Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

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Anyone interested in the subject must read the US Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich to understand the serious and weird risks involved.

Raich was a terminally ill old lady, living in CA, who in compliance with state law and under her doctor's oversight, was growing 6 pot plants for her personal medical use. She was subjected to a federal DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) home-invasion raid wherein said plants were seized.

Raich argued the legality of growing the plants for personal medical use under state law, intra-state, alleging doing so in no way affected interstate commerce and thus was not subject to federal regulation & seizure (and violently so at that).

The Court ruled that her growing her own pot for personal use did affect interstate commerce by reducing demand in an illegal interstate market.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, they said that.

While the current federal administration may be opting for leniency in enforcing controlled substance laws, the next (1.5 years away, whichever party) may choose to resume aggressive enforcement to the limits of the law which SCOTUS has defined, which as Raich shows is very, very expansive. I suspect a, say, premium cannabis subscription club might be first on the DEA hit list.

[PS: the ruling in Raich may have been affected by the pending Stewart case, which was remanded in light of Raich. If Raich had been ruled to the reverse, Stewart would have in likewise reasoning legalized convicted felons building machineguns at home (legal under Washington state law). I'm not kidding about that either.]

Would be better off arguing any or all of the following:

* Cannabis has demonstrated medicinal value, directly contradicting statute. Statue provides no evidence of, nor ability to verify, its claim that there is a lack of evidence of medical value.

* Individual prohibition requires a constitutional amendment a la amendment 18.

* Founding leaders of US grew hectares of cannabis. System is in gross hypocrisy.

No, one would not be better off making these arguments in court.

> Cannabis has demonstrated medicinal value, directly contradicting statute. Statue provides no evidence of, nor ability to verify, its claim that there is a lack of evidence of medical value.

Please cite a case of a law overturned in the US judicial system because of medical value.

> Individual prohibition requires a constitutional amendment a la amendment 18.

Again, please cite case law. I'm pretty sure you don't need a constitutional amendment to outlaw possession of a type of good.

> Founding leaders of US grew hectares of cannabis. System is in gross hypocrisy.

Seriously? It wasn't outlawed until the modern era. By your logic, should slavery still be legal since founding fathers owned slaves?

Case law is largely irrelevant. You know what existed before 'case law'?

I think the logic is sound: Party A (statute) argues a->x, b->y, c->z. Party B shows a, b, c don't actually hold in reality and therefore you cannot conclude x, y, or z based on a, b, or c.

Statue is therefore meaningless.

Amendment 18 & 21 set the precedent. Amendments 4, 9, & 10 provide huge cover.

>By your logic, should slavery still be legal since founding fathers owned slaves?

I didn't expound my whole logic, but the largest difference is that slaves are human beings and cannabis is a plant.

Also note, slavery is outlawed by the US constitution. Cannabis is not.

SCOTUS has demonstrated, as I pointed to in Raich, a willingness to engage in staggering contortions to reach/justify/support a goal. Accepting your reasoning, however correct it may (or may not) be, would mean massive changes in what constitutes contraband and how it may be suppressed - a degree of change SCOTUS is rarely willing to cause (and certainly not over cannabis).

Your reasoning has been tried, and failed. People are working very hard to make such reasoning work, and are making little progress.

You're thinking of arguments in the conventional, everyday sense. The legal system deals in legal arguments.

The point ctdonath was making was that the Supreme Court has ruled that private, personal cultivation of marijuana, even when in accordance with state laws, has an effect on interstate commerce. The relevance of the effect on interstate commerce is that the activity - growing marijuana - falls under the purview of federal law and federal law enforcement agencies.

To bring it back to your suggestions and the distinction between conventional and legal arguments, ask yourself this: for each suggested argument, think of two worlds with one being a world where your argument is absolutely correct and the other being a world where your argument is absolutely incorrect. Is there a difference between these two worlds in whether or how personal marijuana cultivation affects the illegal interstate marijuana market?

Following your line of arguing (based on your characterization of the SC's logic), all activities can likely be shown to fall under the purview of federal law and federal law enforcement agencies as essentially all activities affect your local environment, and in turn all activities that interact with your local environment, which will include many activities directly or indirectly impacting commerce which will then impact interstate commerce.

This line of argument can be used to justify federal involvement in anything. This makes it useless in drawing any interesting distinction, nor does it address any of my original arguments.

That is exactly, and insanely, what the Supreme Court ruled.

I do think there is some truth to the argument that individuals' actions have global consequences.

However, I do not think the US Supreme Court has real claim to be the final, global arbiter. Usurping power is, however, the US Supreme Court's demonstrated prerogative. It's pretty much how the institution began its life.

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