Everything about Gonzales V Raich totally explained
Gonzales v. Raich (previously
Ashcroft v. Raich),
545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a case in which the
United States Supreme Court ruled on
June 6,
2005 that under the
Commerce Clause of the
United States Constitution, which allows the
United States Congress "To regulate Commerce... among the several States," Congress may ban the use of
cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.
John Ashcroft was in the case's name because he was
Attorney General when the case was filed. The case was renamed when
Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General.
Factual background
California voters passed
Proposition 215 of 1996, legalizing the medical use of
marijuana. The
United States Federal Government has limited the use of marijuana since the
1937 Marijuana Tax Act came into effect. Defendant
Angel Raich used homegrown medical marijuana, which was legal under California law, but illegal under federal law. On
August 15,
2002,
Butte County Sheriff's Department officers and agents from the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) destroyed all six of California resident Diane Monson's marijuana plants. Sheriff Sam Biglari supervised the raid and needed backup when Raich resisted. The marijuana plants were illegal schedule one drugs under the federal
Controlled Substances Act (CSA). CSA is Title II of the
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Monson and Angel Raich sued, claiming that enforcing the CSA against them would violate the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause of the
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution the
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the doctrine of
medical necessity.
California was one of nine states that allowed medicinal use of marijuana. California's Compassionate Use Act allows limited use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Angel Raich's physician said that without marijuana, Raich would be in excruciating pain and could die.
Legal background
The
United States has a
federal structure, with power divided between the states and the federal government. The state governments can act in any sphere not prohibited to them (10th Amendment, U.S. Constitution) but the federal government can pass laws only in areas specifically delegated to it (Art. I, U.S. Constitution). The state governments have general
police power, which the federal government doesn't have. Consequently, a substantial amount of U.S. federal law regulating numerous areas, including economic legislation and criminal law, are legally premised on an exercise of the Commerce Clause. The Commerce Clause, along with the Fourteenth Amendment and the spending power, allows Congress to do things that affect states. For more information, see
States' rights and the Rehnquist Court.
Many expansions of federal power enacted during the first phase of the
New Deal in the 1930s, on the basis of the federal commerce power, were struck down by the
Supreme Court of the United States, until President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of justices on the Court from nine to fifteen (the
court packing scheme) and filling the new positions with jurists sympathetic to his New Deal initiatives. However, in what was called "
the switch in time that saved nine," the Court reversed course and found reasons to uphold new expansions of federal power, and the number of justices wasn't increased.
The case of Raich and Monson against the government
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 wasn't constitutional as applied to their conduct.
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 wasn't 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.
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 couldn't 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.
The government's case
The
United States Federal law, via the
Controlled Substances Act, doesn't recognize the medical use of marijuana. Agents from the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were assigned to break up California's medical marijuana co-ops and seize their assets. This activity was the result of the belief that federal law
preempted that of California. The government argued that if a single exception was made to the Controlled Substances Act, it would become unenforceable in practice. The government also contended that consuming one's locally grown marijuana for medical purposes affects the interstate market of marijuana, and hence that the federal government may regulate—and prohibit—such consumption.
Litigation
On
December 16,
2003, the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a preliminary
injunction to prevent the federal government from interfering with Raich and Monson. In their ruling, they declared: "We find that the appellants have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on their claim that, as applied to them, the
Controlled Substances Act is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress' Commerce Clause authority..."
Organizations involved
Partnership for a Drug-Free America, several other anti-drug organizations
(External Link), alliance of seven
congressmen including
Mark Souder and
Katherine Harris filed
amicus brief for the side of federal government.
(External Link) The environmentalist group
Community Rights Council also filed a brief for the government, fearing limitation of federal power would undermine their agenda.
(External Link)
The
Cato Institute (External Link),
Institute for Justice (External Link), many
libertarian organizations, and
NORML, along with other groups opposing the
War on Drugs, filed briefs for Raich and Monson. The governments of
California,
Maryland, and
Washington also filed briefs supporting Raich. The
attorneys general of
Alabama,
Louisiana, and
Mississippi, three strongly anti-drug states from the usually conservative
South, filed a brief supporting Raich on the grounds of
state's rights.
(External Link)(External Link)
Result
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 didn't address the substantive due process claims raised by the respondents.
The
Commerce Clause was the main issue. Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce includes power to regulate:
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 by which to go. 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 hadn't grown and consumed it, he'd 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.
Congress' power under the Commerce Clause was used for many important pieces of legislation, including the landmark
Civil Rights Act of 1964. 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.
Justice Scalia wrote a separate
concurrence that aimed to differentiate the decision from the more recent 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:
Dissent
Justice O'Connor, dissenting (
transcript), began her opinion by citing
United States v. Lopez, which she followed with a reference to Justice
Louis Brandeis's dissenting opinion in
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann:
Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent (
transcript), stating in part:
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist, the original author of the commerce clause cases
United States v. Lopez and
United States v. Morrison, joined O'Connor's dissent.
Aftermath
Both Raich and Monson have indicated their intention to continue using marijuana for medical use in spite of the ruling.
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's 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 (External Link).
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.
In
Congress, in order to counter the effect of this ruling, Representative
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) annually introduce
legislation to stop the
Department of Justice from
arresting and
prosecuting medical marijuana patients.
(External Link) This effort hasn't yet succeeded, as most
members of Congress voted against the bill.
(External Link)
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 and it isn't 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.
(External Link)Further Information
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