What's interesting about this decision is that it doesn't appear to overturn the state laws but instead puts the onus on the FBI and other federal officials to enforce the overarching federal law. So, better hope if you get caught with pot, a state or local cop catches ya.

I'm a bit confused. How could the conservative judges NOT support states rights when they reciently supported states rights in a case concerning guns allowed near schools?

It looks to me like Thomas, Rehnquist, and O'Connor were the only dissenters. Thomas is certainly conservative. Rehquist is not what I would call liberal. And really, neither is O'Connor. So, at least in this case, those three were consistent with their prior rulings.

What worries me is this ruling seemed to be based on Congress's right to govern interstate trade. By saying private, personal cultivation and medical use increases the national supply of marijuana, they've broadly expanded Congress's authority. Now anything that's produced in more than one state can be governed by Congress.

The line has been redrawn. Where is the new line?

Cab: they can do it because medical marijuana doesn't fit into a religious conservative agenda. Look for more of this kind of judicial bullshit as President Shrub places hardline religious conservative judges in more judicial vacancies. (When does Renquist kick off?)

You got my attention for the first time (I'm an Oregonian who voted for Kerry). Among all the Google News headlines "Supreme Court: State Medical Marijuana Laws Illegal" is one of the dumbest. The decision in no way affects state laws and how states choose to enforce their own laws.

Bert Lowry: Excellent comment.

For Scalia (our would be supreme court justice) to vote with the majority here is just stunning in its hypocrisy. How does he justify it? Did GOD tell him how to vote.

Thank God! For once the Supreme Court gets it right.

Hey Sick get a clue.

It was the Liberal Justices that anchored this opinion. Every justice appointed by Clinton voted to support the DEA (Ginsburg & Breyer). While the justices appointed by Rep. Presidents were split. Justice Stevens (liberal Ford appointee), Kennedy (Reagan) and Souter (Bush) signed onto the opinion; Clarence Thomas (Bush), O'Connor (Reagan) and Rhenquist (Nixon/Reagan) dissented.

For some disturbing reason, Scalia (Reagan) went along with the majority in a separate concurring opinion that apparently seems to carve a special niche for commercial regulation necessary and proper for carrying on the Drug War.

Justice Thomas offered a solo dissent that questions the constitutional authority for the entire Controlled Substances Act as necessary and proper under the Commerce Clause! Gotta love his damn-the-torpedoes intellectual honesty.

But this is a sad day. Unless Bush is able to appoint a few justices that honor federalism, states' rights under the commerce clause are all but dead. I hope this same reasoning won't undermine death with dignity as well.

These issues are publicly ignored in the emotional clamor over the abortion issue during an appointment. I imagine the abortion issue will dominate coverage of future S.Ct Justice appointments, in the same way that Scott Peterson pushed so many other newsworthy issues to the side.

Anyway...

For a cogent analysis and ongoing discussion of this case see:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_06_05-2005_06_11.shtml#1118072212

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I call Bushit on your "cogent analysis and ongoing discussion," panchopdx -- it is more distraction than insight into the truth behind events. Link in this other direction instead, or also.

Most Bushit Nine Eleven OP (n.e.o.) -cons seem to be bizarre freak spasms until they are connected with other dots of information building the context of premeditated fascism. This dot is related to another dot, for example, in case some of it may have escaped your attention.

SPY vs. SPY By Bill Piper, AlterNet, Posted May 18, 2005. Proposed legislation would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, forcing all Americans to become foot soldiers in the war on drugs.

A senior congressman, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is working quietly but efficiently to turn the entire United States population into informants--by force.

(He) ... introduced legislation that would essentially draft every American into the war on drugs. H.R. 1528, cynically named "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act," would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. If a person resisted, he or she would face mandatory incarceration.

Here's how the "spy" section of the legislation works: If you "witness" certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" about them, you must report the offenses to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory minimum two-year prison sentence, and a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Here are some examples of offenses you would have to report to police within 24 hours:

* You find out that your brother, who has children, recently bought a small amount of marijuana to share with his wife;
* You discover that your son gave his college roommate a marijuana joint;
* You learn that your daughter asked her boyfriend to find her some drugs, even though they're both in treatment.

In each of these cases you would have to report the relative to the police within 24 hours. Taking time to talk to your relative about treatment instead of calling the police immediately could land you in jail.

And if such information did not reach you, either our elected Democrats staying silent are a helping part of the n.e.o.- con fascism, or the press and broadcasters censoring your news are a helping part of the n.e.o.- con fascism, or both and all you and any one person can do is BOYCOTT cable TV, boycott buying newspapers and boycott buying anything from their advertisers, which is to say Vote with your Dollars. And do not vote next time, (if you get a 'next time'), for any incumbent, neither Democrat nor Republican.

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Tensk,

I regularly vote against incumbents for their own sake. Nothing is worse than watching otherwise good folks get corrupted by the political machine.

Now if we had federal term limits, but I digress...

I hope the legislation you mention is actually introduced in that form, it might finally galvinize national resolve to throw these jackboots out of office (worked with Rep. Bob Barr, now he sees the light). Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.

Take PERS for example, but I digress again...

Informants compelled by the government? The United States is resembling the Soviet Union more and more with this Administration. They are replacing the white stars on our flag with red ones.

It was the Liberal Justices that anchored this opinion ...

This medi-pot ruling ought to put to rest forever the bullshit lie that "progressives" advocate drug gulag reform. Fact is, the Democrat-picked judges' commitment to their hard-hearted authoritarian ideology (perpetual expansion of jackboot federal power) is greater than their compassion for dying cancer patients.

Shame on the socialist scum.

