Quote:
Originally Posted by Raven
ARE YOU F-ing kidding me...
first of all it was created ...this whole BLACK MARKET
by the government during Nixon's Administration
based on false DATA and it has been expanded to
the point of a world war of enforcement by the DEA squads
spending a trillion TAX dollars of USA citizens MONEY
That makes it a REAL issue.....
if you have ever taken the time to read the comments
after a internet piece you'd realize that there is no more
controversial subject on the planet....
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The real issue goes even deeper. This is another instance of the Federal Government usurping State's power through the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution. In the 2005 (Gonzales v. Raich) the Supreme Court upheld (6 to 3) Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce in drugs licit or illicit, extending even to small homegrown quantities of marijuana including even doctor-recommended marijuana.
John Paul Stevens in writing for the majority said the Court had no choice but to uphold Congress's "firmly established" power to regulate "purely local activities . . . that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce." He said that the Court was still bound by a 1942 SC decision that defined interstate commerce "broadly" to include even subsistence wheat farming (Wickard v. Filburn). In his dissent, Justice Thomas said "If Congress can regulate this under the commerce clause, than it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."
A thorough reading of the original Constitutional debates and of the the founders comments pre, post, and during the Constitutional convention shows that such an interpretation and the power that it gives to the Federal Government was not intended. Those Justices in 1942 surely also knew that. The FDR braintrust knew it. And FDR picked Justices that would decide against the Constitution to support his ideas of social justice. We have had, because of Stare decisis, to live with the consequences ever since.
The upcoming SC decision on the Health Care Bill may be a corrective if the 5 so-called conservative Justices have the courage to uphold the Constitution as it was written and intended. If they fall back on the easy path of precedence the Constitution, instead of a guaranty of individual freedoms, will become an instrument of unlimited Federal power.