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Christie, Pot, and the Rule of Law
As Ricochet member ShellGamer wrote late last year, Colorado and Washington’s (and now Alaska’s) legalization of marijuana has both created and exposed a constitutional mess. In brief, neighboring states are suing the Obama Administration for its policy of turning a blind eye to federal drug laws. Meanwhile, Congress shrugs its shoulders and acts uninterested in either forcing the president to enforce the law, or in repealing or amending it. If elected president Governor Chris Christie says he’ll have none of it:
“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie, a Republican campaigning for the 2016 presidential nomination, said Tuesday during a town-hall meeting at the Salt Hill Pub in Newport, New Hampshire. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.” […] “That’s lawlessness,” he said. “If you want to change the marijuana laws, go ahead and change the national marijuana laws.”
Christie certainly has an argument, especially on that last point: when confronted with genuinely bad laws, the proper response should always be to repeal or reform. Keeping laws you don’t plan to enforce on the books encourages lawbreaking in general, and invites caprice on the part of enforcement. If one thing unites the entire spectrum of the right, from anarcho-capitalists to NeoCons, it’s the belief that the rule of law matters.
This isn’t the first time Christie has promised to do this. As he told Hugh Hewitt back in April:
Hewitt: If you’re the president of the United States, are you going to enforce the federal drug laws in those states?
Christie: Absolutely. I will crack down and not permit it.
Hewitt: Alright, next, the–
Christie: [interrupting] Marijuana is a gateway drug. We have enormous addiction problem in this country and we need to send very clear leadership from the White House on down to Federal law enforcement: Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law and the states should not be allowed to profit from it.
In his eagerness to enforce federal law, Christie seems to be ignoring a related question: was Congress acting within its constitutional authority when it passed the Controlled Substances Act? It’s certainly difficult to find an explicit granting of such power in Article 1, Section 8 and impossible to do so if you want the document to restrict Congress in any meaningful way. Moreover, it at least seems notable that the prohibitionists sought and won a constitutional amendment in order to ban alcohol, an amendment that has (blessedly) since been overturned. Shouldn’t someone concerned with the strict enforcement of the rule of law at least consider that matter?
In the meantime, however Christie is right: the federal government should enforce the laws on the books. And — while it doesn’t sound like this would fly past a President Christie — perhaps the best way to get rid of the law is the spectacle of having federales arrest peaceable citizens whose actions don’t concern the federal government and are in accord with their state’s laws.
Image Credit: L.E.MORMILE / Shutterstock.com
Published in Domestic Policy, Law
I’m not sure that this is an apples-to-apples comparison.
How does it go again?
Regardless, you’re stretching like Reed Richards when you imply that those you disagree with are hypocritical simply because you imagine they would be inconsistent in your hypothetical scenario.
It’s relevant in the sense that it is very tiresome when pols and conservative wankerati (looking at you Bill Bennett) get all hard line and tough guy about pot legalization. My limited research and experiential sample of one leads me to believe pot is a lot less harmful than alcohol, and would in aggregate be less harmful if legal. People who want to send other people to prison for pot should set an example of abstemious living themselves.
I agree. Regrettably in this wicked old world laws whose time has passed don’t get repealed, they just fall into desuetude. Meh, I don’t wanna is what happened with Blue Laws in some jurisdictions.
This is basically true, but there are reasons for it that have zip to do with race.
Obviously, Ashley’s mom won’t go on a crusade to change laws after her kid is busted. She’s embarrassed. If Ashley gets cancer and Mom attributes it to gluten or canola oil or whatever, then you’ll get your crusade.
Jesus is likely to live in a poorer neighborhood than Ashley. In poorer hoods, the neighbors are often happy to get Jesus on a marijuana beef. Why? Because even if he’s a reasonably decent kid, odds are that half of his pals aren’t.
Consequently, they don’t have to worry about his friends breaking into their garage. Maybe Ashley’s idiot friends would do the same thing, but it happens so rarely in her hood that no one worries about it.
Finally, it is unlikely that Ashley will view dope as a plausible path to success. Insofar as Jesus might, he’ll probably be shut out if it becomes legal.
I would prefer that the Feds repealed unconstitutional laws or unpopular and ineffective laws. Repeal of federal laws criminalizing the possession and sale of marijuana and products containing THC is one way to resolve the potential preemption issue, but a federal case limiting the commerce clause would be welcome. I support the states pushing this issue. The criminalization of marijuana has been a policy failure and is unwarranted nanny statism.
I don’t actually advocate this, but..
