6 ms·

The 22nd state to stop separately making marijuana illegal on top of federal laws. Since federal law applies everywhere, marijuana is still technically illegal

The 22nd state to stop separately making marijuana illegal on top of federal laws. Since federal law applies everywhere, marijuana is still technically illegal everywhere in the US. It’s fascinating, however, that under three presidents spanning both parties, the federal authorities have given up on enforcing the ban in states that have removed marijuana laws from their own books. Perhaps this is a glimpse into the long-term solution to the problem of the federal legislature being intractably deadlocked: states will simply start ignoring federal law more and more, and its relevance will fade over time. Or maybe not, and marijuana is a one-off situation. Time will tell.

benatkin 4y ago
That's based on a straightforward interpretation of what the federal government can and can't do. In reality there is some flexibility on it. If nobody rolled their eyes at what you said, maybe it wouldn't be much work and the federal government could stop it. They can't without vastly changing how they operate though. Also if you get extra technical it's legal because of the constitution. Show me the constitutional amendment that says it's illegal.
robotnikman 4y ago
>Perhaps this is a glimpse into the long-term solution to the problem of the federal legislature being intractable deadlocked: states will simply start ignoring federal law more and more, and its relevance will fade over time. I feel that this may be the best way to do things, since each state is unique in it people and geography. I also feel like universal healthcare on a state level would be the only thing to work at this point, it seems like the federal government is unable to budge at all when it comes to fixing it.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  I think there are a lot more people who'd move for universal healthcare than there are who'd move for pot, and those people are likely to be folks who impose a significant burden on the new system. (For example, I paid $48k out of pocket last year. I'd move in a heartbeat.)
- pySSK 4y ago
  > I also feel like universal healthcare on a state lev would be the only thing to work at this point Even Canada does it per province, and even there, doing it at a federal level would be too intractable.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Canada has a federal law requiring (functionally; if you don't, you also opt-out of federal funding for your system) every province to offer it, though, with a minimum standard, right? That's very different than California offering it on their own volition, and the other 49 states not.
- johnea 4y ago
  > ...since each state is unique in it people and geography. This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know what to respond to. Maybe try going outside, you'll find it's actually completly continuous, there is no species change when crossing state lines 8-) Even more to the point, typical (media prtrayed) state based differences all have gapping inaccuracies: - california has more republicans than texas - texas has more democrats than new york The division into states is one of the biggest problems facing actual democracy in the us. Coupled with first-past-the-post, and the electoral college, the us is far far from a government that enforces the public will. And as far as the specific issue of marijuana is concerned, this is such a poster child for how locked into the "leave it to beaver" american dream state of the 1950s the eastern us still is. The whole: "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, like the little baby jesus intended" mindset. Having said that, I actually do agree that the state level is about the only place anything at all can be acomplished. Because the DNC and RNC have both blocked public health care repeatedly, and you're NEVER going to see either of those parties back any policy that disenfranchises their donor class.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Maybe try going outside, you'll find it's actually completly continuous, there is no species change when crossing state lines Culture is different even in nearby states. I grew up in Virginia, went to college in Georgia, and live in Maryland now. Right before the pandemic my parents moved nearby, after living in Virginia for 30 years. My dad pointed out the other day that Marylanders aren’t like Virginians, something he has realized immediately. Then it clicked for me: Maryland is part of the mid Atlantic (PA, NJ, DE) while Virginia is part of the south. Now I can’t unsee it: the accents, the odd mannerisms, etc. I married an Oregonian. Oregon might as well be Canada. Weird libertarian Canada. My family is originally from Bangladesh, but at least half of the cultural friction between our families comes from Oregon versus Virginia.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > Culture is different even in nearby states. Yes, but the US is arguably much more culturally homogenous than many other countries. Whatever differences you see between Virginia and Maryland, I think they are significantly smaller than the differences between Ontario and Quebec. New York and Alabama may seem far apart culturally, but how does that compare to the cultural differences between Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, or between Sokoto and Akwa Ibom?
