"Joint" Post on Pot Federalism, by Jessica Berch and Chad DeVeaux

We’re glad that we lived to post another day and that our budding thesis has not yet gone up in smoke. This week Chad and I are writing together to lay out the potential responses a prohibitionist state may deploy to deal with spillover from a pot-friendly neighbor. Until recently, prohibitionist states had two obvious and unsatisfying options — sue their neighbors (as Nebraska and Oklahoma have done), or step up the already draconian penalties for pot possession. The Tenth Circuit recently accepted the scholarly consensus that a state may regulate out-of-state conduct if that conduct affects a substantial number of in-state residents — at least so long as “the burden imposed” on interstate commerce is not “clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” If this holding stands, it opens a wealth of other options (in my view) or a Pandora’s Box (in Chad’s).

On one end of the spectrum, scholars argue that States can (and should) enact laws punishing their citizens (both civilly and criminally) for getting high while visiting a pot-friendly state. At the other end of the spectrum, other scholars believe that state lines demark absolute regulatory barriers.

Mark Rosen has argued that when a state legalizes formerly taboo conduct (e.g., gambling) such experimentation presents what he calls a “travel-evasion” problem. Such state experiments, he posits, threaten the sovereignty of more-restrictive states. By “giv[ing] citizens the power to choose which state’s laws are to govern them on an issue-by-issue basis,” heterogeneous state laws “cripple the ability of [less-permissive] states to accomplish constitutional objectives.” 150 U. PA. L. REV. at 856. Professor Rosen’s theory implies that prohibitionist states can bar their citizens from — and criminally punish them for — purchasing marijuana or getting high in pot-friendly states.

Others argue that states should take a more measured response. I argue that because a state is “not compelled to lower itself to the more degrading standards of a neighbor,” Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. at 107, a state has limited authority to regulate extraterritorial conduct. I’m concerned that application of Professor Rosen’s theory would further exacerbate the already epidemic rate of mass-incarceration. I also believe that (as Chad himself has argued in his Boston College piece) because pro-pot states create negative externalities analogous to pollution that spill over into neighboring jurisdictions, it is reasonable for those negatively affected neighbors to impose civil liability on the polluters. Indeed, this reasoning underlies the Tenth Circuit’s conclusion in Epel that Colorado may regulate coal-burning plants in neighboring states.

In the middle of the spectrum is Lea Brilmayer. Confronting divergent State laws on assisted suicide and abortion, Professor Brilmayer proposed her “Interstate Preemption” theory. She contends that “[s]tates . . . possess the power to regulate their citizens’ conduct in other states in the usual case,” but posits that the host state’s law will “preempt” the home state’s law in those comparably rare occasions when the host’s law manifests a conscious decision to make the conduct in question an “affirmative right,” rather than an expression of “mere indifference” to the conduct. 91 MICH. L. REV. at 877-78. The myriad different marijuana regimes — from enforced prohibition (Idaho), to de facto decriminalization (New York), to apparent enshrinement as a constitutional right (Colorado) — will affect a neighboring state’s ability to enforce its own marijuana laws differently.

Further along the spectrum falls Seth Kreimer. What some critics deride as a “travel evasion” problem, Professor Kreimer argues is a feature of federalism, not a bug: “When citizens can choose among and compare the virtues of the permission of assisted suicide in Oregon, covenant of marriage in Louisiana, . . . and same-sex unions in Vermont, we are likely to have a society that is morally richer, practically freer, and personally more fulfilling . . . .” 150 U. PA. L. REV. at 974. He argues that states do not have the authority to forbid their citizens’ extraterritorial acts when those acts are permitted by the host state. In Professor Kreimer’s view, a state’s efforts to deny its citizens the right to partake in activities permitted by the host state run afoul of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Commerce Clause, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause. 67 N.Y.U. L. REV. at 451. Extending Professor Kreimer’s views to marijuana would seem to leave prohibitionist states with few options to combat spillover.

Finally, at the opposite end of the spectrum (from Professor Rosen) is Chad. He advocates an expansive view of the dormant Commerce Clause’s (possibly defunct) ban on direct regulation of extraterritorial commerce. He previously argued that the DCC should be read to prohibit the certification of multi-state class actions under a single state’s law. 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. at 995-1000. Even after the Tenth Circuit’s opinion, he stubbornly adheres to this view.

Chad posits that the DCC protects “the autonomy of the individual States within their respective spheres” by dictating that “no state has the authority to tell other polities what laws they must enact or how affairs must be conducted.” 79 GEO. WASH. L. REV. at 1005-06. If the DCC's extraterritoriality bar has gone gently into that good night, Chad argues that the marijuana-legalization fight will lead to chaos. Prohibitionist states may seek to directly regulate transactions in neighboring states, pressuring pro-pot states to enact legislation protecting their nascent marijuana markets from foreign interference. He asserts that the extraterritoriality doctrine’s demise will open “the door . . . to the rivalries and reprisals” that the Commerce Clause was designed to avert. In short, under his expansive reading of the DCC, prohibitionist states are limited to the two meager options first explored — litigation or increased criminal penalties.

This has been but a 10,000 foot overview of the present dilemma. Next time, Chad and I will more thoroughly explore our own respective theses — and to be “blunt,” I will explain why his view is wrong! (Chad requires me to say that he will show how it is my view that is, in fact, wrong.)