Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The Declaration of Independence, where that phrase comes from, is basically marketing bullshit. It's full of rhetorical flourish that Jefferson got away with precisely because it has no legal significance. After all, that same document says that "all men are created equal" while the Constitution enshrined the institution of slavery for another few generations.

The closest analogue in the Constituon is the idea that due process protects those fundamental rights inherent in "ordered liberty."

View on HN

There is no analogue in the Constitution because the Constitution enumerates the specific powers granted to the Federal Government. Drug prohibition is not one of them, and the entire Federal war on drugs is held up by the lynch-pin supreme court case Wickard v Filburn... where the Supreme Court decided that "interstate commerce" applies to goods literally not involved in any commerce whatsoever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

Wickard v. Filburn isn't the lynch-pin of the Federal war on drugs. It's a ridiculous case, but it's also a narrow one: does the Commerce Clause cover marijuana grown for personal use. That is obviously not interstate commerce within any sensible definition of the concept.

However, the drug trade in general is archetypal interstate commerce. Almost nobody grows and processes their own weed or their own cocaine. It all happens through cross-border commercial transactions.

Possession is illegal at the Federal level. All drug commerce that does not cross state lines is also illegal. There could be no federal war on drugs at all without the interstate commerce power the supreme court has derived.

Going further, the purpose of the interstate commerce clause was to give the power to regulate tariffs (and other taxes) between the states, not make entire trades illegal because sometimes those goods are sold elsewhere.

> There could be no federal war on drugs at all without the interstate commerce power the supreme court has derived.

For states where the state's laws agree that the drugs are illegal (i.e. most states now, and all states until relatively recently), there could be a (legal) federal war on drugs so long as the state government does not object. As to the practicality of the enforcement of such objections, we're seeing it play out right now with the states that have legalized it.

> Almost nobody grows and processes their own weed...

Er... really? In my experience, it's quite common.

I know more pot growers than pot buyers and I'm not even in a decriminalized state.

I know one person who grows their own weed. But I live in the city. In any case, marijuana and possession generally are a small part of the federal drug war.

weed is maybe a bad example. I think heroin would be more apt here, since that is usually grown and processed overseas before being imported.

where I'm from, growing and processing (curing and trimming) your own weed is very common.

this time of year is harvest season in fact.

plenty of odd jobs trimming marijuana pop up seasonally around here because of it.

The constitution was agnostic on slavery so far as I can recall. Article and section please?

Article I, Section 9, cl. 1 (which was among the provisions explicitly shielded from Amendment prior to 1808 by Article V.)

For the lazy

>The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Also Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 3 (the 3/5ths clause).

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three."

or to put it in terms that this forum would appreciate

  representatives = {NH:3, MA:8, RI:1 CN:5, NY:6, NJ:4, PA:8, DL:1, ML:6, VA:10, NC:5, SC:5, GA:3}

  def census(state): #call this in 3 years, and again in every 10 years
     result = 0
     for i in state.persons:
        if i.free or i.bound_to_service:
           result += 1
        elif not(i.indian and not i.taxed):
           result += 0 #included for clarity
        else:
           result += 3/5
     return max(int(result / 30000),1)

Note the 3/5th compromise is reached by way of "no other category applies" rather than an explicit "slavery" condition. Make of that what you will. Unrelated note: imagine if all law were written as programming.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com