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Idealistically, that's how the US is structured. Practically, the federal government has been centralizing control since the New Deal. Since the article is ab

Idealistically, that's how the US is structured. Practically, the federal government has been centralizing control since the New Deal. Since the article is about marijuana, let's use that as an example. If you believe the US is a federal republic, then you ought to be able to grow whatever plants you want in the comfort of your own home - the federal government has no business regulating that. That precise case was brought before the Supreme Court during the Bush administration, and even Scalia (who famously championed states' rights in many other decisions) consented that the federal government could regulate the private, intrastate growth of marijuana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich The states that legalized marijuana could only do so because Obama is personally tolerant of it. Had he not been, he could have directed federal authorities to enforce the federal ban on marijuana - federal laws trump local ones.

drvdevd 10y ago
This is true, except the battle hasn't heated up enough yet to see whether this is actually true, with respect to Marijuana specifically, and then perhaps states' rights generally. The state of California might just, by itself, choose to challenge the feds on this for example, and that would be quite interesting.
- civilian 10y ago
  I really really hope that California does something like this. Unfortunately, California Police don't have a history of supporting state law. When the feds were busting medical marijuana shops in California, they would routinely get help from local police, and the local police would act like their lapdogs.
- dpark 10y ago
  > except the battle hasn't heated up enough yet to see whether this is actually true In what way is it not decided? The US Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that the federal government can indeed criminalize marijuana. This isn't something that they left kind of unclear. A 6 to 3 decision affirmed that the congress can completely outlaw marijuana nationwide.
  - drvdevd 10y ago
    Clearly it's not actually a question then of what the supreme court decided in 1996, because marijuana is legal multiple US states now? Thus it is a classical state VS federal issue now.
    - dpark 10y ago
      It was literally the same issue in 1996. California legalized medical marijuana in spite of the federal government criminalizing it. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government won over states' rights.
      - drvdevd 10y ago
        Sure, that sounds correct. And yet apparently the states have continued to ignore that ruling in a sense. So the onus is on the feds to enforce that law and the states can choose to fight such actions (or not to) in whichever way they please. The difference this time around is that the (legal) marijuana industry has significantly more political clout, social acceptance and financial muscle than 2 decades ago, so I see the states pushing back harder against the feds this time around.
        dpark 10y ago
        That's all fine but this is decided law. The states could fight and potentially the Supreme Court could overturn precedent, but as of right now the federal government is 100% in control of the legality of marijuana nationwide. I actually don't see the Supreme Court overturning this precedent because it's relevant to too many other cases, such as outlawing fully automatic weapons. It's far more likely that congress could repeal or reduce its own regulations and leave this to the states. Supposedly both major parties should want this, since the right talks about states rights and the left want marijuana legalized for its own sake.
        posterboy 10y ago
        on the other hand, owning a gun is close to attempted manslaughter, and that means no malintent, just accepting a not so faint possibilitt, whereas farming cannabis sativa has a magnitudes smaller, negligable possibility. Disclaimer: I'm currently biased, if you know what I mean.
- kelseydh 10y ago
  There were many Federal arrests of state-sanctioned dispensary owners under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. The Feds have changed to a more tolerant position now, but only after years of intense political pressure.
tn13 10y ago
> Obama is personally tolerant of it. While I understand the spirit of this argument it is not entirely true. Obama has legal levers to pull but not without serious consequences to himself. For example Trump is very vocal about hurting all the "sanctuary cities" and I personally think he will be able to do zilch about it. The problem with centralized control is that super inefficient. President can jump before a rally and claim he is leading it but the moment he decides to actually control the rally the shit will hit the fan.
- bsimpson 10y ago
  Can you elaborate on your perspective? Medical marijuana was in much more of a grey area than recreational marijuana, and previous administrations have still directed the DoJ to shutter dispensaries. It was very much Obama's decision to tolerate states legalizing marijuana.
- kelseydh 10y ago
  It also assumes the President is in complete control over the massive bureaucratic agencies he oversees. In reality those agencies often set their own priorities and have their own competing agendas. And yes, while on paper the President is able to control much about their direction, in practice that's not always true.
chimeracoder 10y ago
Gonzales v. Raich is not really relevant anymore, because while it establishes that Congress has the power to regulate marijuana in the states, Congress has already passed a law forbidding enforcement of federal marijuana prohibition in states with legal medical marijuana. > The states that legalized marijuana could only do so because Obama is personally tolerant of it. Had he not been, he could have directed federal authorities to enforce the federal ban on marijuana - federal laws trump local ones. Obama did direct federal authorities to enforce the federal ban on marijuana. Obama's administration raided more medical marijuana dispensaries either Bush or Clinton[0]. Congress even passed a law explicitly stripping the executive branch of the power to do so, and Obama ignored that[1]. He did pull his foot off the gas pedal (so to speak) a bit in his second term, but not entirely - the raids have continued through this past year[2]. [0] https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-raids-rise-obama-regime/ https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-raids-r... [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/04/obama_s_medical_marijuana_prosecutions_probably_aren_t_legal.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc... [2] https://www.theweedblog.com/despite-reforms-federal-medical-marijuana-raids-continue-in-south-lake-tahoe/ https://www.theweedblog.com/despite-reforms-federal-medical-...
- djsumdog 10y ago
  Thanks for the info and sources!! I did not realize this. I think this is part of the disconnect with Americans and how the view the Obama administration. The left likes to think he was all great and they glaze over the spying, whistle blower imprisonment, predator drones, et. al. and either justify those actions or ignore them. I wrote a post about this recently: http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-anger/ http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-a... I did not realize this applied to marijuana law as well.
  - kazagistar 10y ago
    Interesting article, well written and concise.
beat 10y ago
Meh, that's just partisan wankery. Historically, civil rights progress in the US comes from individual states that lead the way, followed by additional states picking up and improving on the original changes, and the federal government and the courts catching up once there's a solid majority. See the recent changes in marriage law for an example.

