Ruan v. United States: An Important Ruling or Merely Sound and Fury?

• Pages: 527-540
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Paul J. Larkin
• Subject Matter: Derecho Público y Administrativo

Ruan v. United States: An Important Ruling or

Merely Sound and Fury?

PAUL J. LARKIN*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. THE RUAN DECISION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

II. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BREYER AND ALITO

OPINIONS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

III. DOES THE RUAN DECISION MATTER? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

CONCLUSION .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Some opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States resemble the f‌inale

to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. They announce their importance not with a

band but with an entire orchestra—and cannons. The Court’s recent decision in

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is one of those cases.

1

Dobbs

overturned the Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that the Fourteenth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause guarantees a woman the right to have an

abortion.

2

The reverberations from Dobbs will be felt for a long time.

3

See, e.g., The Fallout from Overturning Roe, ECONOMIST (June 28, 2022), https://www.economist.

com/united-states/2022/06/26/the-fallout-from-overturning-roe [https://perma.cc/4K87-UDG8].

By contrast, another recent Supreme Court decision—Ruan v. United States—

will create excitement only among a particular subset of the academy and bar,

those who teach or practice criminal law.

4

Ruan involved an interpretation of the

principal federal law governing the distribution of legal and illegal drugs, the

Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

5

The Court held that a licensed physician

* John, Barbara & Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; M.P.

P. George Washington University, 2010; J.D. Stanford Law School, 1980; B.A. Washington & Lee

University, 1977. The views expressed in this Article are the authors’ own and should not be construed

as representing any off‌icial position of The Heritage Foundation. I am grateful to Jack Fitzhenry, John

G. Malcolm, and Zack Smith for helpful comments on an earlier iteration of this Essay. Any errors are

mine. © 2023, Paul J. Larkin.

1. 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022).

2. 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

3.

4. 142 S. Ct. 2370 (2022).

5. The CSA was Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970,

Pub. L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1242 (codif‌ied as amended at 21 U.S.C. §§ 801-904 (2018)). A “controlled

substance” is “a drug or other substance, or immediate precursor, included in Schedule I, II, III, IV, or V

of part B of this title,” except for “distilled spirits, wine, malt beverages, or tobacco, as those terms are

def‌ined or used in subtitle E of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.” 21 U.S.C. § 802(6) (2018). The

CSA incorporates the def‌inition of a “drug” from the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and assigns

527