- htag 4y ago
  It's still super illegal to transport cannabis across state borders. This is true even when transporting between legal states that share borders. It's mostly unenforced on the individual basis, but it is a huge aspect of the legal markets. Being able to do business across the entire country is a very large factor in USA's economic success. Removing the federal criminal laws on cannabis will remove this and many other inefficiencies of the cannabis industry.
NERD_ALERT 4y ago
In most cases I believe states are threatened with penalties or withdrawal of federal funding when they try and disobey federal law. Even with other drug laws like alcohol, states have been threatened with losing funding for roads if they were to lower the legal age to 18. Marijuana is simply too negligible of an issue for the federal government to really do anything about it. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/Politics/story?id=4577105&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/Politics/story?id=4577105&page...
- celdon25 4y ago
  > Marijuana is simply too negligible of an issue It's not that simple and not everyone agrees with the above statement. Harm reduction is not really emphasized with marijuana, yet it's increasingly necessary as concentrations increase. "Everything in moderation" seems to have been forgotten in that case. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9462911/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9462911/ Orange man took notice, but he's wrong about everything, so carry on. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-suggests-genetically-engineered-marijuana-may-be-causing-mass-shootings/ https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-suggests-genetically-e...
  - NERD_ALERT 4y ago
    Yes because blaming mass shootings on marijuana is of course absurd. Why don’t any other countries with the access to the same marijuana have mass shootings?
    - celdon25 4y ago
      Because they don't have a second amendment? The comparison you should be paying attention to however is the rate of mass shootings within the US per year. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research/# https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-... > While many mass shooters had mental-health problems, as the Mother Jones data shows, there is no reason to believe that there has been an increase in mental illness rates in the last several years that could help explain the rise in mass shootings. (In fact, federal research on the prevalence of severe mental illness shows a decrease in recent years.) You can't rule out these things when you consider that delta-8-thc has only been found in noticeable amounts in marijuana since 2010 or so. That particular compound has been known to cause psychosis, which can cause other long-term cascading mental illness. As a drug supporter I'm sure you've heard of the concept of a "bad batch" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/table/T2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/table/T...
toomuchtodo 4y ago
The government has always selectively enforced laws, it’s simply beneficial in this case. 22 states have legalized recreational marijuana and the world hasn’t ended. Maybe it’s okay federal statute isn’t enforced in this particular circumstance, from a rationalist perspective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S....
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  I never said it’s a bad thing that the feds aren’t enforcing this. All I said is: 1. It’s inaccurate to claim that marijuana is legal anywhere in the US, and 2. The situation is fascinating.
  - benatkin 4y ago
    Cool story, I disagree, it's legalized here in CA.
    - d1str0 4y ago
      You can disagree all you want. It’s still illegal at the federal level. A fed could still cite you even though you are in CA, regardless of the CA legalization.
      - toomuchtodo 4y ago
        Caveat is Congress enjoined the DOJ from enforcing against medical marijuana use. Get a medical card (suuuuuuuper easy) and you’ve derisked. Sucks to have to hack around stupidity wrt federal policy on marijuana, but This Is America. It also reduces the tax you pay (typically, ymmv based on state) vs recreational purchases. https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/are-consumers-or-cannabis-business-owners-at-risk-of-going-to-jail-under-federal-law/ https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/are-consumers-or-cannabis... > There are some exceptions. In each fiscal year since 2015, Congress has included provisions in appropriations acts that prohibit the U.S. Department of Justice from using funds to prevent states from “implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.” In effect, Congress prevents the DOJ from enforcing federal law in medical marijuana states. Courts have held up the provisions, and federal prosecutions of state-licensed businesses effectively stopped when it went into effect. However, those same protections haven’t been extended to adult-use (recreational) program participants, who remain at risk. (not legal advice, not an attorney, not your attorney)
