Colorado Governor Seriously Doubts The Feds Will Let The State Legalize Pot

[Hippo_Tron]

18. I'd like this to be tested under the current Supreme Court

Medicinal marijuana lost the last time 6 to 3 with the liberals mostly siding with the Feds and surprisingly Thomas and Rehnquist siding with the state.

Here's my general feeling about this. Having a federal drug control policy makes sense on a lot of levels. I would much rather have the FDA regulating drugs than having each state do it themselves. That said, I'm not sure that it ought to be within the Feds' purview if we're talking about non-interstate commerce and small amounts.

If someone has a 40 acre pot farm and is shipping it all over the country, yea I think the feds should have the authority to shut them down even though I think it's a stupid for pot to be illegal. But the Colorado law only allows you to grow 6 plants and possess up to an ounce. I think that when you're talking about quantities of any drug that small, the states ought to be able to determine the criminal penalties or there lack of.

Put more simply, I think it's within the federal government's authority to prevent the emergence a large scale interstate legalized pot industry in the United States if that's what the law says. But on a small scale and particularly confined to one state, I think the 10th amendment would come into play here.