[HN Gopher] US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilli...
___________________________________________________________________
US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban
unconstitutional
Author : t-3
Score : 296 points
Date : 2026-04-13 13:37 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nypost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nypost.com)
| joshstrange wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298
| ckemere wrote:
| 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.)
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I am not really a fan of liquor, but I _do_ like the idea of
| having skills which are universally valuable.
|
| If you air dropped me into a random village in Africa I doubt
| I could 'code for cassava' but I could almost certainly make
| a living if I knew how to set up a basic pot still and safely
| create booze.
| a_conservative wrote:
| You could sanitize and disinfect with that alcohol! You
| could also make extracts of any plants nearby that were
| useful. Whiskey and vanilla beans are sufficient to make
| vanilla extract!
| mothballed wrote:
| Sub saharan africa already has a very large informal
| distilling network (especially of bananas), a niche largely
| reserved for women in many regions (not sure for what the
| reason is for that exactly).
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Probably because it involves some form of cooking, which
| is a feminine-coded skill.
| ryandamm wrote:
| Missed in the previous discussion: methanol is irrelevant. Grain
| based ferments have essentially zero methanol.(And methanol risk
| is a function of its concentration relative to ethanol -- the
| treatment for methanol poisoning is... ethanol!) even fruit based
| fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations
| only produce trace methanol, and it's not all that well
| concentrated in a distillation due to azeotropes (which also says
| that throwing out the heads doesn't help that much).
|
| Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result
| from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol. The
| biggest risk in home distilling is fire.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Speaking as a brewer, I can tell you that tons of people who
| should know better actually believe the methanol thing and
| will even quote some sciency words to make their argument. I
| think its a case of bad information coming from black market
| distilling being propagated uncritically. People who know
| better (licensed distillers) have no incentive to argue
| against it.
| gostsamo wrote:
| 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.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| almost every year there is a news story of some Western
| tourist visiting another country dying from bootleg methanol
| alcohol
| gostsamo wrote:
| As I said, this happens when someone tries to sell
| illegally produced trash created not by brewing but with
| sugar, chemical essence, and whatever they've mistaken for
| ethanol. The tax on alcohol creates a black market and some
| people taking part in it are either dumb or lazy and those
| are the cases you hear about.
| theodric wrote:
| Raised and addressed in an earlier post on an earlier
| article on HN
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298#47737600
| delichon wrote:
| > 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.
| PyWoody wrote:
| Was his doctor Dr. McGillicuddy?
| jppope wrote:
| > 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...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Pretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds
| would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from
| drinking it
|
| We still do this now. We don't do it because alcohol is
| illegal, we do it because we levy higher taxes on non-
| poisonous alcohol, and if someone decides to drink the
| poisoned alcohol, they deserve what they get.
| VectorLock wrote:
| No going to the gas station and getting blitzed on ethanol
| fuel on a Saturday night.
| jbellis wrote:
| > 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/
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| > even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher
| pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol
|
| Would using pectinase to break it down first reduce the risk?
| ryandamm wrote:
| It would make it worse, by making the pectin available to be
| fermented!
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Ah I see.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298
| semiquaver wrote:
| > [Judge Edith Jones] also said that under the government's
| logic, Congress could criminalize virtually any in-home activity
|
| Well, yeah. This is essentially the holding in Wickard v.
| Filburn, which seems to be in tension with this decision
| (overturning that would be great but it's not the role of the
| circuit courts of appeal to do preemptively)
| Joker_vD wrote:
| 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".
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I think the point is that murder is handled by the states,
| not Congress. This is about what the federal government can
| do, not all government.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| This is the question I'd love to see asked to people
| running for President. Name something you think the States
| can do that the Federal government is prohibited from
| doing.
| DrDeadCrash wrote:
| The answer isn't something we should accept as an
| opinion, though. For example, laws prohibit the federal
| government from (direct) involvement in elections.
| semiquaver wrote:
| I think you are confused. The constitution explicitly
| grants Congress the right to pass laws regulating federal
| elections: > The Times, Places and Manner
| of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,
| shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature
| thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or
| alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of
| chusing Senators.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Murder can be federal crime if it involves:
| * the murder is of a federal judge or a federal law
| enforcement official * the killing is of an
| immediate family member of a federal law enforcement
| official * the murder is of an elected or
| appointed federal official * the killing is
| committed during a bank robbery * the killing
| takes place aboard a ship at sea * the murder
| was designed to influence a court case * the
| killing takes place on federal property
| lokar wrote:
| And in some locations, the federal government holds
| exclusive jurisdiction, so they better enforce these laws
| :)
| bsimpson wrote:
| Do this one next:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich
|
| The Supreme Court somehow held that the feds can regulate what
| you do in your own home (in this case, growing marijuana for
| personal use) because it could have a butterfly effect on the
| interstate price. (Constitutionally, the feds can only regulate
| _interstate_ commerce.)