drvdevd 10y ago

This is true, except the battle hasn't heated up enough yet to see whether this is actually true, with respect to Marijuana specifically, and then perhaps states' rights generally. The state of California might just, by itself, choose to challenge the feds on this for example, and that would be quite interesting.

civilian 10y ago
I really really hope that California does something like this. Unfortunately, California Police don't have a history of supporting state law. When the feds were busting medical marijuana shops in California, they would routinely get help from local police, and the local police would act like their lapdogs.
dpark 10y ago
> except the battle hasn't heated up enough yet to see whether this is actually true In what way is it not decided? The US Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that the federal government can indeed criminalize marijuana. This isn't something that they left kind of unclear. A 6 to 3 decision affirmed that the congress can completely outlaw marijuana nationwide.
- drvdevd 10y ago
  Clearly it's not actually a question then of what the supreme court decided in 1996, because marijuana is legal multiple US states now? Thus it is a classical state VS federal issue now.
  - dpark 10y ago
    It was literally the same issue in 1996. California legalized medical marijuana in spite of the federal government criminalizing it. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government won over states' rights.
    - drvdevd 10y ago
      Sure, that sounds correct. And yet apparently the states have continued to ignore that ruling in a sense. So the onus is on the feds to enforce that law and the states can choose to fight such actions (or not to) in whichever way they please. The difference this time around is that the (legal) marijuana industry has significantly more political clout, social acceptance and financial muscle than 2 decades ago, so I see the states pushing back harder against the feds this time around.
      - dpark 10y ago
        That's all fine but this is decided law. The states could fight and potentially the Supreme Court could overturn precedent, but as of right now the federal government is 100% in control of the legality of marijuana nationwide. I actually don't see the Supreme Court overturning this precedent because it's relevant to too many other cases, such as outlawing fully automatic weapons. It's far more likely that congress could repeal or reduce its own regulations and leave this to the states. Supposedly both major parties should want this, since the right talks about states rights and the left want marijuana legalized for its own sake.
        posterboy 10y ago
        on the other hand, owning a gun is close to attempted manslaughter, and that means no malintent, just accepting a not so faint possibilitt, whereas farming cannabis sativa has a magnitudes smaller, negligable possibility. Disclaimer: I'm currently biased, if you know what I mean.
kelseydh 10y ago
There were many Federal arrests of state-sanctioned dispensary owners under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. The Feds have changed to a more tolerant position now, but only after years of intense political pressure.

tn13 10y ago

> Obama is personally tolerant of it. While I understand the spirit of this argument it is not entirely true. Obama has legal levers to pull but not without serious consequences to himself. For example Trump is very vocal about hurting all the "sanctuary cities" and I personally think he will be able to do zilch about it. The problem with centralized control is that super inefficient. President can jump before a rally and claim he is leading it but the moment he decides to actually control the rally the shit will hit the fan.

bsimpson 10y ago
Can you elaborate on your perspective? Medical marijuana was in much more of a grey area than recreational marijuana, and previous administrations have still directed the DoJ to shutter dispensaries. It was very much Obama's decision to tolerate states legalizing marijuana.
kelseydh 10y ago
It also assumes the President is in complete control over the massive bureaucratic agencies he oversees. In reality those agencies often set their own priorities and have their own competing agendas. And yes, while on paper the President is able to control much about their direction, in practice that's not always true.

chimeracoder 10y ago

Gonzales v. Raich is not really relevant anymore, because while it establishes that Congress has the power to regulate marijuana in the states, Congress has already passed a law forbidding enforcement of federal marijuana prohibition in states with legal medical marijuana. > The states that legalized marijuana could only do so because Obama is personally tolerant of it. Had he not been, he could have directed federal authorities to enforce the federal ban on marijuana - federal laws trump local ones. Obama did direct federal authorities to enforce the federal ban on marijuana. Obama's administration raided more medical marijuana dispensaries either Bush or Clinton[0]. Congress even passed a law explicitly stripping the executive branch of the power to do so, and Obama ignored that[1]. He did pull his foot off the gas pedal (so to speak) a bit in his second term, but not entirely - the raids have continued through this past year[2]. [0] https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-raids-rise-obama-regime/ https://www.greenrushdaily.com/2016/02/24/dispensary-raids-r... [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/04/obama_s_medical_marijuana_prosecutions_probably_aren_t_legal.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc... [2] https://www.theweedblog.com/despite-reforms-federal-medical-marijuana-raids-continue-in-south-lake-tahoe/ https://www.theweedblog.com/despite-reforms-federal-medical-...

djsumdog 10y ago
Thanks for the info and sources!! I did not realize this. I think this is part of the disconnect with Americans and how the view the Obama administration. The left likes to think he was all great and they glaze over the spying, whistle blower imprisonment, predator drones, et. al. and either justify those actions or ignore them. I wrote a post about this recently: http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-anger/ http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-a... I did not realize this applied to marijuana law as well.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Interesting article, well written and concise.

beat 10y ago

Meh, that's just partisan wankery. Historically, civil rights progress in the US comes from individual states that lead the way, followed by additional states picking up and improving on the original changes, and the federal government and the courts catching up once there's a solid majority. See the recent changes in marriage law for an example.