Supreme Court Medical Marijuana

[vulturesrow]

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Here is an interesting George Will article from this week on the question at hand: what is a conservative or liberal decision or judge.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will1.asp


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Jack,

See my post about SCOTUS decision was the conservative one. No one responded. I linked that piece and a piece by Buckley. Also, a few weeks ago Will hit this particular theme in a piece about the decision on the restriction of shipping win across states. I do enjoy reading Will's columns.

[elwoodblues]

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it does strike me as quite strange that the Commerce Clause should have been interpreted so broadly

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My take on it is that if the framers wanted Congress to have the authority to only regulate those activities that, for example, substantially affected interstate commerce, they should have said so.

I would say that I'm a little surprised that the language "among the several states" took the meaning that it did.

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And do you agree that the interpretation of the Commerce Clause should have been so very broad

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Yeah, I do. Again, the langauge (assuming "among the several states" doesn't mean commerce where two states are actually the parties to the transactions) is broad. Those who want to limit the Interstate Commerce to just commerce that "substantially affects" interstate commerce are calling for just as much of a loose interpretation of the Constitution as those they criticize.





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And what about its seeming conflict with that Amendment which delegates respective powers? Why should a clause to carry more weight than an Amendment?

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I'm not 100% certain about which Amendment you are referring to. My guess is you are referring to the 10th Amendment. Generally speaking, where two provisions appear to conflict (and I personnaly don't believe that they do here) the one which should prevail is the more specific one (as it would be logical to then read the more specific as an exception to the general rule.) The 10th Amendment is a general standard and the Commerce Clause is a specific one...therefore, I would err on the side of the Commerce Clause.

[Ray Zee]

forget legality and think sensibility. if your doctor can prescribe morphine for you why cant he prescibe pot.
the law makers and courts have gotten out of hand in regulating everyday events in our lives that is none of their business.

[elwoodblues]

No question about it...dumb law. But the fact of the matter is, thecase wasn't at all about whether the federal government SHOULD regulate drugs, it was about whether they COULD. For what it's worth, Congress could ban prescription Morphine if they wanted to as well.