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I'd imagine one wants to litigate Wickard v. Filburn in its
| entirety, rather than just the downstream Gonzales v. Raich
| mothballed wrote:
| That would also invalidate the civil rights act, as the
| (similar) 19th century CRA was already struck down because
| the 14th amendment binds against discrimination by public not
| private actors. The reason why the modern CRAs weren't also
| struck is because they rested on the laurels of _Wickard v
| Filburn_ declaring the CRA (this time) is about regulating
| "interstate" commerce.
| bombcar wrote:
| fixing the interstate commerce clause is one of those
| things that needs to be done eventually, but will likely
| never be done - even if just to "fix" it so everything
| remains the same but is based on simpler allocation of
| powers than through a "loophole".
| gbacon wrote:
| John Roberts will find a way to screw it up.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| That would be an improvement in the same spirit, as the
| modern CRAs are also unconstitutionally limiting over what
| one chooses to do with their own property. The scope should
| be limited to government-involved services and facilities,
| as those must serve all possible taxpayers. We live in a
| more connected, option-saturated information age where even
| bigots more often than not understand the utility of at
| least doing business politely and making nuanced
| exceptions. Egregious offenses are corrected by social
| pressure and business competition. The current regime of
| ambulance-chasing liabilities inserted into every
| organizational, contracting, and hiring process harms far
| more people of every race and sex than it helps.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| >Egregious offenses are corrected by social pressure and
| business competition.
|
| This doesn't work when bigots are willing to pay a
| premium for discriminatory services.
|
| Also, do you feel the same way about the FHA and Title
| VII? Those also involve regulating what you can choose to
| do with your private property, but I don't want to assume
| that you don't consider housing and employment to be
| distinct from, say, hotels and grocery stores.
| gbacon wrote:
| You have identified a root perversion. Roscoe Filburn's wheat
| did not leave Ohio or even his farm. He didn't offer it for
| sale; the wheat was for his own use. It was deemed to "affect
| interstate commerce" and thus within the scope of the
| interstate commerce clause. With that, a provision intended
| to remove power of states to tax each other's goods and
| services and promote a free trade zone instead became a
| mechanism to nitpick and micromanage every last little
| detail, ossify existing practice, protect large players, give
| loopholes to the politically connected, and enable mass
| regulatory capture. It cannot be overturned quickly enough.
|
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/
| laughing_man wrote:
| I don't see SCOTUS ever overturning _Wickard_ , sadly. Too
| many federal programs and regulations would lose their
| legal basis if that happened.
| gbacon wrote:
| You're almost certainly correct. Kagan, Sotomayor, and
| Jackson would argue this consequentualist line. Thomas,
| Alito, and Gorsuch could be persuaded by textualist or
| originalist arguments and are the most likely overturn
| votes. Kavanaugh was a key man on standing up and
| defending the so-called PATRIOT Act during the George W.
| Bush administration, so no way he knocks out this pillar.
|
| ACB talked a strong originalist game during her
| confirmation but since shown it's not her core
| philosophy. Although Roberts appears inclined to rein in
| the administrative state, he's aligned chaotic neutral
| and thinks himself too clever.
|
| Already down 4-3 and having to persuade both Barrett and
| Roberts to join a ruling overturning parts of _Wickard_ ,
| another _Dobbs_ seems wildly unlikely even though both
| precedents were poorly reasoned. At best, they agree to
| some marginal or technical reduction in scope. It seems
| equally likely that she sides with the four, in which
| case, what does Roberts do? He may need to make it 6-3 to
| control who writes the opinion. Such strong numbers would
| be unfavorable enough on the surface that he might
| persuade her back to an even more tepid limitation. The
| concurring opinions that it would induce from Thomas,
| Alito, and Gorsuch would be entertaining reading, at
| least.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Please suggest one, but ideally three, things that you
| think that overturning Wickard would lead to that would
| cause K, S & J to vote against doing so?
| wahern wrote:
| In Gonzales, O'Connor dissented and Scalia, who was too
| afraid of pulling the rug out from under the
| administrative state, issued a concurrence. So, surprises
| do happen.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Drugs were always a weird exception to what was otherwise
| pretty consistent jurisprudence on Scalia's part.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I call BS. Wickard is about, effectively, "police power"
| based on a broad interpretation of the scope of
| federal/interstate commerce.
|
| As noted by other commenters, the concept of federal
| control of interstate commerce was intended to prevent
| states from interfering with trade between themselves and
| other states, and to create some "higher" authority for
| aspects of commerce that truly transcended state borders
| and control.
|
| Most of what has happened in terms of programs and
| regulations fits very comfortably into that
| understanding. What doesn't, which I don't think is a
| lot, should probably go away anyway.
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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.p
| d...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
|
| [3]: https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/reviving-the-commerce-clause-
| one...
| gbear605 wrote:
| It's possible that the government thought that if they did
| try to challenge the Commerce Clause analysis, then the
| Supreme Court could have struck down Filburn. They'd much
| rather lose narrowly on this specific case than have Filburn
| reversed entirely.
| mothballed wrote:
| SCOTUS did a pretty hilarious soft "strike down" of Wickard
| where they basically determined the gun free school zone
| act (GFSZA) violated interstate commerce clause. So
| congress just added "in interstate commerce" to the GFSZA
| and now it does the _exact same thing_ even if there was no
| interstate commerce involved, and nothing involved ever
| crossed state lines or actually entered interstate
| commerce.
|
| So SCOTUS basically solved this by saying the law had to
| say "in interstate commerce" but it is basically just there
| as a talisman to ward away challenges, a distinction
| without any difference as it becomes a tautology.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That seems like a pretty over-reaching interpretation. It
| makes sense in the context (needing to support federal
| economic control during WW2). But in some sense the economy
| is a dynamic system that touches and is touched by almost
| every decision we make. I made a pot of coffee this morning,
| should the federal government have the ability to decide
| whether or not I'm damaging the cafe market by not supporting
| my local cafe?
| tyre wrote:
| Another case based on interstate commerce: the US ban on racial
| segregation. The example given, iirc, was restaurant
| competition across state lines.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if this one unironically goes given
| that Uber/Lyft are fully doing "women only" ride shares now.
