WI: Prop 19 Passed?

What if Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize cannabis, passed in California?

How would the federal government react? Would there be a Constitutional challenge to federal drug law going through the courts? And, how would the drug cartels react?
 
I can see this going to the high court if Prop 19 was passed. The cartels wouldn't be to happy but they are to busy killing each other down in Mexico to do anything that stuipd. The Feds would try and fail to stop it.
 
Well, first and foremost, I doubt that the feds would go after California too hard. President Obama, unless he wants to seem tough on crime or something like that, has bigger problems to deal with than someone smoking pot, so the prosecution/apprehension of smokers wouldn't be that strong.

Even if the Feds did decide to pursue, the AG of California, Jerry Brown, is going to go to a Federal Judge for a stay of action, which he will probably get, and Brown will also oppose the law as Governor. So while federal action is stayed, the Feds sue under the Federal Controlled Substances Act, and this gets bumped up to the Ninth Circuit. Eventually, around 2014, it's going to hit the Supreme Court.

Now, one of three results occurs here:
A) The Court strikes Prop 19 down-Unlikely.
B) The Court allows Prop 19 to go through-Likely
C) The Court declines to hear the case-Probable.

The reasoning for this is Gonzales v. Oregon, from a few years back. The Court ruled then that Oregon had the right to enact the Death with Dignity Law, and that the government couldn't go after doctors under the Controlled Substances Act.
While the Court has changed, it's not enough to overturn a precedent. The liberals are going to vote for California, and Kennedy will go with them, possibly Roberts or Alito as well.
So Prop 19 is legal.
 
i think this would help the situation in mexico. the cartels get most of thier funding through bringing pot into the US and california probably gets alot of it. Some legal pot companies are gonna start showing up in california and selling little machine rolled joints in convenience stores. They would probably tax the hell out of it like cigarettes but it would still be a whole lot cheaper.
 
Contradicting federal law.
But it doesn't, it's just different. The States and the Federal government need not have identical criminal codes. This is evidenced by the fact that state medical marijuana laws permit far more than is legal under the US Code already.

The supremacy of federal law simply means that state laws cannot invalidate federal laws, i.e. states cannot prevent enforcement of the US Code by federal officials. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that the federal government cannot order state officials to enforce the federal law.

Recreational marijuana might still be illegal from the point of view of the FBI, but they cannot order the state police to enforce the ban.
 
What the Justice Dept. could do is prosecute cannabis retailers in a federal court, and seek injunctions against state officials that issue cannabis tax stamps.
 
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