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Gonzales v. Raich

Supreme Court of United States
545 U.S. 1 (2005)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Congress's power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the national market for a commodity includes the authority to prohibit the local, intrastate cultivation and use of that commodity, even for non-commercial purposes, if it is part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme.


Facts:

  • In 1996, California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes for seriously ill residents upon a physician's recommendation.
  • Angel Raich and Diane Monson are California residents with serious medical conditions who used locally grown medical marijuana in accordance with the Compassionate Use Act.
  • Monson cultivated her own marijuana for personal medical use.
  • Raich was unable to cultivate her own marijuana and received it free of charge from two caregivers who grew it locally.
  • All the marijuana possessed and consumed by Raich and Monson was cultivated and used entirely within the state of California and did not enter the stream of commerce.
  • On August 15, 2002, federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), along with county deputy sheriffs, investigated Monson's property.
  • Despite county officials concluding that Monson's marijuana use was lawful under California law, the federal agents seized and destroyed all six of her cannabis plants.

Procedural Posture:

  • Angel Raich and Diane Monson sued the U.S. Attorney General and the head of the DEA in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
  • They sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) against them for their medical marijuana use.
  • The District Court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that Raich and Monson were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims.
  • Raich and Monson, as appellants, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
  • A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court, finding a strong likelihood of success on the claim that the CSA was an unconstitutional exercise of Congress's Commerce Clause power as applied to them, and it ordered the District Court to grant the injunction.
  • The U.S. Government, as petitioner, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the U.S. Supreme Court granted.

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Issue:

Does Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause include the power to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes, in compliance with state law, as part of a comprehensive federal statutory scheme?


Opinions:

Majority - Justice Stevens

Yes, Congress's power under the Commerce Clause includes the authority to prohibit the local cultivation and possession of marijuana as part of a comprehensive scheme to regulate the interstate market for controlled substances. The Court reasoned that, similar to the homegrown wheat in Wickard v. Filburn, the local cultivation and use of marijuana is a fungible commodity. Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the aggregate effect of this activity, if left unregulated, could substantially affect the national market by introducing marijuana into illicit channels and impacting supply and demand. The Court distinguished this case from Lopez and Morrison because the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) regulates quintessentially economic activity and the challenged prohibition is an essential part of a larger, comprehensive regulatory scheme, whereas the statutes in those cases were standalone criminal prohibitions of non-economic activity.


Concurring - Justice Scalia

Yes, the Controlled Substances Act may be validly applied to respondents' activities. Congress's power to regulate intrastate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce derives from the Necessary and Proper Clause, not the Commerce Clause alone. Under the Necessary and Proper Clause, Congress may regulate even non-economic, local activity if that regulation is a necessary and essential part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce. Here, prohibiting the intrastate cultivation of marijuana is an appropriate means to achieve the legitimate end of eradicating Schedule I substances from interstate commerce, as it is impossible to distinguish between marijuana grown for local use and marijuana destined for the interstate market.


Dissenting - Justice O'Connor

No, Congress's Commerce Clause power does not extend to the non-commercial, intrastate cultivation and use of marijuana for personal medical purposes as authorized by state law. This activity has no substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority's holding gives Congress a perverse incentive to legislate broadly to regulate local activity, erasing the limits established in Lopez and Morrison. The government failed to provide any evidence that this specific, isolated class of activity substantially affects the national illicit drug market, unlike in Wickard where there was clear data. This decision improperly encroaches upon the states' traditional police powers and their role as 'laboratories of democracy' to experiment with social and economic policies.


Dissenting - Justice Thomas

No, the regulation of respondents' conduct is not a valid exercise of federal power under either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. Respondents' activity—local, non-commercial cultivation and use of marijuana—is neither 'commerce' nor 'interstate.' The majority's expansive definition of 'economic activity' and its reliance on the 'substantial effects' test gives Congress a general police power, destroying the principle of enumerated powers. Furthermore, banning this activity is not 'necessary and proper' to regulating the interstate drug trade because California's strict controls on medical marijuana create a distinct, separable class of users that does not undermine the federal scheme. The decision subverts basic principles of federalism by allowing Congress to appropriate state police powers.



Analysis:

This decision significantly reaffirmed and broadened Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause, particularly in the context of comprehensive regulatory statutes. It clarified that the limitations on federal power articulated in Lopez and Morrison primarily apply to stand-alone statutes regulating non-economic activity, not to individual applications of a larger economic scheme. By applying the rational basis test and the Wickard aggregation principle, the Court established a strong precedent for federal supremacy over state laws that attempt to carve out exceptions to national regulatory frameworks. The ruling empowers Congress to regulate purely local, non-commercial activities so long as it has a rational basis to believe that, in the aggregate, they would undermine its regulation of an interstate market.

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