|
| Gen Z / Alpha have embraced X-"realism" and fully accept
| essentialism/reject "intersectionality". They're far more
| conservative/prudish than millennials, even at their young
| age.
| esseph wrote:
| > Gen Z / Alpha have embraced X-"realism" and fully accept
| essentialism/reject "intersectionality". They're far more
| conservative/prudish than millennials, even at their young
| age.
|
| This does not meet up with my experience with them at all.
|
| Just quick check, what percentage of onlyfans creators are
| Gen Z / Alpha vs other nonsense year demographics?
| DennisP wrote:
| I think there's a selection effect there that makes it an
| unrepresentative sample.
| esseph wrote:
| First, Gen Alpha is in their teens, so it's kind of hard
| to say what is happening there or will happen.
|
| Second, there is a growing divide between gen Z males
| that are skewing conservative in some ways. Their
| church/religious attendance is up, but overall attendance
| is still down.
|
| Gen Z females that are the most liberal demographic in
| history.
|
| The split is both political/social.
|
| (US analysis)
| fennecbutt wrote:
| >Their church/religious attendance is up
|
| This was debunked, at least in the UK. Not sure about the
| US but I'll bet it's the same sham (church sponsored)
| statistics.
|
| I think more of each generation is coming to realise that
| religion is an outmoded parasite.
| tt24 wrote:
| The interstate commerce clause is just craziness. It touches
| everything and gives justification to regulate nearly
| anything.
| mothballed wrote:
| You could just as easily stuff most of those things under
| the "general welfare" clause if you do the same rigamarole
| of years and years of precedent hand-waving. We live in a
| post constitutional state. The constitution is just
| something worked to backwards so the guys who function as
| our priests/gods point to the document because that's the
| only way to feign some sort of legitimacy to our
| government.
|
| Ultimately none of us signed the constitution and all of
| those people that did are dead. It is a religious artifact
| used by the whig -god people to argue they are right. Not
| something followed with faith to the historical context nor
| literal contract.
|
| (edit: to below trying to compare bad-faith ICC to good-
| faith general welfare, you must apply similar levels of
| creativity and bad faith. Ban things through high or
| impossible to pay taxation. "Tax" behavior to force people
| to do something in a certain way, make very heavy penalties
| for not paying the tax, and also make it extremely
| difficult to buy the tax stamps (this is how they did drug
| control until they decided to use the new fraud of
| "interstate" commerce).
| Windchaser wrote:
| General Welfare Clause only applies to taxing and
| spending, though, not just general regulation (e.g.,
| making drugs illegal or banning segregation).
| gbacon wrote:
| _For what purpose could the enumeration of particular
| powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to
| be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is
| more natural nor common than first to use a general
| phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital
| of particulars ... But what would have been thought of
| that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general
| expressions, and disregarding the specifications which
| ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an
| unlimited power of providing for the common defense and
| general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves,
| whether they would in that case have employed the same
| reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make
| use of against the convention. How difficult it is for
| error to escape its own condemnation!_
|
| Federalist No. 41
| https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed41.asp
| seanw444 wrote:
| I agree, from the other side of the aisle. The
| Constitution is merely a well-guarded piece of toilet
| paper now. Culture matters way more than legal documents
| in preserving a nation, and our culture has waned too
| significantly. I believe we've entered the "Byzantine"
| phase of America.
| cogman10 wrote:
| A lot of stuff does have interstate implications.
| Especially now that most corporations operate in an
| interstate fashion.
|
| That said, I agree that it's overused. I personally think
| that the 9th amendment should be used in a lot of cases,
| like civil rights, instead of the interstate commerce law.
|
| The supreme court, however, has basically decided that the
| 9th amendment doesn't really exist.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| 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.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| You're probably right, though I dread the possibility. I
| cannot stand the smell, and one of the best things about
| moving from California to Texas was avoiding that pervasive
| smell being everywhere. Negative externalities of personal
| behavior really need to be handled better in our society. If
| you want pot to be legal, fine, but only inside your own
| personal enclosed house.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That's only one of many ways to consume it, many people
| vape, have edibles or drinks and you just don't notice.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Even as a daily weed smoker myself though, it's hard not
| to acknowledge that a more liberal marijuana stance in a
| geographic location does lead to that smell being more
| commonly encountered when in public and out and about.
|
| Personally I don't mind, almost the opposite, but for
| people who don't like the smell, obviously they feel
| differently. Good thing we can have different policies in
| different places, and people can generally, one way or
| another, move themselves to other places. Could be
| easier, but could also be way worse.
| dfdsjsdklfjs wrote:
| As a daily weed smoker, I live out in the middle of the
| woods, but even that isn't enough to stop the Way Better
| Than Thou types from wanting me thrown in prison and/or
| excommunicated. There is no escaping these violent, self-
| righteous, arrogant busybodies.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Meanwhile, I smoke weed in my office, but I have a air
| purifier (rated for double the air flow capacity of the
| room) and not even my wife who works in the room next
| door can smell anything, and she actively despises the
| smell.
|
| Sometimes you just need to find the right equipment :)
| asadotzler wrote:
| See also, cigarettes, cigars, and pipe smoking. I find
| those smells about 10x as offensive as smoked weed. I
| don't see the HN crowd coming out against tobacco despite
| these two being roughly equivalent in use. And that 20 ft
| from the door thing is a joke when it's on the sidewalk
| you have to walk through to reach the bus stop or your
| car. At least the pot smell doesn't stick to my clothes
| until they're washed like the tobacco smell.
| caycep wrote:
| I mean, there are plenty of neighborhoods in CA that don't
| have that smell...