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Well, there is also the separate issue that the feds basically legalized marijuana through a not-thought-out-too-well loophole when they passed the hemp farm bill in 2018. Hemp and marijuana are the same species, so the 2018 farm bill just defines "hemp" as a cannabis plant with less than 0.3% delta 9 THC by weight. So some enterprising folks decided to take these low-THC hemp plants, extract the THC from them, and put them into gummies. Since the gummies still need to be < 0.3% THC, they are just slightly larger gummies than "normal" marijuana gummies, but they're not gargantuan or anything, and they come in pretty standard 10-20mg per gummy doses. I live in a state that has hardly any legal marijuana (there is some medical but only for very limited conditions like epilepsy, and it's strictly enforced, unlike in some other states where anyone saying "my back hurts" can get prescription), and you can go into a well lit, clean CBD store in a strip mall on a major street where friendly employees will happily sell you these D9 gummies. IIRC Florida (ahh, Florida) was trying to close this loophole by limiting the total amount of THC in any single package, but not sure where that went.
- time0ut 4y ago
  The bill has been amended to remove the cap and focus just on labeling, marketing, and age restrictions. It is a large industry in FL now. Large enough to afford good lobbyists.
pfannkuchen 4y ago
Is it because the illegality of marijuana is based on a questionable interpretation of the commerce clause which lots of other power is based on and no one in government really wants challenged in court?
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  There’s a very good chance that that’s at least part of the reason.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Essentially the US has been living under wartime powers since 1942. The Supreme Court vastly expanded the federal government’s powers during WWII, because it seemed like a good and necessary idea at the time to preserve the nation. Power once given cannot be taken away and that comical interpretation of the Commerce Clause stands relatively unscathed to this day.
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    Do you think there's any chance the current court will take a stab at it? I was shocked when they touched Roe, and IIUC the structure of the Commerce Clause precedent isn't entirely dissimilar from Roe (i.e. both stem from very creative readings). (Quick genuflection for the potentially offended: I am pro abortion rights at the national level, but I think they should be implemented properly, i.e. through Congress, because a precedent of improperly implemented legal standards threatens the entire democratic system).
jjeaff 4y ago
Have the feds been enforcing anything in states that have not made marijuana legal? It seems that maybe only state level and below authorities are enforcing them. There are sometimes cases where laws that go unenforced for a long time can eventually become unenforceable. I wonder if this could happen federally to normal marijuana possession. The legal principle is called desuetude.
pnw 4y ago
There's a group of individuals who sued the federal government in the 1970s and won the legal right to use cannabis for medical purposes under the Investigational New Drug program. The first case was United States v. Randall. I believe several of them still get their cannabis supplied by the Federal government lab to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvy_Musikka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvy_Musikka
NikolaNovak 4y ago
And this is not just hypothetical. E. G. If you're crossing the border, say from Ontario where cannabis is legal, flying to California where cannabis is legal, you can still get into enormous amount of trouble. A lot of Canadians are banned from ever going to USA again because of their misunderstanding or ignorance of the usa federal law.
eikenberry 4y ago
Part of me wants to think that the Feds aren't pushing this as they want to keep their interpretation of the interstate commerce regulation in force. If they push this (and it is contested by the states) they may lose their ability to make any drug illegal as it could be decided that they can only regulate inter-state commerce and not intra-state commerce.
kibwen 4y ago
