For much of the twentieth century, \u201cnullification\u201d was something of a dirty word in American politics because of its association with the defenses of slavery and Jim Crow. However, it has also been raised in support of basic human freedoms.<\/p>\n
In short, nullification is the idea that a state has the right to invalidate, or nullify, any federal law that the state considers to be unconstitutional. Today, some activists are arguing that states and people can declare federal cannabis prohibition nullified within their borders \u2014 though it might not be that simple.<\/p>\n
The first explicit invocation of nullification was in the\u00a0Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions<\/a>\u00a0of 1798, drafted by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. These resolutions were a rejection of truly draconian federal laws<\/a> on \u201cstate sovereignty\u201d grounds.<\/p>\n The laws in question in 1798 were the\u00a0Alien & Sedition Acts<\/a>, signed by President John Adams to clamp down on the populist opposition to his Federalist party. There was also a big element of xenophobia at work in the Alien & Sedition Acts \u2014 especially aimed at the revolutionary French, who the Federalist Party despised. In clear echoes of contemporary controversies, the Alien & Sedition Acts raised barriers to immigrant citizenship, authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered \u201cdangerous to the peace and safety of the United States\u201d and restricted speech critical of the government. On the other hand, Jefferson and Madison argued that states had the power to \u201cnullify\u201d oppressive federal laws.<\/p>\n \u201c[W]here powers are assumed which have not been delegated,\u201d Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolution, \u201ca nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.\u201d<\/p>\n However, things began to go south (pun intended) for \u201cnullification\u201d long after the Alien & Sedition Acts were overturned. By the Antebellum period, the nullification doctrine was resurrected as a defense of secession and slavery on \u201cstate sovereignty\u201d grounds. In the 1832\u00a0Nullification Crisis<\/a>, South Carolina asserted its right to nullify a federal tariff \u2014 but by then it was becoming clear that the slavery issue was leading the southern states into a confrontation with federal power.<\/p>\n South Carolina looked to its native son, Vice President John C. Calhoun, as the defender of its nullification rights \u2014 who was also the most vociferous defender of slavery on the national scene. But President Andrew Jackson (no enemy of slavery!) rejected these arguments, and prevailed over South Carolina\u2019s effort to resist the tariff. Nonetheless, the same argument was taken up by Calhoun in the Senate to deny Congressional authority to bar slavery from the Western territories.<\/p>\n After the slavery question was finally decided in the Civil War, the most intransigent Southern segregationists continued to invoke \u201cnullification.\u201d The doctrine would take on a new currency in the Civil Rights era, in efforts to override federal prohibition of Jim Crow. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. himself would denounce nullification as a tool of \u201cvicious racists\u201d in his \u201cI Have A Dream<\/a>\u201d speech.<\/p>\n But Michael Boldin of the Los Angeles-based\u00a0Tenth Amendment Center<\/a>, a modest think-tank of libertarian leaning, believes the time is ripe to revive the nullification idea \u2014 this time to override federal prohibition of cannabis.<\/p>\n Speaking to Cannabis Now, Boldin traces the roots of the nullification concept much deeper into American history than its later appropriation by institutional racism.<\/p>\n Boldin cites the\u00a0Federalist Paper No. 46<\/a>, in which future president James Madison wrote of the people\u2019s \u201crefusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union\u201d as a check on any \u201cunwarrantable\u201d power-grab by the federal government.<\/p>\n \u201cMadison outlined the steps that both states and individuals could take to undermine federal programs,\u201d said Boldin. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing now is practical,\u00a0de facto\u00a0nullification. We don\u2019t care what you call it.\u00a0Our goal is to see an end to an unconstitutional ban in a plant.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2017, the Tenth Amendment Center released a report called the\u00a0\u201cState of the Nullification Movement<\/a>,\u201d which delineates the growing elbow room for cannabis at the state level from coast to coast in defiance of federal intransigence, as well as state measures to restrict asset forfeiture. And it cites historical examples of nullification similarly being raised in defense of good causes \u2014 including\u00a0opposition\u00a0to slavery.<\/p>\n For example, the\u00a0Fugitive Slave Act<\/a>\u00a0of 1850 famously made it a federal crime to assist a runaway slave. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison spoke out in defense of Northern politicians who called for the Act\u2019s \u201cnullification.\u201d<\/p>\n Boldin emphasizes that there was a sense of improvisation even in the efforts of Jefferson and Madison. \u201cThe Kentucky Resolution stated that when federal government oversteps its authority, \u2018nullification is the rightful remedy\u2019 \u2014 but it didn\u2019t define what that meant.\u201d<\/p>\n And Boldin makes clear he rejects Calhoun\u2019s take on nullification. He explains: \u201cCalhoun made up his own idea that a single state could simply declare a federal act unconstitutional and the whole union would have to recognize that unless the states came together in a convention and three quarters voted to overturn the nullifying state\u2019s act.\u201d Boldin recalls that this so-called \u201cDoctrine of South Carolina\u201d was even explicitly rejected by an aging James Madison in his 1834\u00a0\u201cNotes on Nullification<\/a>.\u201d Madison wrote that Calhoun\u2019s doctrine was \u201cundermining the Union,\u201d and that nullification should only be invoked to resist \u201cintolerable oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n Does cannabis prohibition fall into this category? Boldin clearly thinks so \u2014 and thinks that what he calls\u00a0\u201cde facto nullification\u201d is already well underway. \u201cA\u00a0high percentage of cannabis prosecutions are at the state level,\u201d he tells Cannabis Now. \u201cIf the people decide to defy the feds and the state law is backing them up, the federal law is null and void anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n He points to the so-called Marijuana Sanctuary State bill, already\u00a0passed<\/a>\u00a0in California\u2019s assembly. If it becomes law, it will ban the use of state or local resources to help enforce federal prohibition of cannabis use or cultivation that is in compliance with California\u2019s Adult Use of Marijuana Act. Says Boldin: \u201cIf\u00a0that bill passes and Gov. Brown signs it, the feds are going to have an almost impossible task ahead of them if they try to continue marijuana enforcement in California \u2014 because they rely so heavily on people in the state to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, Boldin noted: \u201cEven if people don\u2019t realize exactly what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019re following James Madison\u2019s advice in Federalist 46, in their \u2018refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union.\u2019 That\u2019s the full circle for us. If enough states said no, it would be an almost impossible situation for Washington, D.C., and we\u2019re seeing that play out in front of our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think states should nullify federal cannabis prohibition?<\/p>\n The post Can States or Citizens \u2018Nullify\u2019 Federal Cannabis Prohibition?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
For much of the twentieth century, \u201cnullification\u201d was something of a dirty word in American politics because of its association with the defenses of slavery and Jim Crow. However, it has also been raised in support of basic human freedoms. In short, nullification is the idea that a state hasContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2780,50,689,4701,4702,81,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27164,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27163\/revisions\/27164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nullification and the Cannabis Question<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Can States or Citizens \u2018Nullify\u2019 Federal Cannabis Prohibition?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"