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| | The effects of marijuana can include a feeling of euphoria, short-term memory loss, mild hallucinations, and an impairment of physical and mental functioning. Marijuana advocates and many scientists have claimed that it has medicinal benefits, particularly for pain relief and appetite stimulation among those with a terminal illness. Doctors have found that other drugs can also deliver these benefits but with considerable side effects. Former Conservative Law Enforcement officials, [[liberals]], and [[libertarians]] have rallied to decriminalize the drug<ref>[http://www.leap.cc]</ref>. Members of the [[Rastafari movement]] use it as a sacrament. | | The effects of marijuana can include a feeling of euphoria, short-term memory loss, mild hallucinations, and an impairment of physical and mental functioning. Marijuana advocates and many scientists have claimed that it has medicinal benefits, particularly for pain relief and appetite stimulation among those with a terminal illness. Doctors have found that other drugs can also deliver these benefits but with considerable side effects. Former Conservative Law Enforcement officials, [[liberals]], and [[libertarians]] have rallied to decriminalize the drug<ref>[http://www.leap.cc]</ref>. Members of the [[Rastafari movement]] use it as a sacrament. |
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| − | == Angel Raich: Right to Life ==
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| − | Angel Raich of Oakland, California, Diane Monson of Oroville, California, and two anonymous caregivers sued the government for injunctive and declaratory relief on October 9, 2002 to stop the government from interfering with their right to produce and use medical marijuana claiming that the Controlled Substances Act was not constitutional as applied to their conduct.
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| − | They claimed the seizure was a violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which grants the federal government the power to regulate "commerce," but only commerce that occurs "among the several States," with foreign countries, and "with the Indian tribes." Raich argued that her possession and consumption of medical marijuana was not commerce. Neither she nor Monson paid for their marijuana, and neither obtained it from another state. The soil, seeds, nutrients, and lumber used to grow the marijuana were obtained within California.
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| − | Angel Raich claimed she used marijuana to keep herself alive. She and her doctor claimed to have tried dozens of prescription medicines for her numerous medical conditions, and that she was allergic to most of them. Her doctor declared under oath that Raich's life was at stake if she could not continue to use marijuana. Diane Monson suffered from chronic pain due to a car accident a decade before the case. She used marijuana to relieve the pain and muscle spasms around her spine.
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| − | Legal briefs were filed and oral argument occurred on November 29, 2004 (transcript). The 6-3 decision, written by Justice Stevens, was issued on June 6, 2005. It upheld the validity of Controlled Substances Act as an exercise of federal power because Congress "could have rationally concluded that the aggregate impact on the national market of all the transactions exempted from federal supervision is unquestionably substantial." The majority did not address the substantive due process claims raised by the respondents.
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| − | The Commerce Clause was the main issue. Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce includes power to regulate:
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| − | channels of interstate commerce.
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| − | instrumentalities of interstate commerce.
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| − | activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.
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| − | The last of the three was relevant to the issue at hand. The relevant precedents for it are Wickard v. Filburn (1942), United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000).
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| − | Stevens' opinion for the Court for the Raich decision said that Lopez and Morrison don't apply, since marijuana is a popular part of commerce, and that the Commerce Clause applies whether the commerce is legal or not. According to Stevens, Wickard was the correct precedent to go by. During the American Great Depression, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 imposed quotas on crops including wheat. The farmer Roscoe Filburn produced wheat in excess of the quota, but said the excess wheat was for his own personal consumption and therefore had no effect on interstate commerce. The Court ruled that a farmer's growing "his own wheat" is "commerce" because if he had not grown and consumed it, he would have had to buy it from someone. Hence, in the aggregate, if farmers were allowed to consume their own wheat it would affect the interstate market in wheat. This case marked what may be the high water mark of the commerce power. For sixty years—until the Lopez decision—the Supreme Court struck down no law as exceeding the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. Like Filburn, Raich and Monson said that their marijuana was only for personal use, and therefore not part of commerce. Stevens said that since the Wickard aggregation principle was valid, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution allowed federal law to override state law.
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| − | Although the Court decision for Raich imposed a severe hardship on people in Raich's position, there was a larger issue involved. Congress' power under the Commerce Clause was used for many important pieces of legislation, with the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 as one example out of many. The Court had already reaffirmed some precedents and created others that limit the power of Congress over the states, and increased the power of the Court over Congress. With Raich, the Court declined to go further in that direction.
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| − | Justice Scalia wrote a separate concurrence that aimed to differentiate the decision from the controversial results of United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison. Although Scalia voted in favor of limits on the Commerce Clause in the Lopez and Morrison decisions, he said that his understanding of the Necessary and Proper Clause caused him to vote for the Commerce Clause with Raich for the following reason:
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| − | “ Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so “could … undercut” its regulation of interstate commerce. ... This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between “what is truly national and what is truly local.” Lopez
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| − | Both Raich and Monson have indicated their intention to continue using marijuana for medical use in spite of the ruling. Some activists have compared this decision to the Dred Scott case, with the implication that the ruling may have only a temporary impact leading to political reversal.
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| − | Two days after the ruling, the International Narcotics Control Board issued a statement indicating that the Board "welcomes the decision of the United States Supreme Court, made on 6 June, reaffirming that the cultivation and use of cannabis, even if it is for 'medical' use, should be prohibited." INCB President Hamid Ghodse noted, "Cannabis is classified under international conventions as a drug with a number of personal and public health problems," referring to the drug's Schedule I status under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs [8].
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| − | Not long after the decision in Raich, the Court vacated a lower court decision in United States v. Stewart and remanded it to the court of appeals for reconsideration in light of Raich. In Stewart, the Ninth Circuit had held that Congress lacked the Commerce Clause power to criminalize the possession of homemade machine guns.
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| − | In Congress, in order to counter the adverse effect of this ruling on patients and caretakers, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) annually introduce a bill to stop the Department of Justice from arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients. [9] This effort has not yet succeed, as most members of Congress voted against the bill. [10]
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| − | In 2007, the Ninth Circuit decided against Angel Raich, when she renewed her litigation on substantive due process grounds. Judge Harry Pregerson, the author of the opinion, noted that only a minority of states legalized medical marijuana, so it is still not a recognized "fundamental right" under the due process clause. However, Pregerson also wrote that she could use medical necessity individually if she ever gets arrested for using medical marijuana.[11]
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| | ==References== | | ==References== |
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The effects of marijuana can include a feeling of euphoria, short-term memory loss, mild hallucinations, and an impairment of physical and mental functioning. Marijuana advocates and many scientists have claimed that it has medicinal benefits, particularly for pain relief and appetite stimulation among those with a terminal illness. Doctors have found that other drugs can also deliver these benefits but with considerable side effects. Former Conservative Law Enforcement officials, liberals, and libertarians have rallied to decriminalize the drug[1]. Members of the Rastafari movement use it as a sacrament.
