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by VIN SUPRYNOWICZ Pages 582-584 The entire federal drug war - all of 21 U.S.C - is blatantly unconstitutional, ...
The 10th Amendment ReasonThere are no fewer than three independently sufficient gronds on which this could and should be held. The weakest of these is the 10th Amendment, which tells us that any power not specifically delegated to the United States by the Constitution is reservered to the states or to the people. Since nowhere in the Constitution is Congress delegated any specific power to regulate drugs, the practice of medicine, or what responsible adults choose to put in their bodies, any state law (like California's successful 1996 medical marijuana proposition) supersedes federal authority.This is the weakest argument, simply because it would seem to authorize state drug wars. ....
The 14th Amendment ReasonNow, truth be told, even state drug wars are further banned under the 14th Amendment (the second sufficient grounds for tossing out the Drug War). Orginally enacted to stop state authorities from passing "gun control" laws that could disarm black Civil War veterans, this amendment bans the several states from "abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."Under the 14th, the high court could and should have thrown out California's current marijuana distribution scheme, not because it allows some marijuana use, but because it places any restrictions on marijuana use at all.
The 9th Amendment ReasonAm I saying Americans have some kind of right to drugs? Damned right, and here's where we come to the constitutional provision even a second-year law student could hardly ignore. The Ninth Amendment avises the justices, "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."In 1787 and thenceforware, at least through 1915, did our ancestors on these shores "retain the right" to grow, produce, import, buy, and sell opium, cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana by the pound or by the ton, as and whenever they pleased, without federal restriction save the ocasional modest excise [tax]? Indeed they did. And the proof is that when Congress wanted to ban one of these forms of commerece, a separate constitutional amendment - the 18th, since repealed - had to be enacted to allow a federal ban on "intoxicating liquors." So when was the parallel and necessary constitional amendment ratified, authorizing the War on Drugs? Pardon me, I didn't hear that. Could you speak up, please? What year? There is none, of course. The Ninth Amendment stands unchallenged; the entirety of 21 U.S.C. stands invalid, and Justice Thomas acknowledges the court just had someone advise them, "Hey, the emperor has no clothes." |