| 0x457 wrote:
| There just no smell like this in any neighborhood outside
| of college campuses and area close to those.
|
| You might get a whiff here and there, but you're going to
| encounter a lot of smells you don't like here and there.
| realo wrote:
| THC is perfectly legal here (Quebec, Canada) and believe
| me, there is no smell on the streets!
|
| What is actually disgusting and happens often in the
| streets is the smell of ordinary cigarette smoke.
| z500 wrote:
| This might be controversial, but smelling either in
| public makes me happy! Now the stale smell of tobacco-
| infused clothing, that is awful.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| It's not legal where I am at all and I get hotboxed on my
| morning drive to work every day...
| declan_roberts wrote:
| The fact that so many people think it's fine to get high
| and drive is baffling to me.
| dlev_pika wrote:
| It's ok if you do it where you arrive at _taps forehead_
| declan_roberts wrote:
| It's legal in many states here. In SF it's absolutely
| everywhere and disgusting. Austin smells like tobacco and
| it's much better to my nose.
| dfdsjsdklfjs wrote:
| What you smell as "disgusting" smells amazing to me.
|
| Some of these perfumes that people drench themselves with
| smell disgusting to me. But I don't look for them to be
| thrown in prison or taxed for it.
|
| If you like the smell of tobacco (and I do also) then
| you'd better band together with weed smokers regardless
| of whether you like weed or not, before the Karens
| succeed in making it all illegal and banned along with
| anything else that helps one escape from the prison they
| are building.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Your nose is literally a special flower. What smells good
| to it may not to another and vice versa. I far prefer the
| smell of pot smoke on the sidewalk to the smell of
| tobacco smoke. You youngsters missed the years of indoor
| workplace smoking and smoke breaks with 20 smokers
| surrounding the office entry door. It's just another
| smell to you. But for those of us who lived through the
| bad days of smoking, it's a toxic soup, a smoke inferno
| hell pit we're not thrilled about revisiting right
| outside of our favorite restaurant. A little bit of grass
| burning, no big deal. A cigarette and my meal's ruined.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Oh no, the thought of catching a whiff! No one must smoke
| in texas, since you know, everyone follows the law. Smoking
| weed only started in general with legalization. It was
| mythical beforehand.
| squigz wrote:
| > but only inside your own personal enclosed house.
|
| Isn't it usually illegal to smoke things like cigarettes
| inside rented homes, legality aside? And don't most people
| rent? That seems like a whole can to deal with.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Some people say the same about the smell or noise of
| babies. It's not a very strong argument for getting ones
| way in controlling others.
| jonnycoder wrote:
| Are you ok with ciggarete smoke then if you are ok with
| marijuana smoke?
| dfdsjsdklfjs wrote:
| Yep. Why wouldn't I be? I'm not a brainwashed Karen.
| "Freedom" isn't just a word that I use--it actually means
| something to me.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| >> Are you ok with ciggarete smoke then if you are ok
| with marijuana smoke?
|
| > Yep. Why wouldn't I be? I'm not a brainwashed Karen.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand-smoke/health.html
| dmitrygr wrote:
| babies -> needed for civilization to continue
|
| weed -> possibly negative effect on civilization (
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2424288/) ,
| certainly not a requirement.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I think the issue is this isn't seen by politicians as a
| motivating vote driver. It is, however, a motivation for
| someone to go out and vote against a politician.
|
| That's ultimately what keeps things like MJ illegal. There
| are just far too many people that will get upset about it if
| it were made federally legal.
|
| My state, Idaho, has one such politician that is constantly
| bringing up and trying to find ways to keep the wacky tabacy
| out of the state. Including trying to amend the state
| constitution for it. He does this because he's mormon and the
| mormons are scared of the devil's lettuce.
| sir0010010 wrote:
| I personally would be okay with having it legal if smoking
| could still be banned in multifamily complexes. I don't
| care if my neighbors are using edibles, but since I know
| that legalized weed means more smoke coming from my
| neighbors' balconies, I will always vote "No" when
| marijuana legalization is on the ballot in my location.
| pattilupone wrote:
| Can smoking tobacco be banned in multifamily complexes
| currently? I'd think the policy would be the same.
| ryoshoe wrote:
| HOAs tend to manage this kind of thing
| hedgedoops2 wrote:
| Lol, yes, subsidiarity.
|
| HOAs, the lowest level of US government.
| dfdsjsdklfjs wrote:
| So you're OK if it's legal, as long as it's not legal.
|
| You're OK with people being thrown in prison, because you
| don't like the smell.
|
| And you wonder why people call you a selfish nation full
| of selfish people.
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't think it's unreasonable to desire to be free from
| the noxious odors of others.
|
| > The right to waft my smells in any direction ends where
| your nose begins.
|
| - Abraham Lincoln or Ben Franklin or Mark Twain or
| someone
| sir0010010 wrote:
| It's not just because marijuana "smells bad". Secondhand
| marijuana smoke contains many of the same toxic chemicals
| as secondhand cigarette smoke and likely is similarly
| deleterious to your health [1]. I also believe everyone
| should have the right to be able to open their windows
| and have clean air come through. Smoking on balconies
| denies people this right. Edibles only effect the user
| and therefore should be permitted.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/health-
| effects/secondhand-smoke...
| safety1st wrote:
| Oh good grief. This is such an uninformed and
| unnecessarily belligerent take.
