Is that the one page version or the unabridged version?


If people want to smoke pot for any reason then what reason has the
government to be bothering people about it?



Ask the supreme court jusatices.

Scott Wheeler


They hardly the only people involved in the problem, in fact there was
word that if the law was changed by Congress, it wouldn't be a problem.

If you go back far enough you can lay the blame for this at the feet of
FDR and his attempts to pack the Supreme Court and the Justices
response.

That landmark 1942 decision called Wickard v. Filburn opened the door
for congressional regulation reaching down to the state and local level
- as long as whatever was being regulated had an impact on "commerce,"
as it was broadly defined by the high court.

This was the decision that opened the door for the New Deal. This
definition permitted an explosive growth in national legislation that
continued unabated until 1995, when the justices by a 5-to-4 vote
struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act. In 2000, the same 5-to-4
majority invalidated a portion of the Violence Against Women Act that
authorized victims of gender-motivated violence to sue their attackers
in federal court.

Facts of the Case
Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio. He was given a wheat acreage
allotment of 11.1 acres under a Department of Agriculture directive
which authorized the government to set production quotas for wheat.
Filburn harvested nearly 12 acres of wheat above his allotment. He
claimed that he wanted thewheat for use on his farm, including feed for
his poultry and livestock. Fiburn was penalized. He argued that the
excess wheat was unrelated to commerce since he grew it for his own
use.


Question Presented
Is the amendment subjecting Filburn to acreage restrictions in
violation of the Constitution because Congress has no power to regulate
activities local in nature?


Conclusion
According to Filburn, the act regulated production and consumption,
which are local in character. The rule laid down by Justice Jackson is
that even if an activity is local and not regarded as commerce, "it may
still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a
substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and this
irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time
have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.'"

After President Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court to dilute the
influence of the uncooperative "nine old men," a majority of the
justices took to the most expansive definition of the commerce clause
like a drunk to drink. The Court blessed the secretary of agriculture's
power to set minimum prices for milk sold intrastate . "The marketing
of intrastate milk," wrote the Court in the 1942 Wrightwood Dairy case,
"which competes with that shipped interstate would tend seriously to
break down price regulation of the latter." Yes, so? What was the
Court's point? Only that nothing - especially not liberty - should
be permitted to get in the way of the national government's power to
regulate the economy.

Wickard v. Filburn got to the Supreme Court, and in 1942, the justices
unanimously ruled against the farmer. The government claimed that if
Mr. Filburn grew wheat for his own use, he would not be buying it -
and that affected interstate commerce. It also argued that if the price
of wheat rose, which is what the government wanted, Mr. Filburn might
be tempted to sell his surplus wheat in the interstate market,
thwarting the government's objective. The Supreme Court bought it.

The Court's opinion must be quoted to be believed:

[The wheat] supplies a need of the man who grew it which would
otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. Home-grown
wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce.

As Epstein said, "Could anyone say with a straight face that the
consumption of home-grown wheat is 'commerce among the several
states?'" For good measure, the Court justified the obvious sacrifice
of Mr. Filburn's freedom and interests to the unnamed farmers being
protected:

Bottom line: It is very unfair to claim that it is the Bush
Administration that should be blamed for the decison in the case of
Medical Marijauna, since if Congress at any time had the balls to
change the law, the decion would be much different.