> states will simply start ignoring federal law more and more, and its relevance will fade over time. The next battleground will be abortion rights. If republicans fulfill their goals of banning abortion and birth control the next time that they control the government, watch blue states refuse to enforce those laws and refuse to cooperate with federal authorities.
briHass 4y ago
If only the states held most of the power (and collected most of the taxes), you know, the way the Founders intended. Marijuana legalization is a good example of why this 'labrstory' model works: State A legalizes and collects tons of taxes, so neighboring states see the success and want in on the action. Likewise, policies that crash and burn are small in scale (i.e. small enough to be reversible) and people can, worst case, move to another state. We shouldn't really care about the President, because their real influence on our lives would be minimal. As Marijuana shows, it's much easier to affect policy at the state level than Federal, and states would ostensibly spend the tax revenue on things that benefit their direct constituents, rather than being so disconnected from real issues that vast sums of money flows to causes that most taxpayers don't understand or care about.
- rayiner 4y ago
  I agree with you. And absolute about “you shouldn’t care about the President.” But that ship sailed probably 100 years ago. Certainly by the FDR administration.
- hibikir 4y ago
  You must be in a state that remotely aligns with your perspectives, but many are not that lucky. While theoretically the smaller the government, the more responsive it is, US states are a great counterexample. They associate people under the same government in ways that are divorced of current economic and cultural ties. State governments are also easier to gerrymander: See the many states where the difference in direction between state level elections and the state house is well over 10 points. Furthermore, the much lower level of oversight in states lead to more extreme, low quality decisions, often which end up with people less happy than with national level decisions. See abortion: Leaving the decision to the states led to fewer people being happy with the laws they had, instead of more. This isn't because there aren't plenty of people that want very strong abortion restrictions, but because state lawmakers in states with Republican legislative majorities are far to the right of not just the median voter of their state, but even the median Republican. Similar things can occur in blue states. And how are legislators acting when they see voter-driven referendums to change legislation? By passing laws demanding 60%+ of the popular vote to overrule the legislature. You also talk about politicians disconnected from real issues: When I look at the laws my state representatives try to pass recently, they are either not clear 50% of the popular opinion, or focus on key things like, say, legislating high school athletics for trans students. Given that the fact that they know which part of the state votes in favor of the majority of legislators, and which parts don't, how do you think they spend the money? That's right, the parts of the state that don't vote correctly don't get anywhere near the level of investment that matches their contributions to the state coffers. After all, making sure there are fewer people living in those places is a sure way to maintain control of the state government in the long term. So while I am not unsympathetic to the idea of more local government, States are such a poor example of 'laboratories of democracy' that in a majority of cases, the federal government works less badly. Marijuana is the rare case where things happen to work out.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Since federal law applies everywhere, marijuana is still technically illegal everywhere in the US. But also Congress has forbid the federal government from spending to interfere with state medical marijuana laws, which federal courts have (with slight variations in details between the Circuit Courts) ruled prohibits not only direct actions against states, but also prosecutions of private parties for acts consistent with (and, in at least one Circuit, even in technical violation of) state medical marijuana laws. While this does not cover non-medical use, it does put a significant practical “asterisk” to the idea that marijuana is illegal everywhere in the US. > It’s fascinating, however, that under three presidents spanning both parties, the federal authorities have given up on enforcing the ban in states that have removed marijuana laws from their own books. That would be quite interesting, but nothing like that has actually happened. The reason we have a conflict in circuits on the scope of the funding restrictions is that the feds have continued to prosecute marijuana violations, even in states which have legalized some or all marijuana use, and even for acts which are closely connected to those states medical-use rules. (The First Circuit decision on the scope of the prohibition is from 2022.)

