States vs. Federal Rights

You know, it's interesting how framing an issue a can really affect what people who don't know about it, think. This has come to light, again, due to the medical marijuana case that was decided about a month ago by an appellate court. Do you remember back in summer of 2005 the supreme court decided "against medical marijuana"? It made a big splash in the papers, "how could they do such a thing," I heard, especially since all the liberal judges voted against it. Just recently I heard people say the same thing about the recent appellate decision (it was the same woman in both cases).

In some ways I can understand the confusion; it does look like the judges are voting against medical marijuana. All the newspapers are saying so and the women who walks around saying, "I'm not going to let them kill me" doesn’t help.

But guess what, that wasn't the issue before the supreme (or the appellate court). Nope, the case had nothing to do with removing marijuana from the schedule 1 list, the list that says it's addictive and has no medicinal uses. Instead, the case basically asks whether or not the federal government has the power to regulate something it has deemed illegal, even though a state has made it legal. This was a federal power vs. state power case, not a "is marijuana good" case. Voting for medical marijuana in this case would weaken states power,and set a different precedent then what's been done in the past.

I am in favor (usually, my opinion on this has been know to waver) on a strong federal government. Why? Because there are many good laws that would disappear if the states were stronger then the federal government. Most of our environmental policies, FDA regulations, and anything else that crosses state lines would be weakened. If the states were stronger, who knows what might happen. One Supreme court justice has actually said that we can't have a national religion, but he believes all states should be able to set up a state religion.

Now strong states aren’t necessarily a bad thing. We could end up acting like Europe, with each state acting as it's own country...but even they are working together to make some things the same across boundaries. Somehow, even though there is a line there that says this is one country and that is another, things that one county does (such as war, pollution, etc.) will have an effect on its neighbor. Odd, that.

Same thing with us. Having a strong nation can mean pass somethings that effect us all. While I can see this being bad, it might be better than each state deciding it's own pollution laws, anti-discriminatory laws, etc.

The judges in this case did not decided against medical marijuana, but for federal rights. A very different issue. But how many people knew that?