The U.S. Supreme Court took the Bush administration’s side in the drug war yesterday, declaring that people who legally grow, possess and smoke medicinal marijuana under state statutes which allow it, can be prosecuted by federal authorities. Yes, that’s right, in effort to give no ground on this failed “war,” we’re now declaring the nation’s sick a worthy enemy of justice and the American way.
USA Today, not exactly a liberal, nor liberterian, daily had this to say in today’s Op-Ed page.
Court’s ruling on marijuana reeks of ‘reefer madness’
The Court’s 6-3 decision was a stretched interpretation of the clause in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Under Monday’s ruling, growing marijuana at home for medicinal purposes, with no money changing hands, is somehow now a form of interstate commerce. It makes you wonder what the majority was smoking. As Justice Clarence Thomas said in his dissenting opinion, “If Congress can regulate this … under the commerce clause, then it can regulate virtually anything.”