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GRANTED

Jun 28, 2004

ARGUED

Nov 29, 2004

DECIDED

Jun 6, 2005

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In 1996 California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, legalizing marijuana for medical use. California's law conflicted with the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which banned possession of marijuana. After the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized doctor-prescribed marijuana from a patient's home, a group of medical marijuana users sued the DEA and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in federal district court.

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Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, et al.
American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. He was the first Hispanic to serve as White House Counsel

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Angel McClary Raich, et al.
long-time resident of Oakland, CA. Ms. Raich is a well-known medical cannabis patient, media spokesperson and issue advocate.

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The court opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the commerce clause gave Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary.

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It was one of the few times in the Court's history that Conservative justices sided with those for the legalization of illicit drugs. This case's decision had important implications for the long-standing "federalism" debate under U.S. law, which focuses on the limits of federal power under the Constitution.

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Chief Justice: Rehnquist
Associate Justices: Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer

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Paul D. Clement(ADVOCATE): basically states that because it is staying within the state of California and is grown in California that, it does not become interstate commerce, since it is not that it is unconstitutional for the National Government to prohibit such.

Sandra Day O'Connor

Well, but in Wickard, of course, you had a wheat grower, a small farmer, and his wheat did, in part, go in the national market.

you don't have that here.

As I understand it, if California's law applies, then none of this home-grown or medical-use marijuana will be on any interstate market.

And it is in the area of something traditionally regulated by states.

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The patients wanted it to be restraint, saying congress did not have the power to take the medication, while this statement was overruled and the judges deciding that congress did indeed have the power that was the point of the case.

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Does the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801) exceed Congress' power under the commerce clause as applied to the intrastate cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical use?