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I think much more likely is that it will just be made legal federally sometime in the next decade. Marijuana legalization has majorities across ideologies (https://news.gallup.com/poll/514007/grassroots-support-legal...) and even though the inability to create federal law on something so popular seems like a good case study on how the US system doesn't always do a good job representing it's actual people, it seems to be at a critical mass where it can't be ignored for much longer. Even my parents' friends who are conservative have started doing weed.

The controlling case is Wickard v Filburn (1942).

A farmer was told he could only grow X acres of feed on his own land; feed that he had no intention of selling and was being fed entirely to his own livestock on the same land.

This seems to overturn that in part, but until Wickard is overturned, and the interstate commerce clause reigned in, there will be weird side effects of it like this.

I'd imagine one wants to litigate Wickard v. Filburn in its entirety, rather than just the downstream Gonzales v. Raich

In Wickard v. Filburn, back in 1942, they said the same thing for wheat.

Our companion case in the Sixth Circuit tees up the issue:

https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/issues/detail/ream-v-us-dep...

See the opening brief.

I suspect that if that ruling was made, then many other drugs being made at home for personal use might become legalized, at least unless states decide to go and ban it too. Note that I am not taking a position here on if that's desirable.

Many American treaties (with other nations) prohibit both/either parties from decriminalizing marijuana among other drugs.

Links:

discusses some of the treaties:

https://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/InternationalDrugControlTreaties...

History of illegalization of pot:

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R44782

Yes, regardless of that specific case I'm hoping to see a series of Supreme Court decisions that will eviscerate federal government power over internal state affairs and restore the original intent of the 10th Amendment. Long live federalism.

If they reversed Gonzales v. Raich they'd be under a lot of pressure to reverse Wickard v. Fulburn, which would have such wide ramifications I just don't see the court doing it no matter how warranted.

Another case based on interstate commerce: the US ban on racial segregation. The example given, iirc, was restaurant competition across state lines.

I looked at the actual decision [1] and didn't see Filburn mentioned once. I find that odd. Filburn [2] was a controversial and far-reaching decision that said that the Federal government's ability to regulate interstate commerce extended to people growing wheat on their own property for their own use. The rationale was that by growing wheat you weren't participating in the interstate wheat market. That seems like a wild interpretation to me but it's Supreme Court precedent at this point.

So I found this footnote:

> The government does not challenge the district court’s Commerce Clause analysis on appeal. Accordingly, any such argument is forfeited, and we do not address it.

That's interesting. Here's a legal analysis that does bring up the Commerce Clause and Filburn [3]. I really wonder why the government didn't raise this issue.

I knew just from the headline this was going to be a 5th Circuit decision, and it was. This is the same circuit that is perfectly fine to override "state's rights" for other issues.

[1]:https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pd...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

[3]: https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/reviving-the-commerce-clause-one...

The word "interstate" does not exist in the text of the Constitution.

There's arguably some merit to your position, but the argument that some case law is invalid because it doesn't meet the definition of a term defined in other case law is circular and incoherent.

The problem is if you say the government can’t regulate MJ, then all drug regulations fall apart.

On one hand you should have a right to buy whatever you want at 21( which should be the minimum enlistment age), but I’d be concerned about Billy selling homemade GPLs or whatever.

The entire 10th amendment is basically being ignored because interstate commerce policies and rulings. For that matter, the 1st, 4th and 5th aren't being upheld either.

nah, 3d printed firearms next.

Also, this line is quite funny on its own because while understand what she actually meant, it can be very easily reinterpreted as "only actions committed out-of-home should be crimes; murdered someone in your home? welp, our hands are tied, have a nice day".

> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!

My grandpa drank a shot of schnapps every night and called it his medicine. I thought it was a euphemism but apparently he was actually taking an antidote prophylactically. You can't be too careful. He never once got methanol poisoning.

> Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol

Pretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from drinking it, but then they hurt a bunch of people and never faced any consequences...

> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!

I looked this up, it is directionally correct but if you are in a hospital setting they have better options https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482121/

As someone living in the Balkans, home brewing is a national passtime for every nation around. When every family has its own recipe for brewing alcohol, killing ourselves would've been achieved many centuries ago if it was a real concern. Methanol is an issue when some dumbshit decides to cell chemically produced trash on industrial scale instead of buying the expensive ingredients.

Was it missed or intentionally downplayed/ignored because people came into the discussion with priors that they were eager to maintain?

Seems like these sorts of "yes it could be unsafe in theory but the reality of physics and incentives make this mostly irrelevant" type things get missed far too often certain parts of the internet to be coincidence.

That said, the fact that it dropped on a weekend did it no favors the first time around.

The best I’ve ever done was a double distilled Spanish box wine we picked up for 1eur/l. The wine was undrinkable, but the brandy was sooooo smooth.

Next best was cheap tokaij furmint, distilled once and then mixed back into some of the undistilled wine. Basically the same thing as pineau de charante, but Hungarian and on the kitchen table.

