Michael Maharrey | The Libertarian Institute

CBD Is (Illegal) Everywhere

by Michael Maharrey | Dec 6, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

The other day, I was walking past a little strip mall in my Lexington, Kentucky, neighborhood and I saw a sign proclaiming “CBD Sold Here!” Now it doesn’t surprise me to see CBD products sold on every corner in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, but when you start seeing it in small-town, middle-America, you know it’s pretty much everywhere. And believe me — it is pretty much everywhere. As I reported not too long ago, CBD has gone mainstream – and it’s a perfect example of nullification in action. Cannabidiol (CBD) is derived from cannabis – generally in the form of industrial hemp....

The Astronomical Price of America’s Undeclared Wars

by Michael Maharrey | Aug 27, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

According to a study by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, since 2001, America’s wars have cost $5.6 trillion. That equates to $23,000 per taxpayer. This is more than three times the Pentagon estimate – which still comes in at a staggeringly high $1.5 trillion. Study author, Neta Crawford said the Pentagon’s failure to account for much of the cost of waging war accounts for the discrepancy between official numbers and the study. “War costs are more than what we spend in any one year on what’s called the pointy end of the spear,” she told the Wall...

James Madison’s Instruction: Throw a Fit!

by Michael Maharrey | Aug 23, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

What should the average person do when the federal government oversteps its constitutional bounds? Throw a fit! That’s what James Madison recommended when he laid out a blueprint for dealing with unconstitutional federal acts in Federalist #46. He wrote that when the federal government enacts an “unwarrantable measure,” or even a “warrantable measure” that happens to be unpopular, “the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand.” One of those means of opposition involves “the disquietude of the people.” In other words, when the federal government does things outside of its authority...

Report: Trump Administration Ramps up Enforcement of Federal Gun Laws

by Michael Maharrey | Aug 1, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

Conventional wisdom holds that Republicans reliably protect the Second Amendment. In fact, one of the reasons conservatives said it was imperative to elect Donald Trump was that he would defend our right to keep and bear arms. A Hillary White House would shred the Second Amendment and aggressively come after our guns — so we were told. But the reality doesn’t stack up to the rhetoric. In fact, during Trump’s first term, ATF enforcement of federal gun laws increased in every single category compared to the last year Obama was in the White House. We can start with the number of firearms cases...

I Took on the Surveillance State in My Hometown and Won

by Michael Maharrey | Jun 25, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

I fought the surveillance state in my hometown and won – at least the first battle. Last October, the city of Lexington sued me in an attempt to keep its “mobile surveillance cameras” secret. In a major victory for government transparency, Fayette Circuit Judge John Reynolds issued an order granting my appeal for summary judgment last week. In simple terms, the judge rejected the city’s arguments for keeping its surveillance cameras secret and ordered the Lexington Police Department to release all relevant records. My legal saga started last summer. After surveillance cameras appeared in a...

The 'Right to Try' War Was Actually Won on the State Level

by Michael Maharrey | Jun 5, 2018 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics

On May 30th, President Donald Trump signed the federal Right to Try Act into law. The new law will allow terminally ill patients to access investigational treatments that have not received final FDA approval. During the signing ceremony, Trump said, "With the 'Right to Try' Law I am signing today, patients with life-threatening illnesses will finally have access to experimental treatments that could improve or even cure their conditions." But Trump's victory speech was a bit tardy. In reality, patients in 40 U.S. states already had access to experimental treatments thanks to state Right to...

Individuals Are the Ultimate Nullifiers

by Michael Maharrey | May 31, 2018 | Featured Articles, Politics

Individuals are the ultimate nullifiers. Legislation can set the stage to nullify federal acts by withdrawing cooperation and removing a lawyer of laws, but ultimately nullification is most effective when individuals are willing to do the things governments prohibit. The lack of regulation when state and local police stand down creates space for markets to grow, even when the minimal threat of federal enforcement remains. This is exactly what happened after Maine legalized marijuana through a voter referendum. The ballot initiative passed in November 2016 legalized marijuana. Sort of. The...

Supreme Court’s Sports Gambling Opinion is a Rare and Major Win for the Tenth Amendment

by Michael Maharrey | May 16, 2018 | Featured Articles, Justice, Politics

Earlier today, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Murphy v. NCAA. The Court’s opinion was rare in that it not only struck down a federal law that infringed on the reserved powers of the states, but also expanded on the long-standing anti-commandeering doctrine. In 2014, New Jersey repealed state laws prohibiting sports betting in defiance of the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The PASPA mandated that states could not “sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact” sports wagering. The law made an exception for the state...