Feds can play Supremacy trump card

All right, dammit. I'm tired of seeing these piddly little short posts on my blog, so I'm going to do my best to write a long, substantive post. I'll see how well that goes and how long it takes...

The Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Gonzales v. Raich (formerly Ashcroft v. Raich). The 6-3 decision, written by Justice Stevens, upheld the prosecution of users and distributors of medical marijuana under the federal Controled Substances Act (the CSA). California allows patients to use and possess marijuana when directed by a doctor, and other states have similar laws. The defendants in the federal prosecution challenged the law as applied because they grew the marijuana themselves and did not affect interstate commerce. (At least one defendant simply gave the marijuana away.) Without this connection to interstate commerce, Congress would have no power under the Constitution to regulate the activity.

Justice Stevens' decision was based heavily on Wickard v. Filburn, where the Court held that Congress had the authority to regulate a farmer's growing wheat even though he did not intend to sell it and only used it for his family's substinence; such Congressional authority stemmed from the fact that the activity, although not interstate commerce and non-economic, because the aggregate of such activities across the nation have a substantial impact on interstate commerce. The growing and distribution of medical marijuana could not only have a substantial impact on interstate commerce, the Court said, but, with the possibility of fraud, could completely thwart the regulatory scheme created by Congress. The Court distinguished United States v. Lopez, in which a law prohibiting the possession of a firearm near a school was struck down, because the activity in question in that case was not related to commerce and the distribution of the marijuana is typical economic activity: growing and distributing a marketable commodity.

For some reason, (and this is really odd, trust me) I agree more with O'Connor's dissent. The distinction between Raich and Lopez doesn't seem very meaningful. And, while the argument that the decision deprives the states of their roles as laboratories of democracy doesn't seem very strong, I agree that it seems like the majority is allowing Congress to bypass the Commerce Clause by saying that regulating intrastate activity is necessary to maintain comprehensive regulation over a large area of activities.