04/25/2024
  1. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, always the gadfly, made news again Monday when he called out the federal government’s “half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”

There are plenty of people are working hard to understand why one of the most conservative SCOTUS justices sounds like he might be advocating for the federal government to get out of the marijuana regulation game; which, frankly, is what makes Thomas such fun: he seems to enjoy keeping everyone on their toes. But while those people are perplexed, there are others paying close attention to what kind of state laws might be coming on the heels of an increased laxity regarding marijuana illegality because those people have been the unlucky ones to have lost loved ones to drivers impaired by THC.

The Outlaws Radio Show out of Cleveland recently featured an interview with the mother of a young woman who was killed after a collision with someone driving under the influence of THC, as well as an interview with a physician who lost his sister the same way. Both guests faced not only the pain of losing a loved one, but a subsequent long struggle with the courts in their respective states as they attempted to hold the impaired drivers accountable for their behavior.

In this clip, Dr. Phillip Drum of California, the doctor whose sister perished in Washington State, discusses how Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a common-sense piece of legislation that would help these victims and their families catch up with the national fast-growing acceptance of marijuana use.

What makes the issue even more interesting, as alluded above, is that Justice Thomas seems to be saying the federal government has stepped away from their previous interest in regulating marijuana to the degree that trying to insert themselves into what states are now doing is enough to give one whiplash.