Some political comments:

1) There are no liberal judges on the supreme court. Ginsburg and Breyer, while nominated by Clinton, may be less conservative but are by no means liberal. (If they look liberal to you, you're probably not looking at things from the center.)

2) Remember that it was Ashcroft who initiated these persecutions to begin with, and who pushed the appeals. Don't try to claim a big "conservative dissent" when so-called conservatives pushed the issue in the first place.

3) Too many promoters of so-called "state's rights" seem to rank them as above laws they disagree with, but below laws they support. They way they justify their feelings on those laws differs, but that's the general pattern I've observed.

And a not-so-political one:

It occurs to me that the issue here is more about perception and independence than anything else. Perception, because the feds went after these people because of the whole "war on drugs" thing, not because of any danger they represent to themselves or others. And independence, because they were taking a medication (prescribed by a doctor)that they could grow themselves, not something that was manufactured by a pharmaceutical company. So Big Pharma and Big Insurance weren't profiting from it.

Do you think for a moment that if Big Pharma and Big Insurance were involved, that a prosecution would have happened, or that the drug would even be illegal in the first place?

(And if you do, that make me wonder what you've been smoking. :-)

Jeffk,

Generally speaking, the Court is divided between between justices who support expansive interpretations of the constitution, those that follow a strict construction, and those that pick and choose (centrists/moderates).

Thomas and Scalia are strict constructionists. Rhenquist often votes with them.

Kennedy and O'Connor are often the swing vote moderates on the court.

The remainder generally support an expansive reading of the constitution - often granting centralization powers to the federal government (including the pre-emption of local abortion regulations).

This remainder is generally viewed as "liberal". Perhaps not in the normative sense of the term "liberal" in mainstream politics, but certainly in terms of judicial restraint.

Someone explain Scalia's vote?

Cab-

Scalia once declared, and I believe it was even before he joined the Supreme Court, that the court could make any ruling at any time regardless of precendent. He was having a bad hair day.

Can California, Oregon and Washington please secede already. We'll hook up with BC. It actually could be an impressive state with a stong economy built around a solid environmental paradigm. I can dream :)

This decision was based on one from FDR's time that had to do with a farmer who grew wheat for his family's own use. Wheat that was not intended for trade. The farmer was found to be in violation of the laws then on the books. Its a stretch, but that is how they justify this nonsense. One of you legal eagles will have to look it up. M.

Wickard v. Filburn. 317 US 111 (1942).

Farmer Filburn raised dairy cattle and grew wheat on his land only to feed them. FDR had passed New Deal legislation in 1938 regulating how much wheat each farmer could grow.

Applying the federal formula to Farmer Filburn's land limited him to growing 11.9 acres of of wheat. Filburn planted 23 acres of wheat to feed his cows.

The Feds tried to stop him. The High Court sided with the Feds to prevent Filburn from growing more than the allotted amount of wheat for his own farm purposes, finding authority under an expansive reading of the US Commerce Clause because he (by not buying wheat from other farmers) had a small ripple effect on the commerce of wheat.

It was one of the most egregious government-expanding decisions of all time (Probably helped that FDR had already threatened their integrity with his Court-Packing plan and the nation was mobilizing for WWII).

It expanded the Commerce Clause from simply regulating the direct participation in a given market to covering activities that indirectly affect a given market (by altering purchasing decisions).

I had hoped that we would never see this rationale in full bloom again, but there was the Court's majority citing it as authority in their opinion (except Scalia who, concurred on different grounds).

Under this line of thought, The feds can regulate marijuana that never enters the marketplace simply because it may affect the purchasing decisions of the people who use it and, in aggregate, create a substantial impact on interstate commerce (e.g., they buy less anti-nausea medication or painkillers, purchase more snack food, etc.).

This does not bode well for Death with Dignity unless it can be find additional protection within the state police powers that are balanced against federal Commerce Clause authority.

Ironically, it will probably be up to the (much villified) "conservative" strict-constructionists on the Court to convert part of the Raich majority to uphold DwD.

Someone explain Scalia's vote?

Just a guess, but it smells like a politically calculated maneuver to avoid stirring up controversy among socially conservative Senators.

Got to remember that there will be a new Chief Justice appointment in the near future.

What bugs me about this case, other than the sheer raging injustice of saying Congress can criminalize sick people growing their own medicine in their own home, is that it says Wickard is still good law. This would have been a good time to overturn Wickard and draw some sensible lines around Congress' commerce clause power.

Under this ruling, Congress could make it a federal crime to bake your own cookies or sew your own clothes. After all, baked goods travel in interstate commerce, and when you (and millions of other Americans) bake your own chocolate chip cookies, you're impacting the national market for Nestle and every other company that makes cookies. Sew a dress yourself? There goes a sale for Gap. Cut your child's hair at home? Bad business for Supercuts. Go out and mow your own lawn? You just deprived a landscape maintenance company of business.

None of this stuff is "commerce." No money or goods change hands, no services are performed for anyone else. But it all has a "ripple effect" on the national economy when enough people do it.

I don't think Congress actually will try to regulate any of these things, but under this ruling, they have the power to do so under the U.S. Constitution. I don't see how even the broadest possible construction of the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate such day-to-day affairs, when no actual "commerce" is involved.

It's not only that Congress can now supposedly criminalize sick people, but that the federal branch may now have achieved the first legal reach into regulating state medical practice. Will more attempts vis-a-vis the "Death With Dignity" act be next?

But then I consistently oppose the accumulation of power at the federal level. If I am reading him right, this would put me in opposition to Jeff Alworth's posting above.

Cab, Wait for that 9.0+ earthquake...

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