Department of Pot

Jacob Sullum | November 9, 2005

The city of Santa Cruz, California, is setting up an office charged with distributing marijuana to patients who use it for medical purposes. I'm not usually a fan of government-run enterprises, but this one is aimed at testing the authority of states to go their own way on drug policy, the most likely source of innovation in this area. In Gonzales v. Raich, relying on a bogus Commerce Clause rationale, the U.S. Supreme Court said patients who grow marijuana for their own medical use are subject to arrest by the federal government even though such cultivation is permitted by state law. But the Court did not address the criminal liability of state or local officials who handle marijuana under California's Compassionate Use Act. According to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, "the federal government cannot enforce federal criminal laws against state officials who merely implement valid state law—or choose not to enforce federal law."

Comments

|11.9.05 @ 11:54AM|#

Interesting idea. It almost seems to be a use of the state sovereignty principle partially relied upon in U.S. v. Morrison. Of course, it looks like Lopez and Morrison were aberrations, so I'm sure the feds can work something out.

|11.9.05 @ 11:57AM|#

Can I hope that because these people were state employees, they can't be arrested by the Feds for doing their jobs? Just as the Feds couldn't arrest DMV workers who issue driver's licenses if the state driver's license policy violated federal guidelines somehow?

grylliade|11.9.05 @ 12:03PM|#

According to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, "the federal government cannot enforce federal criminal laws against state officials who merely implement valid state law�or choose not to enforce federal law."

Yeah, good luck with that.

TallDave|11.9.05 @ 12:06PM|#

This is where the GOP should be stepping in to defend states' rights and the Dems should be sticking up for the little guy.

|11.9.05 @ 12:16PM|#

Jennifer,
I've given up on that other thread.
So do you want to explain here how intra-government akido would work?
(Your Movement.)

|11.9.05 @ 12:36PM|#

Ruthless, it's the whole martial-arts concept of use your opponent's own force against him. You guys hate government? Don't want to dirty your hands by using it for anything? Well, people, it so happens that you live in a country with layers and layers and layers of government, and we can bitch about it all we want but the layers are still there and getting thicker all the time.

So use them against each other. Here, you've got a bloated, overwrought state government anyway, so what the hell--make a department that'll completely defy something the Feds are trying to do.

Meanwhil in another thread and part of the country, the Feds and making trouble for fool local authorities who want to teach religious ID doctrine in science classes. Fine! Good! Hooray!

Use the Feds against bad locals. Use the locals against bad Feds. I'm kind of busy right now, so I can't start a Movement based on this philosophy. So I'll mention it here and hope someone more motivated than me sees it. Anti-government akido! Use government against itself! If it's truly a parasite, as you all sometimes like to say, then let it feed upon itself!

We can ponder the philosophical conundrum of force-feeding a snake its own tail until the snake swallows itself out of existence.

|11.9.05 @ 12:55PM|#

Being an MJ patient myself here in WA state, I am with Jennifer, I would prefer govt to butt out but fighting fire with fire sometimes has useful results.

I look forward to seeing the long term outcome of this strategy.

|11.9.05 @ 12:59PM|#

So when the DEA tanks roll in, can Arnold call in the California National Guard to defend the local offices?

That would be so cool..

Warren|11.9.05 @ 1:41PM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,
That would be cool

|11.9.05 @ 1:43PM|#

Watch this space:
http://www.citybeat.com/current/index.shtml
The latest (today) has a cover story, "The First Step is a Permanent Cease Fire: Drug War Victory."

Who says Sinincincinnati is ten years behind!

|11.9.05 @ 1:45PM|#

smacky,
The CityBeat story is about folks living up in your neck of Ohio.

Larry A|11.9.05 @ 2:01PM|#

According to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, "the federal government cannot enforce federal criminal laws against state officials who merely implement valid state law?or choose not to enforce federal law."

I thought we pretty well blew that theory apart back in the era of school integration. Or was it the Whiskey Rebellion?

|11.9.05 @ 2:10PM|#

Meanwhile, San Diego balks on medical MJ. "Rather than wait to be sued for refusing to follow state medical marijuana laws, the county Board of Supervisors is going to force the issue by suing the state first." Sigh.

|11.9.05 @ 2:22PM|#

Agents of the state fighting each other, what a great thing for us free people!

