
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Referee State Disputes Over Marijuana - tnuc
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-supreme-court-declines-referee-state-disputes-over-marijuana-n542551
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matt_wulfeck
> Nebraska and Oklahoma said Colorado's decriminalization has "increased the
> flow of marijuana over their borders," forcing them to expend greater "law
> enforcement, judicial system, and penal system resources," thereby harming
> the welfare of their residents.

And what about all of the resources you spend prosecuting people for
recreation drug use? If you want to save money in that arena then Colorado and
Washington have a great idea they can tell you about.

~~~
beachstartup
this is my main gripe with republican, as opposed to libertarian views. they
believe in personal freedom and limited government... except where they don't.

~~~
rayiner
The idea that republicans profess to believe in personal freedom in all
respects is something libertarians made up to malign Republicans. Republicans,
like Democrats, believe that government should regulate the morals of the
people when necessary. For Republicans, small government is a means to
particular, mostly economic, ends, not an overarching ideological imperative
as it is for libertarians. Thus, there is nothing internally inconsistent
about Republicans preferring that government intrude minimally into private
markets while also preferring a large and strong military apparatus.

~~~
narrator
The fiscal responsibility part of the Republican ideology is largely
insincere. Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected
officials don't. During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled
congress and the presidency, federal spending grew _enormously_.

~~~
gozur88
>Sure, the people who vote Republican believe it, but the elected officials
don't.

... which is why the Republican Party is set to lose an election that should
have been an easy lay-up.

>During the Bush years, when the Republicans controlled congress and the
presidency, federal spending grew enormously.

That's how we ended up with the budget sequester, which is the only thing that
seems to have actually worked since the Gingrich House in the mid '90s. Now
that the sequester is gone federal spending will grow in leaps and bounds no
matter who is in power. It's built into the system.

------
ChuckMcM
Sometimes I wonder about how the country evolves its view on things. And
living through the evolution of gay marriage, and legalization of marijuana
gives you some nice concrete data points. Watching the will of the people
being expressed in these ways is kind of like watching a family dealing with a
grumpy relative who slowly changes the way everyone else thinks about things.
It isn't "fun" but it is fascinating.

I also know that in my parent's case it is their primary evidence that the
country is going downhill fast even while I see it as a hopeful sign that the
country can move forward. Not surprisingly, that dissonance is being tapped
rather effectively at times by the political process. It is strange to see
'change' as the fuel that is used by others to either accelerate or stop
further change.

~~~
toomuchtodo
"Progress occurs one obituary at a time".

Religious beliefs by age group: [http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-
study/compare/re...](http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-
study/compare/religious-tradition/by/age-distribution/)

Millennials have overtaken Baby Boomers: [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2015/01/16/this-year-mi...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2015/01/16/this-year-millennials-will-overtake-baby-boomers/)

Shifting Marijuana Beliefs: [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2015/04/14/6-facts-abou...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2015/04/14/6-facts-about-marijuana/)

Changing attitudes on same sex marriage:
[http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-
changi...](http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-changing-
attitudes-on-gay-marriage/)

The decline of marriage (somewhat attributable to economic causes IMHO):
[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-
am...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-
have-never-married/)

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drawkbox
Nebraska and Oklahoma continue to fund cartels south of the border when they
could start funding their schools and help their budget shortfalls, not to
mention contribute to personal freedom, just by ending prohibition.

Just another day in 'states rights' focused states that aren't adult enough to
understand what that means. People voted this in en masse, does NE and OK hate
freedom?

Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, DC are all asking the country when we
are going to stop funding the black market and cartels.

States continuing to fight a losing and unneeded prohibition battle, will
continue to send hundreds of millions and probably billions south to cartels
that are quite rich while states budgets are poor. It is time that it ends
across the board and quickly. What a waste of time and money prohibition has
been.

The moralistic laws from last century making non-violent personal acts into
crimes needs to end. It is too costly and the result is a black market with
cartels awash in billions and billions.

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fiatmoney
It was a little bit of an odd case to begin with. The idea is kind of that
there's a cause of action around state policy creating an inter-state
"nuisance" in arguable violation of federal law, but there's no real precedent
for that kind of thing in common law, and certainly not in statutory law.

If one were to establish such a cause of action, it would have major
implications around things like differing environmental regulations, firearms
laws, labor laws, tax policy, welfare, heck even fireworks sales.

I'm not surprised the SC didn't want to leap into that giant legal cluster
headache.

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rm_-rf_slash
This was a great decision. Such a monumental shift in drug policy should be
enshrined in federal legislation, and not dictated by the courts.

~~~
gizmo686
The complaint is that that Colorado is acting in violation of federal law. If
you feel that changes in drug policy should be pursued through federal
legislation, then you should be in favor of the Supreme Court upholding
existing federal law. Having said that, I agree with Colorado's assesment that
the currect target of prosecution is the federal government for failing to
enforce its laws (unless there is a specific provision compelling states to
act in a certain way).

~~~
Alex3917
> If you feel that changes in drug policy should be pursued through federal
> legislation, then you should be in favor of the Supreme Court upholding
> existing federal law.

Personal possession of weed is already completely legal under federal law via
the equal protection clause. Once they passed the law saying that it's legal
in DC, that means that it's now legal everywhere, even if they haven't yet
taken the time to strike the old language from the books.

The only time federal charges are still pursued is if there is a firearm
involved.

~~~
bradleyjg
This is the moral equivalent of people telling others they don't need to pay
income tax because the fringes of the flag in courtrooms have yellow tassels.

There are zero precedents under the equal protection clause that do anything
like what the link suggested. On top of that the equal protection clause by
its terms doesn't even apply to the federal government, since it is situated
in the fourteenth amendment. It has been reverse incorporated via the fifth
amendment due process clause, but again never in any case remotely like what
is being suggested. You can't just look at the words "equal protection" and
start extrapolating wildly. That's not how these things work.

There are several memorandum from office of the Attorney General that state
Justice Department policy as to where efforts should be focused (e.g.
[https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/305201382913275685...](https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/3052013829132756857467.pdf))
and even before that the federal government tended not to exert a lot of
effort on small time marijuana users. But it is emphatically not the case that
"personal possession ... is completely legal under federal law".

Please do not spread this type of misinformation, it can be have enormous
consequences.

~~~
Alex3917
Fair enough. In practice though even if the theory doesn't hold up, you'd need
to work pretty hard to get charged with possession by the feds. Even if you
punched a federal judge while holding a bag of weed, they'd probably still
toss the possession charge just to keep jury nullification types from trying
to get seated.

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Animats
This is a technical thing. The court decided that Nebraska and Oklahoma can
sue the Federal government for failure to enforce Federal law, but cannot sue
another state.

~~~
bradleyjg
No that's not it. The whole majority decision is one line long:

"The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied."

That's it. No four justices voted to take the case. That decision sets no
precedent and they declined to provide any reasoning which could even be
persuasive in terms of trying to predict how they will react to future leave-
to-file motions.

We can speculate as to why they decided not to take it, but we can't know for
sure because they didn't say.

