SCOTUS Blazes Medical Marijuana

Erm... Rehnquist was one of the dissenting voters.

I thought this was about whether these Californians had a right under California law to grow their own cannabis (as prescribed by their physicians) for their own medical use without interfernece from Federal laws! WTF is Stevens on about? Where is there a profit motive?

it's like the old joke -- Q: what's a liberal? A: a conservative who's just been arrested!

I thought this was about whether these Californians had a right under California law to grow their own cannabis (as prescribed by their physicians) for their own medical use without interfernece from Federal laws! WTF is Stevens on about? Where is there a profit motive?

This bit in Scalia's concurring opinion might offer some insight:

"Not only is it impossible to distinguish "controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate" from "controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate," but it hardly makes sense to speak in such terms. Drugs like marijuana are fungible commodities. As the Court explains, marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal use is never more than an instant from the interstate market--and this is so whether or not the possession is for medicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular State."

The disagreement between Scalia and the Rehnquist-O'Connor-Thomas dissent in this case is highly nuanced and lawyerly. The dissenters would, as Mark Levin notes, essentially throw out a long (and highly questionable) line of Commerce Clause cases that permit Congress to regulate personal growth and consumption of a product (without any sale into interstate commerce), where that activity would substantially affect interstate commerce. Basically, as Jonathan and Mark note, it is hard to see how the personal consumption of marijuana grown in one's own backyard has an effect on interstate commerce. But Justice Scalia sees it differently, invoking the "Necessary and Proper" clause of the constitution and concluding that Congress can regulate this growth because the regulation is necessary to make effective a much broader scheme of federal regulation of marijuana sales and distribution. Whatever one's view of federal drug laws, this is an interesting debate about federal power.

Sullivan is also cheesed.

so, we'll see what happens.

Argued November 29, 2004 -- Decided June 6, 2005
Opinion author: Stevens

Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment. O'Connor, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Thomas, J.,
joined as to all but Part III. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting
opinion.

===============================================================
California's Compassionate Use Act
authorizes limited marijuana use for medicinal purposes.
Respondents Raich and Monson are California residents who both
use doctor-recommended marijuana for serious medical
conditions. After federal Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) agents seized and destroyed all six of Monson's
cannabis plants, respondents brought this action seeking
injunctive and declaratory relief prohibiting the enforcement
of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to the extent it
prevents them from possessing, obtaining, or manufacturing
cannabis for their personal medical use. Respondents claim
that enforcing the CSA against them would violate the Commerce
Clause and other constitutional provisions. The District Court
denied respondents' motion for a preliminary injunction,
but the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that they had
demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the claim that
the CSA is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress'
Commerce Clause authority as applied to the intrastate,
noncommercial cultivation and possession of cannabis for
personal medical purposes as recommended by a patient's
physician pursuant to valid California state law. The court
relied heavily on United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, and
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, to hold
that this separate class of purely local activities was beyond
the reach of federal power.

Held: Congress' Commerce Clause authority includes the power to
prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance
with California law. Pp. 6-31.

(a) For the purposes of consolidating various drug laws into a
comprehensive statute, providing meaningful regulation over
legitimate sources of drugs to prevent diversion into illegal
channels, and strengthening law enforcement tools against
international and interstate drug trafficking, Congress enacted
the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of
1970, Title II of which is the CSA. To effectuate the
statutory goals, Congress devised a closed regulatory system
making it unlawful to manufacture, distribute, dispense, or
possess any controlled substance except as authorized by the
CSA. 21 U.S.C. sect.
841(a)(1), 844(a). All controlled substances are
classified into five schedules, sect.812, based on their
accepted medical uses, their potential for abuse, and their
psychological and physical effects on the body,
sects.811, 812. Marijuana is classified as a
Schedule I substance, sect.812(c), based on its high
potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and no accepted
safety for use in medically supervised treatment,
sect.812(b)(1). This classification renders the manufacture,
distribution, or possession of marijuana a criminal offense.
sects.841(a)(1), 844(a). Pp. 6-11.

