Gonzales v. Raich in the Supreme Court of the United States *.

• Position: Nota Bene

HELD: Congress has the power to regulate home grown marijuana, even when used by the grower for personal medical purposes, with doctor's approval, and in accordance with state law, because it is part of an economic class of activities that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

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Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.

California is one of at least nine States that permits the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The question presented here is whether the power invested in Congress by Article I, [section] 8, of the Constitution "[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" its authority to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States" includes the power to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with California law.

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, now codified as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. The Act creates an exemption from criminal prosecution for physicians, as well as for patients and primary caregivers who possess or cultivate marijuana for medical purposes with the recommendation or approval of a physician.

Respondents Angel Raich and Dianne Monson are California residents who suffer from a variety of serious medical conditions and have sought to avail themselves of medical marijuana pursuant to the terms of the Compassionate Use Act. They are being treated by licensed, board-certified family practitioners, who have concluded, after prescribing a host of conventional medicines to treat respondents' conditions and to alleviate their associated symptoms, that marijuana is the only drug available that provides effective treatment.

On August 15, 2002, county deputy sheriffs and agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) came to Monson's home. After a thorough investigation, the county officials concluded that her use of marijuana was entirely lawful as a matter of California law. Nevertheless, after a three hour standoff, federal agents seized and destroyed all six of her cannabis plants.

Respondents brought this action against the Attorney General of the United States and the head of the DEA seeking injunctive and declaratory relief prohibiting the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 84 Stat. 1242, 21 U.S.C. [section] 801 et seq., to the extent it prevents them from possessing, obtaining, or manufacturing cannabis for their personal medical use. Respondents claimed that enforcing the CSA against them would violate the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution, and the doctrine of medical necessity.

The District Court denied respondent's motion for a preliminary injunction. Raich v. Ashcroft, 248 F. Supp. 2d 918 (ND Cal. 2003). Although the court found that the federal enforcement interests "wane[d]" when compared to the harm that California residents would suffer if denied access to medically necessary marijuana, it concluded that respondents could not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their legal claims. Id. at 931.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and ordered the District Court to enter a preliminary injunction. Raich v Ashcroft, 352 F. 3d 1222 (2003). The court found that respondents had "demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on their claim that, as applied to them, the CSA is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress' Commerce Clause authority." Id. at 1227. The court distinguished prior Circuit cases upholding the CSA by focusing on what it deemed to be 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." Id. at 1228.

The majority in the Ninth Circuit placed heavy reliance on United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), to hold that this separate class of purely local activities was beyond the reach of federal power. In contrast, the dissenting judge concluded that the CSA, as applied to respondents, was clearly valid under Lopez and Morrison. He also thought that it was "simply impossible to distinguish the relevant conduct surrounding the cultivation and use of marijuana crop at issue in this case from the cultivation and use of the wheat crop in Wickard v. Filburn. 352 F. 3d at 1235 (Beam, J., dissenting).

The question before the Supreme Court was whether Congress' power to regulate interstate markets for medicinal substances encompasses the portions of those markets that are supplied with drugs produced and consumed locally. The Court held that it is well settled law that the CSA is a valid exercise of federal power, even as applied to the troubling facts of this case. The Court vacated the judgment of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Congress enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act to consolidate the growing number of piecemeal drug laws and to enhance federal drug enforcement powers. Title II of that Act, the CSA, repealed most of the earlier antidrug laws in favor of a comprehensive regime to combat the international and interstate traffic in illegal drugs. To effectuate these goals, Congress devised a closed regulatory system making it unlawful to manufacture, distribute, dispense, or possess any controlled substance except in a manner authorized by the CSA. 21 U.S.C. [subsection] 841 (a) (1), 844(a). The CSA categorizes all controlled substances into five schedules.

In enacting the CSA, Congress classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug. 21 U.S.C. [section] 812(c). Schedule I drugs are categorized as such because of their high potential for abuse, lack of any accepted medical use, and absence of any accepted safety for use in medically supervised treatment. [section] 812(b)(1). By classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the manufacture, distribution, or possession of marijuana became a...