benatkin 4y ago

That's based on a straightforward interpretation of what the federal government can and can't do. In reality there is some flexibility on it. If nobody rolled their eyes at what you said, maybe it wouldn't be much work and the federal government could stop it. They can't without vastly changing how they operate though. Also if you get extra technical it's legal because of the constitution. Show me the constitutional amendment that says it's illegal.

robotnikman 4y ago

>Perhaps this is a glimpse into the long-term solution to the problem of the federal legislature being intractable deadlocked: states will simply start ignoring federal law more and more, and its relevance will fade over time. I feel that this may be the best way to do things, since each state is unique in it people and geography. I also feel like universal healthcare on a state level would be the only thing to work at this point, it seems like the federal government is unable to budge at all when it comes to fixing it.

ceejayoz 4y ago
I think there are a lot more people who'd move for universal healthcare than there are who'd move for pot, and those people are likely to be folks who impose a significant burden on the new system. (For example, I paid $48k out of pocket last year. I'd move in a heartbeat.)
pySSK 4y ago
> I also feel like universal healthcare on a state lev would be the only thing to work at this point Even Canada does it per province, and even there, doing it at a federal level would be too intractable.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Canada has a federal law requiring (functionally; if you don't, you also opt-out of federal funding for your system) every province to offer it, though, with a minimum standard, right? That's very different than California offering it on their own volition, and the other 49 states not.
johnea 4y ago
> ...since each state is unique in it people and geography. This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know what to respond to. Maybe try going outside, you'll find it's actually completly continuous, there is no species change when crossing state lines 8-) Even more to the point, typical (media prtrayed) state based differences all have gapping inaccuracies: - california has more republicans than texas - texas has more democrats than new york The division into states is one of the biggest problems facing actual democracy in the us. Coupled with first-past-the-post, and the electoral college, the us is far far from a government that enforces the public will. And as far as the specific issue of marijuana is concerned, this is such a poster child for how locked into the "leave it to beaver" american dream state of the 1950s the eastern us still is. The whole: "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, like the little baby jesus intended" mindset. Having said that, I actually do agree that the state level is about the only place anything at all can be acomplished. Because the DNC and RNC have both blocked public health care repeatedly, and you're NEVER going to see either of those parties back any policy that disenfranchises their donor class.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Maybe try going outside, you'll find it's actually completly continuous, there is no species change when crossing state lines Culture is different even in nearby states. I grew up in Virginia, went to college in Georgia, and live in Maryland now. Right before the pandemic my parents moved nearby, after living in Virginia for 30 years. My dad pointed out the other day that Marylanders aren’t like Virginians, something he has realized immediately. Then it clicked for me: Maryland is part of the mid Atlantic (PA, NJ, DE) while Virginia is part of the south. Now I can’t unsee it: the accents, the odd mannerisms, etc. I married an Oregonian. Oregon might as well be Canada. Weird libertarian Canada. My family is originally from Bangladesh, but at least half of the cultural friction between our families comes from Oregon versus Virginia.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > Culture is different even in nearby states. Yes, but the US is arguably much more culturally homogenous than many other countries. Whatever differences you see between Virginia and Maryland, I think they are significantly smaller than the differences between Ontario and Quebec. New York and Alabama may seem far apart culturally, but how does that compare to the cultural differences between Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, or between Sokoto and Akwa Ibom?
htag 4y ago
It's still super illegal to transport cannabis across state borders. This is true even when transporting between legal states that share borders. It's mostly unenforced on the individual basis, but it is a huge aspect of the legal markets. Being able to do business across the entire country is a very large factor in USA's economic success. Removing the federal criminal laws on cannabis will remove this and many other inefficiencies of the cannabis industry.

NERD_ALERT 4y ago

In most cases I believe states are threatened with penalties or withdrawal of federal funding when they try and disobey federal law. Even with other drug laws like alcohol, states have been threatened with losing funding for roads if they were to lower the legal age to 18. Marijuana is simply too negligible of an issue for the federal government to really do anything about it. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/Politics/story?id=4577105&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/Politics/story?id=4577105&page...

celdon25 4y ago
> Marijuana is simply too negligible of an issue It's not that simple and not everyone agrees with the above statement. Harm reduction is not really emphasized with marijuana, yet it's increasingly necessary as concentrations increase. "Everything in moderation" seems to have been forgotten in that case. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9462911/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9462911/ Orange man took notice, but he's wrong about everything, so carry on. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-suggests-genetically-engineered-marijuana-may-be-causing-mass-shootings/ https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-suggests-genetically-e...
- NERD_ALERT 4y ago
  Yes because blaming mass shootings on marijuana is of course absurd. Why don’t any other countries with the access to the same marijuana have mass shootings?
  - celdon25 4y ago
    Because they don't have a second amendment? The comparison you should be paying attention to however is the rate of mass shootings within the US per year. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research/# https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-... > While many mass shooters had mental-health problems, as the Mother Jones data shows, there is no reason to believe that there has been an increase in mental illness rates in the last several years that could help explain the rise in mass shootings. (In fact, federal research on the prevalence of severe mental illness shows a decrease in recent years.) You can't rule out these things when you consider that delta-8-thc has only been found in noticeable amounts in marijuana since 2010 or so. That particular compound has been known to cause psychosis, which can cause other long-term cascading mental illness. As a drug supporter I'm sure you've heard of the concept of a "bad batch" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/table/T2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/table/T...

toomuchtodo 4y ago

The government has always selectively enforced laws, it’s simply beneficial in this case. 22 states have legalized recreational marijuana and the world hasn’t ended. Maybe it’s okay federal statute isn’t enforced in this particular circumstance, from a rationalist perspective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S....

