Posted on 12/17/2004 9:12:14 AM PST by inquest
Ashcroft v. Raich, the Supreme Court's medical marijuana case, isn't really about medical marijuana. It's about power -- the power of Congress to exert control, and the power of the Constitution to rein Congress in.
The named plaintiff in this case is Angel McClary Raich, a California mother of two afflicted with an awful array of diseases, including tumors in her brain and uterus, asthma, severe weight loss, and endometriosis. To ease her symptoms, doctors put her on dozens of standard medications. When none of them helped, they prescribed marijuana. That did help -- so much so that Raich, who had been confined to a wheelchair, was again able to walk.
Raich's marijuana was supplied to her for free from two donors who grew it in California, using only California soil, water, and supplies. Under the state's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which exempts the use of marijuana under a doctor's supervision from criminal sanction, all of this was perfectly legal.
But under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the possession of marijuana for any reason is illegal. The question for the court is which law should prevail in this case: state or federal?
Normally that wouldn't be an issue. Under the Constitution, a valid exercise of federal power trumps any conflicting state law. But is the application of the federal drug law to Raich a valid exercise of federal power? Does Congress have the right to criminalize the possession of minuscule amounts of marijuana, not bought on the illicit drug market, and used as medicine?
Americans often forget that the federal government was never intended to have limitless authority. Unlike the states, which have a broad "police power" to regulate public health, safety, and welfare, the national government has only the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Where does the Constitution empower Congress to bar pain-wracked patients from using the marijuana their doctors say they need?
According to the Bush administration, it says it in the Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to "regulate commerce . . . among the several states." And it is true that those words have long been treated as a broad grant of power allowing Congress to control almost anything it chooses.
The Supreme Court's most expansive reading of the Commerce Clause came in Wickard v. Filburn, a unanimous 1942 decision about a farmer who grew more wheat on his farm than was allowed under federal law. Roscoe Filburn argued that his excess wheat was none of Washington's business, since it all remained on his farm -- some of it he ground into flour, for his family, some he fed to his livestock, and some he planted the following year. None of it entered interstate commerce, so what right did Congress have to penalize it?
But a unanimous Supreme Court ruled against Filburn. It held that his 239 excess bushels of wheat affected the national wheat market whether he sold it or not, since wheat he produced for his own use was wheat he didn't have to buy elsewhere. If other farmers did the same thing, demand for wheat -- and its price -- would fall. That ruling threw the door open to virtually unbridled congressional activism. After all, if wheat that never left the farm it grew on was tied to "interstate commerce" and therefore subject to federal control, what wasn't? Not surprisingly, the years since Wickard have seen a vast expansion of federal authority.
Still, the Supreme Court has never actually held that congressional power under the Commerce Clause is unlimited. Twice in the past 10 years, in fact, it has struck down laws that could not be justified as commerce-related even under Wickard's hyperloose standard. But if the government gets its way in this case, the court really will have remade the Commerce Clause into a license to regulate anything. For unlike Filburn -- who was, after all, engaged in the business of running a farm and selling grain -- Raich is engaged in no commercial or economic activity of any kind. She is not buying or selling a thing. The marijuana she uses is not displacing any other marijuana.
But that point seemed lost on the court during last week's oral argument. "It looks like Wickard to me," Justice Antonin Scalia said. "I always used to laugh at Wickard, but that's what Wickard says."
Well, if Wickard says that Congress can ban or penalize Angel Raich's marijuana -- noncommercial, medically necessary, locally grown, and legal under state law -- then it says Congress can reach absolutely any activity at all. When I was a law student in the 1980s, I didn't laugh at Wickard, I was appalled by it. If Ashcroft v. Raich is decided for the government, future law students will have an even more appalling case to study.
ATTENTION PHARMACEUTICALS!!
Here is your #1 reason NOT to develop marijuana-based drugs.
And I don't EVER AGAIN want to hear about how it's the government's fault, or the fault of the greedy pharmaceuticals, why there is not more medical marijuana research going on.
No.
I mean, I'd look them up, but why?
To establish that your previously cited factoid had any significance.
True. It is also the hardest to prove or disprove, making the marijuana recommendation quite easy to get.
"She lives in Oakland, CA"
Now, why was I not surprised when I got to this part?
There's something about Oakland, CA., maybe something in the air or in the water, where standard prescription medication just does not work. The only medication that does seem to work, and work really well, is smoked marijuana.
Funny, isn't it? Gotta love anecdotal stories.
Actually, everything you have said on the Alaskan teen issue is nonsense.
A single poll taken at a time of legality is far more likely to get answers
that are truthful than a poll taken at a time of illegality when there is no
way to assure that there will not be repercussions for telling the truth.