|
| We can and do have public nuisance laws which kick in
| when an individual is impinging upon the health, safety,
| comfort etc. of other people. This exists in
| jurisdictions all over the world for all kinds of things,
| the penalties are usually minor and applied only to
| repeat offenders. It is completely reasonable for someone
| to support the idea of these applying to marijuana use,
| in fact, in most jurisdictions where marijuana is legal,
| they probably already do. Yes, repeatedly stink up your
| neighbor's apartment and you may get a warning followed
| by a fine, deal with it. Your parent is not a Nazi and is
| not throwing stoners in prison. Perhaps go touch grass
| instead of smoking it now and then.
| dfdsjsdklfjs wrote:
| The irony of being called "belligerent" when there is
| infamously a declared war (The War On Drugs) against me
| and my kind!
|
| Just like all other American wars, it is neverending, and
| nothing more than a way to funnel money and power into
| certain people's pockets at the expense of others, while
| destroying as many innocent lives as possible in the
| process.
|
| I don't care what apartment dwelling city people do. City
| issues are for you to work out among yourselves. I'm out
| in the country far from anyone and I still have to worry
| about being thrown in prison. The danger is no less here
| and it has nothing to do with the smell. That's just one
| of many excuses weed haters use to persecute us. Satisfy
| one objection and immediately another will be raised.
|
| It never ends and will never end, until the evil ones
| have achieved their end goal of exterminating this plant
| and its keepers from the planet forever. Since that will
| never happen, then it will just be a neverending struggle
| until the end of time, I guess, with many lives being
| destroyed in the process.
| bonesss wrote:
| VOCs and carcinogens are a health hazard. Asthma, kids
| development, allergies, and occasional migraine trigger.
|
| It's not random we call it 'dank' or 'skunk' and if it's
| good it _should_ piss off your neighbours.
|
| It's 2026. Dry flower vapes get you higher, with less
| product, and sparing the lungs. They have a smell more in
| line with popcorn than a cigarette. They come in
| everything from one-hitter to portable-volcano. Fans
| exist too.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > VOCs and carcinogens are a health hazard. Asthma, kids
| development, allergies, and occasional migraine trigger.
|
| This is the foundational reasoning for making perfume,
| air fresheners, deodorant, and scented cleaning supplies
| illegal to possess or use.
| TylerE wrote:
| Frankly, as an asthmatic I'd be 100% onboard with
| everything. There are plenty of scent free deodorants
| that work just fine, btw.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Dry flower vapes get you higher, with less product, and
| sparing the lungs.
|
| This may be subjective as I have tried just about every
| dry vape out there and each time the high is
| underwhelming. For me, the traditional bong hit is king.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Until we start throwing cigar, pipe, and cigarette
| smokers in prison for smoking where I can smell it, I'm
| totally okay smelling some pot. The playing field needs
| to be leveled.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| I don't want my toddler exposed to secondhand pot smoke.
| Unfortunately it's more common than secondhand cigarette
| smoke in my experience. I wouldn't get upset on my own
| behalf but he's too young to choose and it's my
| responsibility to act in his behalf as much as I can.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| You should argue with him he's acting like Satan. The
| mormons (I used to be one) say that Satan wanted to force
| everyone to be good, Jesus wanted each person to have free
| will and choose.
| limagnolia wrote:
| Mormons voted strongly to legalize MJ in Utah. Maybe your
| politician is just an odd man out?
|
| edit: Well, I should note the Utah vote was only for
| "medical" MJ.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It got through via a ballot initiative. It wouldn't have
| been passed by the legislators in UT without that.
|
| That's why the guy in my state, C. Scott Grow, has also
| been fighting to make ballot initiatives harder. He's
| terrified that an MJ initiative would make it's way in
| that way.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| Republicans in Utah are also trying to remove the power
| from ballot initiatives because they're upset the Utahans
| passed an anti-gerrymandering initiative.
| mothballed wrote:
| Yaeh this is a thing states do. South Dakota went in
| cahoots with the courts to cancel the ballot initiative
| to legalize weed, and California went in cahoots with the
| courts to sabotage prop 8 (the banning of gay marriage).
| jrflowers wrote:
| > C. Scott Grow
|
| Reverse nominal determinism
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Grow, Scott, grow!
| lokar wrote:
| This gets at something I think a lot of people don't really
| understand. They see polls that show strong support for
| policy X, and then complain that politicians don't enact
| it. What they fail to consider is that while a strong
| majority may be in favor of the policy, it's not the top
| (or top 3) priority, and they will support candidates that
| have the opposite position on X, if they support their top
| priority.
|
| This is situation where well thought out (and moderately
| constrained) referendum process can help achieve the
| majority desire for a policy that would not otherwise be
| considered important enough to drive the selection of
| representatives.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yeah, that's essentially what happened here in Oregon.
|
| And the 2nd chapter of it is after the ballot measure
| passed, the state liquor commission drug its heels for a
| couple years, because most of their executives are far
| more conservative than the median voter here (a side
| effect of a lot of them being Salem locals vs Portland,
| but anyhow).
|
| Eventually the state legislature got fed up with the
| obstructionism and passed a "ok, we're just doing it how
| CO did, stop stalling" bill.
|
| And here we are. The sky didn't fall.
|
| There's a lotta ways ballot measures can go into
| stupidity, but this is an instance where it helped force
| the bureaucracy to align with the majority voter
| position.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Also it doesn't matter if there's majority support for a
| lot of things because most people don't vote. If you want
| to get a policy enacted make sure you and your friends
| vote in elections regularly.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I don't even smoke - it just offends me deeply to see the
| Supreme Court rule in a direction that's so blatantly against
| the Constitution.
