at the time, I made the follwing comment:
"As the court explains, tomatoes which are grown at home and possessed for personal use are never more than an instant from the interstate market and this is so whether or not the possession is for nutritional use or lawful use under the laws of a particular state."
I simply substituted tomotoes for marijuana.
I can EASILY see this being used to stike down that law.
Further - it was not the State of California which was sued by the feds - it was an individual. This will be the case again here.
Actually, Raich simply substituted marijuana for corn. SCOTUS relied on a prior case telling a farmer the corn he raised on his own farm to feed to his own animals was subject to federal regulation.
The difference here is that a complex manufactured item CAN be distinguished from comparable items manufactured elsewhere. One possible acceptable outcome is that federal regulation could be limited to requiring the manufactured items be marked to indicate manufacturer and state, a minimal imposition resolving the "inability to distinguish items manufactured & distributed intrastate from interstate".
Yes, it will be a tough battle. It must be fought, and it must be won, and a growing number of states are getting in on the action on our side.
It may be impossible to distinguish but it should be up to the state to determine whether it will mimic Federal law and should not be imposed upon it. Come on, Scalia, a schoolkid could understand this. The Constitution is set up with liberty and freedoms as givens. The powers of the Federal government picks up where those end.