Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 15:56:27 -0700
From: gunnut  (GENE HANSON)
Subject: Drug war is unconstitional based on 9th, 14th & 10th Amendments
To: LIBERTARIANS@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU


Vin explains why the drug war is unconstitional because of
the 9th, 14th & 10th Amendments.

From THE BALLAD OF CARL DREGA by VIN SUPRYNOWICZ - Pages 582-584

the entire federal drug war - all of 21 U.S.C - is blatantly
unconstitutional, ...

There are no fewer than three independently sufficient gronds on
which this could and should be held. The weakest of these is the
10th Amendment, which tells us that any power not specifically
delegated to the United States by the Constitution is reservered
to the states or to the people. Since nowhere in the Constitution is
Congress delegated any specific power to regulate drugs, the
practice of medicine, or what responsible adults choose to put in
their bodies, any state law (like California's successful 1996
medical marijuana proposition) supersedes federal authority.

This is the weakest argument, simply because it would seem
to authorize state drug wars. ....

Now, truth be told, even state drug wars are further banned under
the 14th Amendment (the second sufficient grouns for tossing out
the Drug War). Orginally enacted to stop state authorities from
passing "gun control" laws that could disarm black Civil War
veterans, this amendment bans the several states from "abridging
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Under the 14th, the high court could and should have thrown out
California's current marijuana distribution scheme, not because
it allows some marijuana use, but because it places any restrictions
on marijuana use at all.

Am I saying Americans have some kind of right to drugs? Damned
right, and here's where we come to the constitutional provision
even a second-year law student could hardly ignore. The Ninth
Amendment avises the justices, "The enumeration in the Constitution
of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people."

In 1787 and thenceforware, at least through 1915, did our ancestors
on these shores "retain the right" to grow, produce, import, buy,
and sell opium, cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana by the pound or by
the ton, as and whenever they pleased, without federal restriction
save the ocasional modest excise [tax]?

Indeed they did. And the proof is that when Congress wanted to ban
one of these forms of commerece, a separate constitutional amendment
- the 18th, since repealed - had to be enacted to allow a federal ban
on "intoxicating liquors."

So when was the parallel and necessary constitional amendment ratified,
authorizing the War on Drugs?

Pardon me, I didn't hear that. Could you speak up, please? What year?

There is none, of course. The Ninth Amendment stands unchallenged; the
entirety of 21 U.S.C. stands invalid, and JusticeThomas acknowledges
the court just had someone advise them, "Hey, the emperor has no clothes."



AMENDMENT IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con-
strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people.


AMENDMENT X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.

AMENDMENT XIV

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866.  Ratified July 9, 1868


Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according
to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians not taxed.  But when the right to vote at any elec-
tion for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial off-
icers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to
any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,
and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for parti-
cipation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein
shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens
shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such State.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of
President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under
the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath,
as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State Legislaure, or as an executive or judicial officer of
any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or com-
fort to the enemies thereof.  But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,
including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services
in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.  But nei-
ther the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obliga-
tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States,
or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts,
obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation,
the provisions of this article.


AMENDMENT XVIII

Passed by Congress December 18, 1917.  Ratified January 16,
1919.<<Altered by Amendment 21>>

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture,
sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation
thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all ter-
ritory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby
prohibited.

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as
an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of the several States,
as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the
submission hereof to the States by the Congress.