If justice prevails you will feel much pain in your life which you cannot prove.
Matthew 5:7
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Matthew 5:10
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
But your chronic pain won't ruin robertpaulsen's life.
I wasn't kidding when I said that the most intense pain I've ever experienced was shingles (and this is coming from a guy who had a "torsion of the testicle," which is supposed to be the worst pain a man can ever have!).
While I was able to get over it, there are documented cases of people killing themselves due to the pain from shingles. When you've got pain at those levels, I'm all for giving whatever pain medication, legal or illegal, it takes to help the person cope with the pain.
Mark
Are you saying that a simple congressional majority could not adopt a statute to ban alcohol? Where's your proof?
I don't recall an amendment for The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of August 1917 which banned the production of distilled spirits for the duration of the war.
After the war was over, I don't recall an amendment for The War Prohibition Act of November 1918 which forbade the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating beverages of more than 2.75 percent alcohol content, beer and wine as well as hard liquor, until demobilization was completed.
A whole bunch of statutes passed by Congress.
Geez, there was passage early in 1913 of the Webb-Kenyon Act, a long-sought federal statute against transporting liquor into states that wished to block its entry.
Try detoxing from propaganda!
Are you willing to make that up-front admission?
Romans 9:32
Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith,
but as it were by the works of the law.
For they stumbled at that stumbling stone;
Now, why was I not surprised when I got to this part?
There's something about Oakland, CA., maybe something in the air or in the water, where standard prescription medication just does not work. The only medication that does seem to work, and work really well, is smoked marijuana.
Funny, isn't it? Gotta love anecdotal stories.
It's especially interesting how you managed to ignore LOTS OF OTHER ITEMS included in my post. As I mentioned before, she worked with pain specialists, which is how she got the Rx for oxycontin. That's not exactly a drug that's easy to come by, if you're "faking it." The government looks long and hard at Drs who give Rx for oxycontin, especially over long periods of time (for her, it was nearly two years). And she started smoking MJ long before she ever moved to Oakland. She started while she lived in DesMoines, IA, and continued with a Rx from a Dr when she moved to CA.
Finally, "anecdotal" DOES NOT MEAN IT'S NOT TRUE! Of course, you're welcome to call me a liar when I say that I've seen her in pain without meds, using her "legitimate" perscribed drugs, and when she's using MJ. And in all three cases, she's far better off when she's using MJ. But, feel free to discount all I say, and call me a liar, since this is just my experience, another way to say, "anecdotal."
Mark
You had shingles and got through it without smoking marijuana. But you don't think others could, is that right?
I find it hard to believe, check that, impossible to believe, that marijuana would work better for shingles than any other drug out there. This is the first I've heard of that.
It is a central nervous system shunt.
All pain is radically dissipated by this herb.
Your doubts stem from ignorance.
No I'm not, and you know it. I asked you for your belief, you won't answer becuase it gives you away. Coward.
I have this problem with people who use OxyContin, marijuana, and relief in the same sentence. Alarm bells go off.
I didn't say there wasn't any basis for your numbers--I just asked what the basis was. Certainly if the numbers do have some basis it should be possible to provide it. Indeed, even if I weren't interested in whether or not pot should be legalized, I'd be interested to know how drug use can me measured without the measurement accuracy being affected by things like legalization.
Don't be yellow, don't equivocate, stop the music and stop dancing.
Just admit you lied, go on, just do it, the truth will set you free.
Thank you, Doctor Pax.
You never did answer my question. Should the government make it legal for 10-year-olds to smoke marijuana for their medical condition? Let's make it easy -- ALL ages.
Yes? No?
I answered you. I DO have a problem with that and I told you exactly WHY I do have a problem with that.
Plus it's a dumb question that you would not ask of any other activity without being laughed off the forum. I've been nice to you, but that won't last too much longer.
No you didn't.
I DO have a problem with that and I told you exactly WHY I do have a problem with that.
The real reason you have a problem with it isn't any of the off topic childish crap you have posted. The real reason is that you are in love with authoritarianism. You are an elitist who thinks government should be in charge of every aspect of our lives because we are too dumb to be in charge ourselves. In short, you are a big government liberal.
I've been nice to you, but that won't last too much longer.
You haven't been nice, you called me a fascist.
Plus it's a dumb question
It's not a dumb question, it's just an embarassing one for you. You tried to make the lame point that your problem with people being free to use whatever substance was that they weren't taking responsibility for themselves. You have since done the backwards rumba and every kind of other dance to keep from admitting it was all BS. Just like the rest of the BS you spew here daily.
PS, I don't care if you are nice. You are a twit.
And don't start crying now about namecalling, when you call people fascists, it always goes downhill.
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