State laws protect legal marijuana users, so why can't Vermont's state law on GMO labeling be respected?

Monday, August 29, 2016 by: S. D. Wells
Tags: GMO labeling, states rights, federal laws

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(NaturalNews) A unanimous decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now prevents the Department of Justice of the United States from prosecuting people who legally grow, sell or purchase marijuana, even though it's still illegal according to federal law. The decision is based on a previous ruling that keeps the DOJ from interfering with state laws authorizing these uses of medical cannabis.

Lawyers across the country use specific previous legal cases as precedents, or as an "authority" for similar cases – known as "stare decisis." With this in mind, a questionable new law comes to mind – one which every health enthusiast in America should be dogmatically questioning.

The landmark decision for U.S. states to basically override federal law in regards to marijuana use could prove to be the most viable judicial interpretation for the State of Vermont to lead the way in labeling GMOs (genetically modified organisms in food), despite the DARK Act, recently signed into law by Obama and the U.S. Senate, which forbids individual states from labeling GMOs properly, and instead uses tricky barcodes most consumers can't interpret. The DARK Act legislation unconstitutionally outlaws Vermont's labeling requirement, replacing easy to read text labels with obscure barcodes that "Big Food" and the biotechnology chemical agriculturalists know most consumers won't bother to decipher with smart devices.

The United States District Courts for the Second Circuit exercise federal jurisdiction in six districts within the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont, and these serve as trial courts for the circuit, where each district has multiple seats of court, with the District of Vermont's being Brattleboro, Rutland and Burlington. Congress established the Second Circuit Court of Appeals way back in 1891, and the number of judgeships has increased over the years to 13. It is now time for the state of Vermont to take the screws to the feds, and appeal the DARK Act legislation to reinstate State rights to label toxic food for what it is, in a proper manner that consumers can easily recognize. After all, more than 90 percent of Americans want GMOs labeled, and they're not asking for some tricky bar codes that require research and decoding.

Appeal and repeal the DARK Act – states have the right!

The DARK Act (Deny Americans the Right to Know) was approved by the Senate by a vote of 63–30, mostly by politicians who have been secretly "bought" by Monsanto or brainwashed into believing that genetically modified foods could somehow save the planet from starvation. The latter, of course, is a great myth purported by anti-science shills that make millions of dollars convincing people that consuming chemical pesticides won't cause cancer, dementia, deformations and infertility. In fact, the legislation was written by Sen. Pat Roberts (KS) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI), who have pocketed over $2 million from agribusiness donors, who essentially paid them off to keep local governments and states from enacting their own labeling bills. Vermont was going to use a label that reads, "Produced with Genetic Engineering."

The DARK Act, aka "The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act" (H.R. 1599), is a federal scheme that conversely provides loopholes for popular GM ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and toxic oils coming from genetically mutated plants. The bill blocks other states from exercising their rights too, including Connecticut, Maine and Alaska, that already had labeling laws on the books. The FDA played its insidious (and usual) role in hiding GMOs from Americans, helping to create the loopholes. However, from Wyoming to Washington, and from Colorado to Missouri, U.S. states have recently passed laws to completely contradict (and essentially ignore and nullify) federal laws, because the federal laws are unconstitutional. In fact, Wyoming passed legislation that makes it illegal for the feds to enforce their regulations regarding personal firearms. Other state laws that override federal law include healthcare laws and standards for driver's licenses.

The 10th Amendment 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."

The bottom line is this: If power is not granted expressly to the federal government in the Constitution, then the states have more power in that regard. Still, it gets tricky, because the U.S. Supreme Court routinely rejects states' claims. Remember, several Supreme Court Justices are also padding their pockets with Monsanto money, like Clarence Thomas, the ex-Monsanto lawyer who actually still hears Monsanto cases. Talk about a conflict of interest!

Yet, Article VI of the Constitution contains a supremacy clause that says that when a state law is in conflict with a federal law, the federal law takes priority. So which comes first, the chicken or the GMO egg? At this point, states have nothing to lose by using the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision for marijuana as a precedent case for states to be able to label GMOs properly. It's time to fight for the right to know what's in our food, especially when it comes to pesticides proven to cause cancer!

Sources for this article include:

NaturalNews.com

CA2.USCourts.gov

Consumerist.com

VJEL.VermontLaw.edu

TruthWiki.or

TruthWiki.org

AnnenbergClassroom.org

OrganicConsumers.org