R C Dean|11.9.05 @ 2:36PM|#

Use the Feds against bad locals. Use the locals against bad Feds. I'm kind of busy right now, so I can't start a Movement based on this philosophy. So I'll mention it here and hope someone more motivated than me sees it. Anti-government akido!

First, its spelled aikido.

Second, you don't have to start a movement. We already had one. It was called Constitutional government, back in the day, and it was based on separation of powers and limited federal government. You have described exactly how it was intended to work.

Americans decided they'd rather try something else. Trust me, go around talking about how you want to go back to the original Constitutional scheme will get you nothing but funny looks.

|11.9.05 @ 3:24PM|#

Jennifer,
After reading R C then re-reading what you wrote, it seems the federal government is the big snake that has already swallowed the state and local snakes. That has made him fat and sleek.

|11.9.05 @ 3:30PM|#

Well, Ruthless, let the state and local snakes gnaw at the big one from within, then.

RC_
Akira gave me the spelling on another thread. I hadn't even heard of it before today.

|11.9.05 @ 3:47PM|#

I predict this will last as long as it takes the feds to threaten federal highway funds or law enforcement grants. Then - poof - the CA government, at all levels, will be verboten to engage in any of these shenanigans.

As RC noted, the aikido you guys speak of is explicit in the original Constitution. Now, it's all one big snake that every once in a while gets a small cancerous tumor that it slows down to shed, then speeds back up.

SCOTUS was never intended to be the protector of federalism - the Senate was. It no longer fulfills that function, and in fact, the whole point of federalism was forcibly eradicated through the use of slave labor in the 1860s...

|11.9.05 @ 6:43PM|#

RC Dean is right about going back to the original Constitution and funny looks--that brand of federalism went out with the Seventeenth Amendment.

...but I don't think Jennifer is just talking about using Constitutional separations; I think she's talking about coordinated exploitation of the fault lines. We can use state referendums to defy federal law, and federal courts to stymie state law. ...and so on.

Sure, people do that kind of thing now, but it isn't coordinated and organized. We have the LP, but it's kind of limited to influencing elections. I think what Jennifer is suggesting is something like... Imagine if the Institute for Justice, the Libertarian Party--both local and national--and a media outlet like Reason were all part of the same coordinated organization.

I doubt such coordination would improve the quality of the work--existing organizations working independently would probably outperform, but it might help with fundraising and scale.

I'm trying to think of a good example of organizations that do this kind of thing, but I'm only comin' up with Hezbollah, the IRA and Hamas, which are obviously bad examples. ...Oh, I just thought of a good example--the Republicans!

|11.9.05 @ 8:09PM|#

Man, you thought City Hall employees were slow and unhelpful before...

|11.9.05 @ 8:22PM|#

I don't know Joe - I'm thinking a whole new morale change for city employees.

All we need to do is to sue the state medical insurance programs until marijuana is included in accepted perscriptions for headaches. :)

|11.9.05 @ 8:37PM|#

I predict this will last as long as it takes the feds to threaten federal highway funds or law enforcement grants.

Hmm, me thinks then the good citizens of CA redirect their federal income taxes back into the state to make up the loss. After all, they democratically voted in the law fer crying out loud! Maybe it could go further with all states that enacted Med MJ laws withholding their federal income taxes until the feds back off. Can't we voters "starve the beast" if we all united to do it?

James Anderson Merritt|11.9.05 @ 8:45PM|#

I thought this same basic tactic was used on behalf of Ed Rosenthal, but failed because the Judge would not allow discussion of Prop. 215 or his official relationship with the City of Oakland to be admitted as evidence in his Federal trial. What changed? Or is Lockyer just blowing smoke?

|11.10.05 @ 8:21AM|#

"Hmm, me thinks then the good citizens of CA redirect their federal income taxes back into the state to make up the loss"

Ha! How do you propose doing that? Telling people not to pay the IRS when it comes knocking at their door with armed agents? Promising them that they won't end up in jail when they disobey federal law? yeah, that worked out well for those medical marijuana people, didn't it...

|11.10.05 @ 5:00PM|#

"the federal government cannot enforce federal criminal laws against state officials who merely implement valid state law�or choose not to enforce federal law."

Ha! Funniest line ever?