“States rights” are part of the founding of our country and are explicitly written into the constitution:

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.

Many of us (usually conservatives) believe that the Constitution should be applied as written and intended, because it has an amendment process to keep it current.

Unfortunately, many others (usually on the left) prefer the “living Constitution” view, preferring the fiats of judges to the wisdom of the people (via the amendment process) to “modernize” the application of the Constitution.

Of course, too many on both sides let their goal of drug prohibition blind them to the unconstitutionality of many of the laws enacted in that cause.

………

As for the “real world” argument… principles exist as principles. The application and political strength of those principles is of course subject to the political process. The purpose of the Constitution was to greatly and strictly limit the powers of the Federal Government. That purpose has been long ignored as inconvenient.

Also, drugs have a nasty habit of crossing state lines – even being imported from abroad, so while I’m not a fan of drug laws the federal interest, certainly in volume sales, is well-established and undoubtedly constitutional. Even chocolate chip cookies are subject to federal regulation and inter-state commerce laws when they enter the retail market (despite the fact that it’s common for Ma to whip up a batch in her kitchen – something she’d better not try with methamphetamine or distilled alcohol.) I don’t think state medical marijuana laws can do much more than shift the debate and try to re-shape the focus of enforcement, future federal law-making and constitutional interpretation. “States Rights” don’t exist as some Platonic ideal (vis. the history of the 14th Amendment) but in a real world of ideological contention, cultural bias, empiricism/pragmatism and political conflict.

Where in the Constitution does it give the Federal government the power to regulate drugs or anything else that doesn’t cross state lines?

The New Dealers did run into states rights issues because I guess the courts were less friendly to economic violations of the Constitution than to those affecting personal liberty.

The drug enforcement powers come from obscene extensions of the Commerce Clause, which were championed by the liberals of the New Deal because they allowed many New Deal programs that otherwise would have required Constitutional Amendments.

Ouch…

“Perhaps if the left was a stronger supporter of states’ rights over federal encroachment…” we could have segregated medical marijuana facilities.

But then isn’t if funny how liberals only want the feds defer to the state laws when it suits them.

I looked at the draft ordinance last night and some of it still a little nutso and based on paranoia that has no demonstrable basis, it’s getting there.

By and large, by the way, dispensaries do their best NOT to draw attention, rather than the reverse. When I reported on the issue for the Weekly I noticed that, if anything, they’re hard to find as their signage, if they have any, is so subtle.

Based on my observation, most of the stuff in that LA Times article about the worried “not-in-my-neighborhood” people, was based on paranoia and projected imaginings, not actual fact.

A SIDE NOTE:

Several school quarters ago, one of my UCI students did a story about a landlord who had a space in his building that had been vacant for some time, and he had to do decide whether or not to rent the space to some dispensary people, who turned up and were interested. My student detailed all the hassle he went through because of perception of the problems that the dispensary might bring, rather than the fact of it. It was intriguing. In the end, the landlord said no because he didn’t want to deal with the bad blood from the neighbors, not because of any real trouble that he determined the dispensary would bring.

So the issue seems to be better regulation, something the city’s been wanting to get a handle on for a while but doesn’t seem to have it right yet. And yes, I agree that in the meantime, the DEA should stay out of it — issue alerts and advisories/ promptings to the city about problem spots, but give the city the year it said it needs to sort things out.