Friday, June 10, 2005

Commerce Clause, Supreme Court and Bullshit

Though the Supreme Court's decision on medical marijuana is pretty much what I expected (cynic that I've become), I am thoroughly disgusted. The idea that traffic in medical marijuana impacts overall drug trade enough to invoke federal commerce clause powers is contemptible and nothing more.

As Prof. David Bernstein writes in his post at Volokh, there's a lot of hypocrisy going on. Actually, Bernstein wrote that "The five-member majority of the Court simply does not take federalism seriously", which is close enough for me.

Nothing's necessarily changed in the practical sense, but something should have changed. I was hoping for a little honesty, a little sanity, but no. Power and money talk.

In San Francisco we have the chief narc saying We respect state law and we're not going to shut down all the medical marijuana clubs tomorrow. Well, why the hell not? It's the law! Shut them down, damn it!

Prosecutorial discretion - what a crock.

Selective enforcement of the law is a tool of the tyrant. Got a rabblerouser on the loose? Bust him for a joint and put him away for 30 years. It's happened, and it'll happen again. It ought never happen. That's why selective enforcement of the law is evil, prosecutorial discretion is evil, and why laws ought not exist if they're not to be enforced uniformly.

God! I am so disgusted.

The usual suspects urge us to urge our representatives to back the Hinchey-Rohrabacher measure to prohibit the spending of federal money to undermine the will of the States, and the Truth in Trials Act, which would allow victims of federal meddling to introduce testimony that they followed State law. I've done that, but it probably amounts to no more than log flogging. My representative is on the dark side. I'd be shocked to hear he'd reconsidered.

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