(b) Congress' power to
regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic
"class of activities" that have a substantial effect
on interstate commerce is firmly established. See, e.g.,
Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 151.
If Congress decides that the " 'total
incidence' " of a practice poses a threat to a
national market, it may regulate the entire class. See,
e.g., id., at 154-155. Of particular relevance
here is Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111,
127-128, where, in rejecting the appellee farmer's
contention that Congress' admitted power to regulate the
production of wheat for commerce did not authorize federal
regulation of wheat production intended wholly for the
appellee's own consumption, the Court established that
Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not
itself "commercial," i.e., not produced for
sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of
activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market
in that commodity. The similarities between this case and
Wickard are striking. In both cases, the regulation is
squarely within Congress' commerce power because
production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it
wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and
demand in the national market for that commodity. In assessing
the scope of Congress' Commerce Clause authority, the
Court need not determine whether respondents' activities,
taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate
commerce in fact, but only whether a "rational basis"
exists for so concluding. E.g., Lopez, 514 U.S., at
557. Given the enforcement difficulties that attend
distinguishing between marijuana cultivated locally and
marijuana grown elsewhere, 21 U.S.C. sect.
801(5), and concerns about diversion into illicit channels,
the Court has no difficulty concluding that Congress had a
rational basis for believing that failure to regulate the
intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana would leave
a gaping hole in the CSA. Pp. 12-20.

(c) Respondents' heavy reliance on Lopez and Morrison overlooks the
larger context of modern-era Commerce Clause jurisprudence
preserved by those cases, while also reading those cases far
too broadly. The statutory challenges at issue there were
markedly different from the challenge here. Respondents ask
the Court to excise individual applications of a concededly
valid comprehensive statutory scheme. In contrast, in both
Lopez and Morrison, the parties asserted that a
particular statute or provision fell outside Congress'
commerce power in its entirety. This distinction is pivotal
for the Court has often reiterated that "[w]here the class
of activities is regulated and that class is within the reach
of federal power, the courts have no power 'to excise, as
trivial, individual instances' of the class."
Perez, 402 U.S., at 154. Moreover, the Court emphasized
that the laws at issue in Lopez and Morrison had
nothing to do with "commerce" or any sort of economic
enterprise. See Lopez, 514 U.S., at 561; Morrison,
529 U.S., at 610. In contrast, the CSA regulates
quintessentially economic activities: the production,
distribution, and consumption of commodities for which there is
an established, and lucrative, interstate market. Prohibiting
the intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of
commerce is a rational means of regulating commerce in that
product. The Ninth Circuit cast doubt on the CSA's
constitutionality by isolating a distinct class of activities
that it held to be beyond the reach of federal power: the
intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession, and use of
marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice of a
physician and in accordance with state law. However, Congress
clearly acted rationally in determining that this subdivided
class of activities is an essential part of the larger
regulatory scheme. The case comes down to the claim that a
locally cultivated product that is used domestically rather
than sold on the open market is not subject to federal
regulation. Given the CSA's findings and the undisputed
magnitude of the commercial market for marijuana,
Wickard and its progeny foreclose that claim. Pp.
20-30.
352 F.3d 1222, vacated and remanded.

So I finally remembered to google the address and, exactly...it's a medical marijuana clinic! Now I'm totally fascinated by this. My guess is that everyone I saw going on could have been staff there, but it almost seemed like too many people for such a small place. So...how exactly does one qualify to receive medicinal marijuana...and...what it is like????

LA gets 'pot vending machines'. And an about-what-I-expected photo:

http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/photo/2008-01/35018775-30131336.jpg

Mehdizadeh said he spent seven months to develop and patent the black, armored box, which he calls the "PVM," or prescription vending machine.

A sliding fence protects the tinted windows of his dispensary, barely distinguishing it from a busy thoroughfare of strip malls, automobile dealers and furniture shops. A box resembling a large refrigerator stands inside the nearly empty shop, near a few shelves stocked with vitamins and herbs.

A guard in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Security" on the front stands at the door. A poster of Bob Marley decorates a back room.

Does NED RAGGETT smoke weed?

Don't we all.

is arthritis on the list of weed-allowing diseases?

"We" as in the collective Raggett consciousness?

yes, milo.

Dude they interviewed on NPR had a "recommendation" (prescription) to assist in his anger management.

I was impressed.