Question about the medical marijuana case

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m not sure this is lofty enough for GD, but I had a legal question that I wanted the Attorney Dopers to weigh in on.

As I understand it, according to the Constitution, those rights and laws not covered by the Constitution are reserved for the states. So, since the fed gov’t has deemed marijuana use illegal, the states cannot then turn around and make it legal.

Please note, I’m in favor of legalizing marijuana for adults and regulating its sale like alcohol, and hey, if it helps with the pain of chemo, go for it. But I’m not sure where the state of CA has a leg to stand on here. If I’m understanding this correctly, they cannot make something legal that the federal gov’t has declared illegal.

Enlighten me, all you Esquires!!

2

It seems based on your first sentence that your understanding of how the federal government operates is flawed somewhat.

The Constitution reserves certain powers to the federal government. Those are for the most part contained in Article I, section 8. Subsequent sections place restrictions on the powers of the Federal government and restrictions on the powers of the several States (states can’t enter into separate treaties, for example, or make war unless either invaded or in imminent danger of invasion). The Constitution also reserves to the States, or to the People, those powers not delegated to the Federal government or prohibited to the states (see Amendment Ten).

So it’s not that the Constitution makes certain “laws” the purview of the federal government alone. it’s that certain powers belong solely to the federal government and the states may not make laws which intrude upon those federal powers. Certainly if a state wanted to strike drug possession laws from its books it is free to do so, and no person could be prosecuted in state court for a drug-related offense. The state’s action in deleting its drug laws would have no effect on the federal government’s asserted power to regulate marijuana possession (which IIRC is derived from the Commerce Clause) and SCOTUS has ruled that a state’s legalizing medical marijuana does not create a defense to federal drug laws.

3

And that’s why I’m here. :wink:

So how does it work when there’s a conflict in state laws vs. federal laws? If there is not a federal law on the books covering a situation, then the state law prevails. But CA’s medical marijuana law is in direct conflict with the federal law banning marijuana use. Has there been a case where state law trumped federal law?

4

Federal soverignty trumps state soverignty in those areas where power has been assigned to the federal government by the Constitution. The issue at hand is whether the regulation of intrastate drug production and consumption falls within that range.

5

That has been shown to not be the case, but several arrests by Federal officers have been made nonetheless. How is this supported? (I’m not being sarcastic, I’d really like to know, as it seems that although state law allows medical use of marijuana, federal courts have decided otherwise)

6

I’ve got a little bit of ignorance of my own that is relevant here:

Now as I understand it (and any of this could very well be wrong), the Constitution does not grant the Federal govt. the authority to outlaw any drug and so, by Amendment 10, such authority belongs to the individual states. However, in reality, the Federal govt. apparently does have that authority after all, being derived from the power they have over interstate commerce.

Does the Federal govt. have any authority when an invidual state allows medicinal marijuana and all of the resulting business is contained within that state? It would seem to me that they don’t, but I’m not sure, so I’m asking.

7

IANAL, but I listened to a reading of a partial transcript of the arguments today on NPR and the lawyer’s argument was essentially that it would be too difficult to ensure that the marijuana would not eventually be sold interstate. One of the justinces then said that that should be up to the state of California’s law enforcement officials. Seemed like a weak argument to me, but, like I said, IANAL.

8

It’s late at night, I’m still at the office and want to get home, so apologies in advance for vagueness and the lack of cites. IAAL, but I claim no special knowledge in this area. Some of what follows is based on law school recollection. I’m going to use some (obvious, I think) abbreviations.

The question of how broad the Commerce Clause is (or in other words, how far the Federal government can stretch it to justify legislation) has been the subject of numerous U.S. Supreme Court cases. Originally, it was narrowly construed. In the 1930’s, FDR and his allies in Congress passed New Deal legislation which granted expanded and unprecedented power to regulate industry and agriculture to various Federal agencies. They cited the CC as authority. Opponents of the legislation filed suit, challenging this.

Initially, the USSC struck down much of this legislation. In response, FDR threatened to pack the Court by increasing its size beyond the traditional nine and naming additional pro-New Deal justices. Amazingly, the existing Court changed its views and upheld similar legislation the next time it heard a challenge to its constitutionality. This about-face is known as the “Switch in Time That Saved Nine”.

For the next 60 years, the CC was used as a catch-all. The U.S. and essentially all Constitutional scholars interpreted it as allowing just about anything. There’s a case involving Federal agricultural quotas (designed to provide price supports) that was challenged during this era. Opponents found a farmer who grew the commodity in the middle of some state. He claimed that he grew it for personal consumption and asserted, accordingly, that his actions could not possibly affect IC.

He lost. The court (don’t recall if the case was a SC case or not) found that his production of the commodity did affect IC because, if he didn’t grow it, he’d have to buy it on the open market, which is part of IC. Essentially, CC limitations were a joke.

In the last 10 years or so, the pendulum has swung back a bit. In a couple of cases, the USSC has struck down Federal legislation as Constitutionally unauthorized. One involved some sort of Federal safe schools legislation, which imposed special Federal criminal penalties if the offense took place near a school. The CC was cited as the enabling authority. The USSC essentially said that the joke had gone too far, and that the subject of the legislation had no meaningful relationship to IC.

9

Applying this to the present California law: It’s my understanding that decisions construing a prior California medicinal marijuana law refused to allow its use as a defense by defendants charged with Federal pot possession laws. Under that prior state law, patients were permitted to puchase pot from certain limited sources. Apparently, that commercial component was enough to trigger Federal CC regulatory authority.

The current law at issue is narrower, designed to avoid this problem by only permitting home growing by the patient.

Under the interpretations of the CC in place in, say, 1980, I’d predict a Federal government win. But things have changed in recent years. It’s a close call now.

10

That’s interesting. Is there any way FDR could have pulled that off?

11

Congress would have had to cooperate but, even so, it would have been controversial. It’d be even more so today.

12

Where do they get off calling marijuana a “drug” anyway? It’s a plant for God’s sake, you could grow it in your garden. How can they outlaw a plant?

13

It may be a plant, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a drug. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.

14

Many kinds of plants are illegal. Opium poppies. Coca bushes. Hell, even certain kinds of noxious weeds are banned.