they do with cigarettes and cancer.
You got cancer? You don’t smoke, and don’t know anyone who does? Oh…. anything might have caused it. Could be genetic predisposition even.
You got cancer? You SMOKE? CIGARETTES CAUSED YOUR CANCER.
Dumb. People who don’t smoke get cancer that’s not from smoking, but NOBODY who smokes EVER gets cancer that’s not from smoking. IMpossible!
Interesting question.
Why should I be punished more than someone who did the exact same thing as me?
I was drinking. They weren’t. They done drove their car into a schoolbus all the same.
So what, they get an “A” for effort here? Because they TRIED not to be an incompitent driver? And DID they? The dude could have been fiddling with the radio, or arguing on the phone.. or playing a Playstation Portable. But there’s no blood test for that.
If you kill people because you’re lazy, stupid, inattentive or reckless, it’s really quite OK. But if you did it because you were drunk, well now you’re Hitler.
It’s the same damn thing in the end.
I think the drunk people should get mitigating circumstances and decreased sentances. At least they have an excuse.
Because if there’s a person in the world who doesn’t know that intoxicants make you unfit to drive, they ought to be in a padded cell. You knew that, you chose to drink / drug anyway. That = deliberately rendering yourself unfit, in my book. As opposed to not deliberately. Too many hard words?
INTENT MATTERS.
May one assume that you’re down with including cell phones, Big Macs, long hours, and mascara brushes on the list? I’d hate to think the alcohol, pot, and NyQuil would be all alone.
SDN is drawing the lines, dammit! Listen, people, and take heed!
Because if there’s a person in the world who doesn’t know that intoxicants make you unfit to drive
Sola dosis facit venenum.
1 beer does not make you unfit to drive. Will it apparently land you a death penalty?
My biggest problem with your suggestion, honestly, you don’t address – the issue of people who smoke cigarettes being immune to all forms of cancer accept that caused by cigarettes (which, given how many carcinogens there are, seems like the only sane thing to do from a health perspective).
INTENT MATTERS.
As squid said. What is the ‘intent’ when you’re digging around the passenger side floorboards looking for the paper you wrote the address down on instead of watching where you are going?
What is the intent when you’re just not paying attention?
And yet, the intent when you drive drunk is …. murder.
Heheh… WHO’s intent was that? Consensus meaning?
You’re right – in a case of 1st degree premeditated homicide, intent does matter. But you’ve redefined it in a way where it really doesn’t at all. I wish you’d use a different word. I don’t see why you have to call it “intent” when it’s clearly not.
Praytell what would be so horrifying if we just punished people who negligently kill each other with giant guided cannonballs, regardless of why they did it?
Would there be extra-death penalties for people motivated by hatred of Otherness?
As opposed to not deliberately.
So you were eating the cereal while you were driving by accident. You went to hit the turn signal, and only afterward did you realize, that wasn’t a turn signal, that was a bowl of cereal you were eating.
Gee, I was fixing my hair in the mirror and I rammed 3 nuns in a crosswalk. It wasn’t deliberate, it was… a reflex action. I have no control over when I fix my hair.
You know, it’s like with “intent” that your using.
We have this thing called “manslaughter”, it specifically means when you are directly responsible and culpable for killing someone even though you didn’t mean to.
And this thing, “premeditated murder”, it quite exactly means you sat down and spent some time pondering how best to kill the SOB and then did it exactly like you intended.
In your new proposed legal environment I beg you to at least change the names. Rather than charging them for “harphengluut” you will convict them on “gezchuntenschlitz”.
I simply see no reason to rape the innocent words. They were not even drinking.
My biggest problem with marijuana here in CA is the culture of drug dealing that is pervasive in the co-ops.
They get busted buying weed grown by cartels and for selling it out the back door.
The owners get robbed for more cash than they reported in gross yearly sales.
Then the kids are out doing resale…
Unfortunately the bad actors are going to ruin it for everyone and the government will have to push more regulation