School-Cotton 4y ago
I never said it’s a bad thing that the feds aren’t enforcing this. All I said is: 1. It’s inaccurate to claim that marijuana is legal anywhere in the US, and 2. The situation is fascinating.
- benatkin 4y ago
  Cool story, I disagree, it's legalized here in CA.
  - d1str0 4y ago
    You can disagree all you want. It’s still illegal at the federal level. A fed could still cite you even though you are in CA, regardless of the CA legalization.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Caveat is Congress enjoined the DOJ from enforcing against medical marijuana use. Get a medical card (suuuuuuuper easy) and you’ve derisked. Sucks to have to hack around stupidity wrt federal policy on marijuana, but This Is America. It also reduces the tax you pay (typically, ymmv based on state) vs recreational purchases. https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/are-consumers-or-cannabis-business-owners-at-risk-of-going-to-jail-under-federal-law/ https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/are-consumers-or-cannabis... > There are some exceptions. In each fiscal year since 2015, Congress has included provisions in appropriations acts that prohibit the U.S. Department of Justice from using funds to prevent states from “implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.” In effect, Congress prevents the DOJ from enforcing federal law in medical marijuana states. Courts have held up the provisions, and federal prosecutions of state-licensed businesses effectively stopped when it went into effect. However, those same protections haven’t been extended to adult-use (recreational) program participants, who remain at risk. (not legal advice, not an attorney, not your attorney)

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Well, there is also the separate issue that the feds basically legalized marijuana through a not-thought-out-too-well loophole when they passed the hemp farm bill in 2018. Hemp and marijuana are the same species, so the 2018 farm bill just defines "hemp" as a cannabis plant with less than 0.3% delta 9 THC by weight. So some enterprising folks decided to take these low-THC hemp plants, extract the THC from them, and put them into gummies. Since the gummies still need to be < 0.3% THC, they are just slightly larger gummies than "normal" marijuana gummies, but they're not gargantuan or anything, and they come in pretty standard 10-20mg per gummy doses. I live in a state that has hardly any legal marijuana (there is some medical but only for very limited conditions like epilepsy, and it's strictly enforced, unlike in some other states where anyone saying "my back hurts" can get prescription), and you can go into a well lit, clean CBD store in a strip mall on a major street where friendly employees will happily sell you these D9 gummies. IIRC Florida (ahh, Florida) was trying to close this loophole by limiting the total amount of THC in any single package, but not sure where that went.

time0ut 4y ago
The bill has been amended to remove the cap and focus just on labeling, marketing, and age restrictions. It is a large industry in FL now. Large enough to afford good lobbyists.

pfannkuchen 4y ago

Is it because the illegality of marijuana is based on a questionable interpretation of the commerce clause which lots of other power is based on and no one in government really wants challenged in court?

School-Cotton 4y ago
There’s a very good chance that that’s at least part of the reason.
zarzavat 4y ago
Essentially the US has been living under wartime powers since 1942. The Supreme Court vastly expanded the federal government’s powers during WWII, because it seemed like a good and necessary idea at the time to preserve the nation. Power once given cannot be taken away and that comical interpretation of the Commerce Clause stands relatively unscathed to this day.
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  Do you think there's any chance the current court will take a stab at it? I was shocked when they touched Roe, and IIUC the structure of the Commerce Clause precedent isn't entirely dissimilar from Roe (i.e. both stem from very creative readings). (Quick genuflection for the potentially offended: I am pro abortion rights at the national level, but I think they should be implemented properly, i.e. through Congress, because a precedent of improperly implemented legal standards threatens the entire democratic system).

jjeaff 4y ago

Have the feds been enforcing anything in states that have not made marijuana legal? It seems that maybe only state level and below authorities are enforcing them. There are sometimes cases where laws that go unenforced for a long time can eventually become unenforceable. I wonder if this could happen federally to normal marijuana possession. The legal principle is called desuetude.

pnw 4y ago

There's a group of individuals who sued the federal government in the 1970s and won the legal right to use cannabis for medical purposes under the Investigational New Drug program. The first case was United States v. Randall. I believe several of them still get their cannabis supplied by the Federal government lab to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvy_Musikka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvy_Musikka

