What 'State's Rights' Really Means

Clinton supporters continue to wail about how they don't see Barack Obama discussing progressive policy.  Disregarding their selective blind-deaf-and-dumbness, there are differences between Obama's policy discussions and Clinton's.  Dave Crisp points to one that is near and dear to my heart, state's rights.

There are 12 states that have passed laws legalizing medical marijuana.  Montana is one of those.  The Federal government however has seen fit to tell our states that their anti-drug campaign trumps our medical law.  They've done this since the reign of Bill Clinton, for no reason that has been supported Constitutionally (the SCOTUS has so far refused to hear challenges.)  To me, this seems a clear violation of state's rights, but then I'm not the Constitutional scholar that most right wingers pretend to be (like SOS Brad Johnson who threatened rebellion to the SCOTUS over Heller v. DC.)   So, what we can hope for  is a President not so in love with  image that he supports the rights voted on by our state.  That would be Barack Obama.

As the candidates prepare for a May 20 primary in Oregon, one of 12 states with a California-style law, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has become an increasingly firm advocate of ending federal intervention and letting states make their own rules when it comes to medical marijuana.

His Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is less explicit, recently softening a pledge she made early in the campaign to halt federal raids in states with medical marijuana laws. But she has expressed none of the hostility that marked the response of her husband's administration to California's initiative, Proposition 215.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, has gone back and forth on the issue - promising a medical marijuana patient at one campaign stop that seriously ill patients would never face arrest under a McCain administration, but ultimately endorsing the Bush administration's policy of federal raids and prosecutions.

I know, I know.  Clinton supporters will bop on in and tell us all how Hillary isn't Bill (except as regards his CiC experience).   Conservatives will likely continue the same arguments about drug use (except Rush Limbaugh's Oxycotin) that they lost in 2004 when Montana voted overwhelmingly to allow the prescription of medical marijuana.  To any who chose to do so, let me tell you that I don't much care.  This isn't about potheads or Hillary Clinton and Bill's inhaling.  This is about whether or not states have the rights given them by the Constitution to set and support medical practices.  It's funny that the last refuge of anti-government folks is usually the cry of "state's rights".  Well here's an issue where it actually matters.  We'll see where those folk come down.