| pdonis wrote:
| That's been going on for a long, long time.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's been popular (with over 50% popular support) for the
| last decade though. The major opponents are the alcohol
| industry, big pharma and the prison industrial complex. Their
| lobbying efforts are too powerful. We (the people) don't
| stand a chance.
| pdonis wrote:
| In Wickard v. Filburn, back in 1942, they said the same thing
| for _wheat_.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You say that like interstate commerce regulation was more
| egregious for wheat than it was for marijuana.
|
| But _Raich_ is significantly more egregious: the theory on
| which the government won _Wickard v. Filburn_ , that private
| consumption of wheat could affect the interstate market for
| wheat, doesn't even apply, because there can be no interstate
| market in a substance that is illegal to trade.
| ianferrel wrote:
| >there can be no interstate market in a substance that is
| illegal to trade.
|
| There is in fact an interstate market in many substances
| that are illegal to trade because laws against things do
| not make those things fail to exist.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| No market _that the federal government can recognize, tax
| or regulate_
| gowld wrote:
| The reason marijuana is Federally illegal in the first
| place is because the commerce clause is interpreted to
| allow it.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The problem is if you say the government can't regulate MJ,
| then all drug regulations fall apart.
|
| No, that's not what's being said. If you grow your own plant
| for personal use, there's no need for the federal government
| to be involved. If you grow that plant and then try to sell
| it, then there's some commerce which does fall under some
| regulation (we'll leave the interstate nuances aside). Having
| the fed being allowed to say you cannot grow in your house is
| one step away from saying you are only allowed to perform
| missionary position (no other positions are allowed) between
| the hours of 7-8pm, but not at all on Sunday.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| And before people say you are being hyperbolic, the
| government still regulates sex positions. Sodomy is illegal
| in 12 US states.
| randallsquared wrote:
| Not the federal government, however.
|
| There are specific prohibitions on certain categories of
| state laws, like granting titles of nobility, creating
| non-gold/silver currencies, etc. The federal government
| cannot constitutionally regulate sex positions, because
| anything not explicitly covered in the Constitution is
| reserved to the states, or the people. In that broad
| grant, however, the states individually can make or avoid
| making law on any topic.
|
| As others have mentioned, the Supreme Court has
| frequently worked around the Constitution for reasons
| that made sense to them at the time, including the
| original ruling that this one overturns.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| >The federal government cannot constitutionally regulate
| sex positions, because anything not explicitly covered in
| the Constitution is reserved to the states, or the
| people.
|
| That being said, there's probably not a constitutional
| way to enforce laws regulating sex positions. Even if you
| don't agree that such laws are clearly discriminatory in
| intent (let alone impact), the privacy violations
| necessary to prove guilt "Beyond a reasonable doubt"
| almost certainly violate the Fourth Amendment, and any
| theory of harm would implicitly (if not explicitly) rest
| on religion.
|
| This is all assuming you don't accept Griswold as a
| reasonable constitutional argument that pretty obviously
| would extend to the kinds of sex people have.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > That being said, there's probably not a constitutional
| way to enforce laws regulating sex positions.
|
| Right, but until someone gets arrested for this, nobody
| has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the
| law itself. It is one of those unenforceable laws. Even
| biblical law required witnesses (never just one) before
| being able to prove adultery.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Okay. So if you decide to visit a friends house does him
| sharing still count as personal use ?
|
| In many communities you have a guy who cooks plates of food
| and sells them. While technically this is illegal with out
| a permit, it's usually tolerated.
|
| I'm all for the legalization of everything for adults, but
| it's a very complex issue. Education is the way here, not
| punishment
| semiquaver wrote:
| No one argues these things are not _able to be
| regulated_. Instead, per the 10th amendment, it must be
| left to state law since Congress does not have unlimited
| power and may only legislate where power has been granted
| to them by the constitution.
| davidw wrote:
| > I'd be concerned about Billy selling homemade GPLs or
| whatever.
|
| Would it be better with a BSD license?
| gbacon wrote:
| Been samplin' a little bit of Grandpa's attribution clause,
| have we?
| MichaelDickens wrote:
| I believe the original idea of the Constitution was that most
| things would be regulated at the state level.
|
| This is pretty much already the case with marijuana, where
| it's illegal at the federal level, but in practice if it's
| legal in your state then it's legal.
| torstenvl wrote:
| 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.
| codexb wrote:
| It uses the phrase "regulate commerce between the states"
| which effectively has the same meaning.
| torstenvl wrote:
| No. It absolutely does _not_ use that language, and it
| baffles me as to what would cause you to say that it does.
|
| Please endeavor to say only true things. The truth matters.
| bsimpson wrote:
| You're working awfully hard to be pedantic without
| comparing the actual language:
|
| > to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among
| the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
| torstenvl wrote:
| It's morally repugnant that you think expecting people
| not to lie is "pedantic."
| codexb wrote:
| 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.
| semiquaver wrote:
| Circuit courts _may not_ overrule Supreme Court precedent.
| Accordingly, this decision purports to rest on the "Necessary
| and Proper" clause, avoiding _Wickard_ (decided on commerce
| clause grounds)
| wahern wrote:
| In particular, Necessary and Proper as it relates to the
| taxing power, which the challenged statute relied upon,
| having been passed decades before the scope of Commerce
| Clause powers began their expansion, let alone Wickard v.
| Filburn.
| gowld wrote:
| > Circuit courts may not overrule Supreme Court precedent.
|
| That's a Supreme Court opinion that only applies if the new
| case reaches their docket and gets reaffirmed.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| How does the supreme court revisit precedents if the
| circuit court doesn't readdress the issue?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Somebody has to bring a new case that presents a novel
| legal theory/presentation that isn't clearly addressed by
| the ruling that forms the precedent.
