The 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution states: “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.”
Those powerful words are exactly what drives the organization, the Tenth Amendment Center, in its fight to return federal authority to its rightful, Constitutionally stated, owners. And, they are hoping that the end of marijuana prohibition is the first stepping stone.
“You have four states, after the last election, openly defying Washington, D.C. by fully legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes even though the feds say you can’t do this,” said Michael Boldin, founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, who recently spoke with BenSwann.com’s Joshua Cook.
Despite the federal government’s positions, the states who are actively trying to legalize marijuana are telling the government that they can have their own position and take their own approach.
“Now we have 2 dozen states taking action on marijuana in one form or another. And it’s expanding year by year to the point where the feds don’t simply have the manpower or the resources to deal with it,” said Boldin.
And budget-wise, it would be impossible for DEA to interfere.
“If the DEA tried to stop the city of Denver’s recreational marijuana market, it would take their DEA’s entire yearly budget to do so,” explained Boldin.
“The fact of the matter is that they’re going to have to simply withdraw,” he added.
According to Boldin, the federal government doesn’t have the Constitutional right to prohibit states from the growing and production of plants.
Boldin said that our Founding Fathers had the foresight to not give the federal government control over things like agriculture.
“But for years, people have allowed the federal government to do what it wants to do,” he said.
“That’s the way government works. They’re always going to find a reason to give themselves more power. And that only stops when the people say, enough is enough.”
“And I think on marijuana, it’s a good example of people saying enough is enough.”
Boldin said that when sweeping decisions are made for a land mass the size of American is when “liberty is lost.”
“The number one step in advancing liberty is to bring the decisions closer to the individual, closer to home, and step one on that is to put it in the hands of the states,” he said.
“The number one goal is the get the federal government out of all of these areas they’re involved in that they shouldn’t be.”
Boldin’s group believes that the federal government is involved in 90 to 95% of things it shouldn’t be.
“They can keep doing the Post Office, and run that into the ground. Virtually everything else, they should be pushed back on,” he said. “It takes active, persistent resistance and disobedience on a state-level to make that happen. And that’s exactly what’s happening with marijuana.”
The group also creates model legislation on a variety of topics, including 2nd Amendment preservation and NSA surveillance.
To listen to Joshua Cook’s full interview with the Tenth Amendment Center’s Michael Boldin, visit here.