We have about two zillion laws on the federal books we don’t need. Even those laws that aren’t enforced can be quite harmful, for they can be the means by which a capricious executive can arrest whosoever he wants at whim.
Yet most of us don’t care until the jackboots come for us ourselves.
So, what if a president decided that he was going to enforce every federal law to the fullest extent of his power, everything from marijuana laws to tearing the tags off mattresses.
When people complain, reply that he’s enforcing the law but that the moment these idiocies are no longer laws he’ll stop enforcing them. Moreover, if somebody’s been convicted of a law that congress overturns, he’ll pardon them.
Would people actually start paying attention to federal laws and regulations when everybody they know is getting arrested for violating one? Could this be a backdoor way to limit the size of government?
I’m sure there are a few hundred reasons this wouldn’t work, but it’s just a thought.
On the gateway drug thing, the true gateway drug is alcohol (as addressed by Franco above) on two counts.
Not only is it the first way most people get “high,” because of the drinking age it also trains millions of teenagers across America that it’s more or less normal to break the law. Thus, it’s a gateway for marijuana and every other drug on the books.
To the extend that marijuana itself is a gateway drug, it’s because it’s bought from the same guy who sells all the other stuff.
Also, I know somebody will bring up “how can you not want the feds to enforce marijuana laws but you’re all about cracking down on sanctuary cities.”
The difference is that immigration is Constitutionally reserved for the feds (I’ve no problem with locals supporting the enforcement of federal law on this count, just not defying it), whereas I see no mention in the Constitution of federal authority to regulate what people are allowed to do to themselves besides that one amendment that’s been repealed.
I’m done for a while.
It may not be apples to apples constitutionally, but it is the exact same issue nonetheless.
Let’s express the issue a bit more generically:
Activity X is illegal according to both state law and federal law.
State Y changes it’s law, making Activity X legal within their state.
President Z does not see a compelling case to enforce the federal law banning Activity X.
If Activity X is the sale of, or the consumption of, marijuana, and you happen to be opposed to those things, then I guess it’s ok to want the federal government to raid non-violent, (state) law abiding business who sell, and snatch all their things.
If Activity X happens to be the sale of, or use of, a 30 round magazine, and you happen to be opposed to those things, then I guess it’s ok to want the federal government to raid non-violent, (state) law abiding business who sell, and snatch all their things.
Of course, you can be in favor government raids in the one case, but not the other. You might feel that one activity is very harmful to society while the other is not. But, if that is your view, then don’t wring your hands when the government raids the businesses engaged in the activity you do not find harmful.
The point I’m getting at is this: the sale and consumption of marijuana is no more harmful than the sale and use of 30 round magazines. Both have the potential for bad things to happen, but bad things don’t necessarily happen, in fact I would submit that in either activity, bad things mostly don’t happen. The federal government has better things to do.
Not thoroughly. I sympathize with his premises, but yes, his conclusions and prescriptions do make me uncomfortable.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I agree in the case of new laws, but existing ones are a different matter. If you apply a strict reading of enumerated powers, Social Security is almost certainly unconstitutional as well if the document is intended to mean anything.
For existing laws, I think it’s probably best to pressure to Congress to unwind them. Easier said than done, I realize, but…
According to Prof. Epstein in the latest Libertarian podcast, the entire New Deal is unconstitutional. So yes, that would include SS… :)
I was just listening to that and had the same thought. :)
The other thought I had while listening to Epstein’s intellectual life history was, how on Earth does he manage on Twitter? Are they all multi-part tweets? Like, 30 or 40-part tweets?
I may have to follow him just to answer that question… :)
I didn’t know about this thread until I read about it in the Daily Shot, so I’m late to the party.
It seems to me that people are excluding a lot of middles to get to their preferred result. But logically:
Christie is out to lunch on his views about marijauna, but at least he understands his job and is willing to perform it. I’m getting to the point where I’ll vote for anyone who meets that criterion.
Darn it, I should have Katie-Rule’d you.
(The Katie Rule in an official rule that you should always alert a member — through PM or email — when referencing them in a post; I dropped the ball on this one).
Like Mitt Romney before him Chris Christie cannot speak the language of conservatism or of State’s rights. Conservatives should be clawing back power from the Feds and turning it back to the states as intended by the Founders. The fact that Christie was once a Federal Prosecuter doesn’t impress me—it scares me. The fact that he let those three citizens twist in the wind over New Jersey’s draconian and picayune gun laws for as long as he did, lost this conservatives vote forever.
I could not agree more with every part of this comment. Well played sir. Returning power to the states is the ONLY hope at this point. (and a slim one at that)
Not a problem, as I wouldn’t have been logged on to see the PM.