| djoldman wrote:
| Additionally, one can argue that the state of the world
| has changed enough that assumptions made by the USC at
| the time of precedence require reversal.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| only in a _new case_ ....
| sdenton4 wrote:
| The court is stacked with so called originalists -
| history stopped in the eighteenth century.
| pdonis wrote:
| The party that wants the precedent reversed _loses_ in
| the lower court (because the lower court is bound by
| current Supreme Court precedent) and appeals to the
| Supreme Court. The canonical historical example is Brown
| v. Board of Education, which was appealed to the Supreme
| Court explicitly to ask them to reverse Plessy v.
| Ferguson, which lower courts had relied on as precedent.
| bell-cot wrote:
| There's a _lot_ of context (behind Wickard v Filburn) which
| would obviously not apply to anyone distilling for personal
| consumption:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
| laughing_man wrote:
| 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.
| john01dav wrote:
| 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.
| bsimpson wrote:
| That's arguing around the point.
|
| If the law is broken, fix the law. Don't pervert logic to
| pretend that the existing law dictates what you want is
| correct.
|
| If Roe v Wade is based on faulty logic, cool - overturn it.
| But it then becomes Congress's responsibility to replace it
| with the correct version.
|
| The federal government isn't supposed to police people's
| personal behavior. "Federal" comes from "federation" as in,
| the group of states in the union. It's the job of the
| legislature to write the laws, the job of the judiciary to
| interpret the laws, and the job of the states to do these
| things for areas that don't rise to the level enumerated in
| the Constitution.
|
| When you get it twisted, you end up with this tug-of-war
| where corrupt politicians try to put biased judges on the
| bench to mold the rules to their whims without actually
| having to pass them.
| gowld wrote:
| > If the law is broken, fix the law
|
| If you follow that argument to its conclusion, you end up
| at: fixing the law requires amending the Constitution, and
| if the _law for amending the constitution_ is broken, the
| remedy is revolution. Most participants prefer the current
| practice instead.
| abigail95 wrote:
| If anyone considers that outcome to be strange - that's how
| most things are supposed to be regulated. It's doubly
| specified in the wording of the constitution and 10A.
|
| If one takes the opinion interstate commerce means buying,
| selling and transporting.
|
| It's also how the current system works. Most drug convictions
| are based on state law. Federal drug prosecutions are 2% of
| the total. Every state has its version of controlled
| substances act.
|
| Nothing much would change at all.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| 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
| bsimpson wrote:
| It's not about decriminalizing marijuana - it's about the
| absurd assertion that the federal government can regulate
| what you do personally because "yadda yadda
| yadda...interstate commerce!"
| tavavex wrote:
| These treaties are ancient and mostly irrelevant, especially
| outside the topic of hard drugs. Unless you're doing harm to
| the other nations, no one will do anything.
|
| This paper is all the way from 2012. Since its publication,
| many countries have pushed the limits to far greater lengths
| than what it talks about. Canada remains a signatory to all
| the old 60s-80s treaties about drugs, but can you guess what
| the consequences were when we legalized cannabis in spite of
| all of them? No one cares about these.
| andrewmg wrote:
| 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.
| nullc wrote:
| Thank you for your work here. Overcoming the argument that a
| threat of prosecution doesn't create standing is a huge
| advancement for the cause of freedom-- in light of Babbitt
| the state never should have been arguing otherwise nor should
| the lower court have ruled that way but they were and that
| line of argument is protecting a lot of facially
| unconstitutional law.
| webdoodle wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| threecheese wrote:
| We've already seen states try and regulate outside their
| borders; TX with abortion as one example. How does a weaker
| federal government protect against this, or do you believe it
| should not? And how does this not devolve into 50 fiefdoms?
| saltyoldman wrote:
| nah, 3d printed firearms next.
| GenerWork wrote:
| It's been way too long since I've taken a political science
| course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the
| entire country, or just the area that the 5th Court of Appeals
| covers?
| malfist wrote:
| 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.
| dcrazy wrote:
| You seem to be confusing precedent-setting decisions with
| nationwide injunctions.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Probably though the old pattern was that the plaintiffs
| would request and the Circuit would issue a nationwide
| injunction with the ruling when finding that a law in full
| unconstitutional.
|
| Now we have the weird situation where the constitution is
| more patchwork because you have to get rulings in all the
| Circuits or wait for one case to make it all the way to the
| Supreme Court.
| rdbl27 wrote:
| No, that was never the old pattern. Nationwide
| injunctions were unheard of until very recently -- as in,
| within the past 10-20 years.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
| malfist wrote:
| Your own source says they've been common since 1960
| dcrazy wrote:
| It doesn't say that. It says that the D.C Court of
| Appeals issued one in 1963, and then quotes the DOJ as
| saying " nationwide injunctions remained 'exceedingly
| rare' for a few decades after 1963[,]" notwithstanding
| one issued by a district judge in New York in 1973.
|
| Regardless of what you think about nationwide
| injunctions, your original assertion that "prior to this
| year," a decision by a federal appellate court would
| apply the entire country is categorically false.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| Appeals court decisions generally only apply to their own
| jurisdiction. But they obviously hold a lot of weight when
| cited in others.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 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.
| rdbl27 wrote:
| Nationwide injunctions are a very recent legal innovation --
| as in, extremely rare until the 2000s, and uncommon until the
| 2010s.
|
| They were not how this situation was handled for nearly all
| of the existence of the United States.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
| rtkwe wrote:
| Seems like a perfectly valid one. If the government is
| violating the constitution or a persons rights why should
| there be suits all across the country to get that
| recognized? Especially when the question isn't on something
| with a lot of particularized tests that's sensitive to the
| exact case, eg 4th amendment law? Why should rights be so
| dependent on someone in my particular part of the country
| having sued?