To me, the refractive index of hot ethanol makes it sparkle like a diamond when leaving the still.

I don't drink anymore, but man I loved distilling. It's like magic.

Wasn’t great. Would love a second attempt focused on distilling not individualist v collectivist or immigration.

(Except for relevant connections around sharing your creations with neighbors and/or internationally inspired novel spirits.)

The ruling only has binding precedent in the 5th Circuit, other circuits aren't bound to follow it. Formerly this kind of ruling would come with a nationwide injunction to force the issue but now that those are severely curtailed by the Supreme Court it's only binding to the courts under the jurisdiction of the 5th circuit.

Decisions in other circuits can be very persuasive to other circuits but they're not required to agree the same way a Supreme Court ruling is binding. Circuit splits are moderately common and usually trigger a review by the supreme court if an appeal wasn't filed for the earlier decisions.

Only the 5th court of appeals. However if you get caught elsewhere your lawyer will have a good appeal grounds just because your area will need to decide if they agree. If all areas eventually agree it probably never will get to the supreme court. Once several different courts hear this and make a decision if they disagree the supreme court jumps in reading all the logic of everyone below them to try to find a real answer. (It doesn't always work this way, that is the textbook ideal way, but the real world is often different).

Note that unless you think nothing of spending 20 million dollars on lawyers this is probably not something that you want to fight.

Appeals court decisions generally only apply to their own jurisdiction. But they obviously hold a lot of weight when cited in others.

Prior to this year, the entire country. Today, thanks to SCOTUS shenanigans, it likely only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit, LA. But who knows, hard to keep up with the game of calvinball the SCOTUS is playing.

To be fair, we still add 5-10% methanol to industrial alcohol. But also a bunch of bitterants to discourage use.

Yes, it'd be interesting if this gets appealed and the SC gets to take a look at if $0 tax stamps are allowable under the tax and spending clause.

Yeah, moonshine is ok but Tommy Gun isn’t? It’s roaring twenties y’all!

Tally ho!

>It'll be interesting to see how many people get methanol poisoning from trying their hand at it without doing the research properly.

If you're into home brewing or distilling, the first and only comment people completely unfamiliar with the process say is something about going blind because of methanol. It's disappointing because the process is so rich with history and really interesting problems to solve but the zeitgeist is completely poisoned by prohibition-era propaganda.

Unless they try to make booze from woodchips, they'll be fine. Using fruit or grains or potatoes makes it really hard to end up with enough methanol to be dangerous.

Probably none. Unless someone is intentionally adding methanol to it.

I dunno, I tried making some myself when I was quite young and I can still see. Don't know what I did wrong / right...

They're a significant fire hazard which is why ATF regulations for stills require them to be located at least 100 feet from a residence.

I live in a city with 2 distilleries. You can smell when they're dealing with the mash because everyone in town can smell it. Also, we all get some black mold (not the really bad one) all over our siding which I think is some byproduct of the fermentation step.

My father worked in the oil business. As a chemical engineer, he was brewing his own moonshine (Poitín [pronounced 'poh-cheen'] in Ireland, Sidiki [means 'friend'] in Arabic language countries) since he was in university. In Saudi Arabia, there were frequent home fires in the western-expatriate communities. Newspapers reported them as "unattended cooking pot" fires. It happened several times per year in the Ras Tanura community they last lived in.

I would say: not explosive. I've seen a decent number of setups, and I can think of three areas where you could be concerned with safety (not necessarily where you should be):

1. Most use propane burners (the exact thing you'd use for homebrewing which is already legal and safe, and also similar to what some large turkey fryers use) which can be risky, but some are electric (120v or 240v).

2. Stills are an open system insofar as there is a way for pressure to escape - if you're goofing things up, you might vaporize and not recondense your ethanol (eg, because you have the heat way too high and/or aren't doing a good job of cooling down the vapors), and it's possible for that vapor to start on fire. I've seen it happen, and it's certainly a spectacle but wasn't particularly dangerous.

3. The distillate itself (ie, ethanol) is usually pretty potent, especially the foreshots and heads. Let's say 70%+. Especially as it's coming out, it's still prone to evaporation, and you could have a combustible/explosive risk here, but I've never seen this to be an actual problem.

Not explosive, but still a potential fire hazard, especially if a still gets way too hot (coolant system fails) and alcohol vapors escape. The risk becomes extremely minimal when using an electric still.

they're really not. they're generally not a pressure vessel, and even when I've had leaks of ethanol, the fire went out immediately after being removed from heat.

today's home stills are usually plug-in resistance heated chambers with a still head, and are very high quality. my flame-out was from a pot still that was sealed with flour and water, not a modern still.

less than a meth lab

A win against the over-application of the interstate commerce clause that benefits everybody! Quick, how can we make this partisan?

Doesn't apply to beer anyways.