NikolaNovak 4y ago

And this is not just hypothetical. E. G. If you're crossing the border, say from Ontario where cannabis is legal, flying to California where cannabis is legal, you can still get into enormous amount of trouble. A lot of Canadians are banned from ever going to USA again because of their misunderstanding or ignorance of the usa federal law.

eikenberry 4y ago

Part of me wants to think that the Feds aren't pushing this as they want to keep their interpretation of the interstate commerce regulation in force. If they push this (and it is contested by the states) they may lose their ability to make any drug illegal as it could be decided that they can only regulate inter-state commerce and not intra-state commerce.

kibwen 4y ago

> states will simply start ignoring federal law more and more, and its relevance will fade over time. The next battleground will be abortion rights. If republicans fulfill their goals of banning abortion and birth control the next time that they control the government, watch blue states refuse to enforce those laws and refuse to cooperate with federal authorities.

briHass 4y ago

If only the states held most of the power (and collected most of the taxes), you know, the way the Founders intended. Marijuana legalization is a good example of why this 'labrstory' model works: State A legalizes and collects tons of taxes, so neighboring states see the success and want in on the action. Likewise, policies that crash and burn are small in scale (i.e. small enough to be reversible) and people can, worst case, move to another state. We shouldn't really care about the President, because their real influence on our lives would be minimal. As Marijuana shows, it's much easier to affect policy at the state level than Federal, and states would ostensibly spend the tax revenue on things that benefit their direct constituents, rather than being so disconnected from real issues that vast sums of money flows to causes that most taxpayers don't understand or care about.

rayiner 4y ago
I agree with you. And absolute about “you shouldn’t care about the President.” But that ship sailed probably 100 years ago. Certainly by the FDR administration.
hibikir 4y ago
You must be in a state that remotely aligns with your perspectives, but many are not that lucky. While theoretically the smaller the government, the more responsive it is, US states are a great counterexample. They associate people under the same government in ways that are divorced of current economic and cultural ties. State governments are also easier to gerrymander: See the many states where the difference in direction between state level elections and the state house is well over 10 points. Furthermore, the much lower level of oversight in states lead to more extreme, low quality decisions, often which end up with people less happy than with national level decisions. See abortion: Leaving the decision to the states led to fewer people being happy with the laws they had, instead of more. This isn't because there aren't plenty of people that want very strong abortion restrictions, but because state lawmakers in states with Republican legislative majorities are far to the right of not just the median voter of their state, but even the median Republican. Similar things can occur in blue states. And how are legislators acting when they see voter-driven referendums to change legislation? By passing laws demanding 60%+ of the popular vote to overrule the legislature. You also talk about politicians disconnected from real issues: When I look at the laws my state representatives try to pass recently, they are either not clear 50% of the popular opinion, or focus on key things like, say, legislating high school athletics for trans students. Given that the fact that they know which part of the state votes in favor of the majority of legislators, and which parts don't, how do you think they spend the money? That's right, the parts of the state that don't vote correctly don't get anywhere near the level of investment that matches their contributions to the state coffers. After all, making sure there are fewer people living in those places is a sure way to maintain control of the state government in the long term. So while I am not unsympathetic to the idea of more local government, States are such a poor example of 'laboratories of democracy' that in a majority of cases, the federal government works less badly. Marijuana is the rare case where things happen to work out.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Since federal law applies everywhere, marijuana is still technically illegal everywhere in the US. But also Congress has forbid the federal government from spending to interfere with state medical marijuana laws, which federal courts have (with slight variations in details between the Circuit Courts) ruled prohibits not only direct actions against states, but also prosecutions of private parties for acts consistent with (and, in at least one Circuit, even in technical violation of) state medical marijuana laws. While this does not cover non-medical use, it does put a significant practical “asterisk” to the idea that marijuana is illegal everywhere in the US. > It’s fascinating, however, that under three presidents spanning both parties, the federal authorities have given up on enforcing the ban in states that have removed marijuana laws from their own books. That would be quite interesting, but nothing like that has actually happened. The reason we have a conflict in circuits on the scope of the funding restrictions is that the feds have continued to prosecute marijuana violations, even in states which have legalized some or all marijuana use, and even for acts which are closely connected to those states medical-use rules. (The First Circuit decision on the scope of the prohibition is from 2022.)