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| jcims wrote:
| Bought and rigged up a 'hand sanitizer plant' about five months
| into COVID. Populated the thing with thermocouples, load cells
| and automation with nodered on raspberry pi and a bunch of esp32s
| flashed with tasmota doing sensing and control. Everything talked
| over mqtt. Great little architecture and having it highly
| automated allowed me to focus on the parts that were less easily
| controlled for.
|
| Dashboard: https://imgur.com/a/so7iZJX
|
| Sanitizer run: https://imgur.com/a/iWDlNfb
|
| Quite a lot of fun actually.
| jdc0589 wrote:
| I dont need to see stuff like this. I have too many hobbies
| already
| mothballed wrote:
| The post '86 machine gun ban relies on basically the exact
| principle overturned here.
| EgregiousCube wrote:
| 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.
| esseph wrote:
| Tally ho!
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Yeah, moonshine is ok but Tommy Gun isn't? It's roaring
| twenties y'all!
| gigatexal wrote:
| Big beer head Kavanaugh and Kegseth are probably jumping for joy.
| seanw444 wrote:
| A win against the over-application of the interstate commerce
| clause that benefits everybody! Quick, how can we make this
| partisan?
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Doesn't apply to beer anyways.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see how many people get methanol
| poisoning from trying their hand at it without doing the research
| properly. That being said, so long as it's for private or non-
| profit use, I don't really see the harm here.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Probably none. Unless someone is intentionally adding methanol
| to it.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| 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.
| jotux wrote:
| >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.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| 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...
| superjan wrote:
| Might as well plug this recent Criminal Podcast episode:
| https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-358-the-formula-3-27-2026
|
| TLDL: During prohibition, US government required adding 5%
| methanol to industrial alcohol, hoping that this would stop
| bootleggers from selling it as liquor. It was sold anyway,
| resulting in many deaths.
| aqme28 wrote:
| To be fair, we still add 5-10% methanol to industrial alcohol.
| But also a bunch of bitterants to discourage use.
| mordae wrote:
| Are adding it or just distill both because it's cheaper?
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| To make it poisonous enough that the tax men leave you
| alone.
|
| So cheaper in a circuitous way.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Adding. That majority of things we ferment and distill will
| not produce anywhere close to 5-10% methanol.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeast microbes make ethanol, not (much) methanol.
| caycep wrote:
| how...uh...explosive...are home stills?
| dylan604 wrote:
| less than a meth lab
| jerrysievert wrote:
| 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.
| mynameisash wrote:
| 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.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| 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 ( _Poitin_ [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.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your comment. I was skeptical about your
| claim that black mold would be a consequence of living near a
| distillery, but in fact, it is. It is called Whiskey Fungus
| and is related to the aging of the spirits.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudoinia
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Yep, that's it. They all look the same with a human
| eyeball. Or I need better eye glasses.
|
| > _The fungus can be removed from buildings using high
| pressure water jets, bleach, etc. According to a report
| from the Kentucky government, it has not been shown to
| cause anything other than cosmetic effects thanks to its
| mode of nutrition via the carboniferous atmosphere, rather
| than the decay of building materials in general._
|
| It reaches higher up the siding than I can reach with
| household cleaners. It makes the house look dirty. Which I
| really don't care about, since most folks in the
| neighborhood have the same schmutz on their homes. It
| doesn't seem to like cement, so sidewalks & foundations
| aren't affected (that I can see).
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| Crikey. My dad (and just about every other westerner) used to
| brew sid down the road in Dhahran, I never heard of fires
| from it.
| NoSalt wrote:
| I had no idea this was even a law!!! Where do I turn myself in?
| andrewmg wrote:
| Reposting my comment from the last thread:
|
| For those wondering, the opinion[0] doesn't address the Commerce
| Clause power (and Wickard and Raich) becaue the government
| abandoned that argument. See footnote 5.
|
| The Commerce Clause issue is raised in our other case[1] that's
| now pending before the Sixth Circuit.
|
| (I argued both cases.)
|
| [0]
| https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pd...
|
| [1] https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/issues/detail/ream-v-us-
| dep...
| tomwheeler wrote:
| As I understand it, this only applies to the three states in that
| district, all of which also have statewide bans against it.
|
| My state (Missouri) has the most lax home distilling state laws
| in the nation, which allow residents to produce up to 500 bottles
| per year. Well, at least theoretically, since the federal ban
| takes precedence.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| The best liquor I ever had was by a state police detective who
| had been home distilling since he was 12. It was made from rye
| and corn, but tasted like peaches.
|
| I think it is kind of magical to witness the process. I only
| experimented a few times, and never aged it, so every was very
| sharp. The best was a sharp brandy made from a bottle of wine I
| bought. The worst was using a leftover keg of beer, which
| bittered the copper pipe, so everything after tasted like gin.
|
| I would recommend people try it. You can make one out of copper
| pipe from a hardware store, a few fittings and a pressure cooker.
| Be safe, of course, and remember that ethanol is used as a
| preventative for methanol poisoning :)
| 01100011 wrote:
| 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.
| wiredfool wrote:
| 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.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I know a few cops who moonshine. It's a natural part of my neck
| of the woods, and it's wonderful.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Have a beer for that news!
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Do not drink, fight the calories.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| they also need to strike down the state laws restricting
| collection of rainwater on you own property.
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