Leadership reflection

Gonzales v. Raich

Facts of the Case:

California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, legalizing in that move the use of marijuana for legitimate medical purposes. This California law, however, was in conflict with the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) which was passed in 1970 to combat illegal drug use in the United States and which outlawed the possession of marijuana. A group of medical marijuana users consequently sued the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in federal district court after the DEA seized doctor-prescribed marijuana plants from a patient’s home and destroyed them. Angel Raich and Diane Monson were the California state residents who had received approval from their state’s officials to legally use marijuana to treat their medical issues. While the two were compliant with state laws at the time of their arrest, they were guilty under federal DEA laws at the same time.

In their suit, they argued that Congress had exceeded its interstate commerce clause authority when it legislated the behavior of a local citizen who was merely consuming a locally grown herb in his or her own home. Injunctive and declaratory relief was sought prohibiting the enforcement of the federal CSA to the extent that it prevented their possession, obtaining, or manufacturing of cannabis for their personal medical use. But while the district court ruled against the group of marijuana users, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this ruling and found that the CSA was unconstitutional as it applied to intrastate medical marijuana use. The Ninth Circuit, relying on two U.S. Supreme Court decisions – the 1995 U.S. v. Lopez and 2000 U.S. v. Morrison decisions that narrowed Congress’ commerce clause power, ruled that using marijuana would not substantially affect interstate commerce to the extent that it could be regulated by congress. The 2004 Gonzales v. Raich Supreme Court ruling would decide whether the federal government had any mandate in the regulation of intra-state medical marijuana trade.

Procedural History:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the Controlled Substances Act was an invalid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power. Upon Attorney General Gonzales’ appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, however, the lower court’s decision was reversed.

Issue:

With the issue being whether Congress could regulate homegrown medical marijuana meant for consumption at home pursuant to the interstate commerce clause, the question, then, was whether 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.

Rule(s):

The legal principle applied was that Congress could regulate production and use of home-grown marijuana because when taken in the aggregate, this kind of activity could substantially effect interstate commerce.

Application/Analysis:

After the seizure and destruction of Raich and Monson’s cannabis plants by DEA agents, the two brought an action to seek injunctive and declaratory relief that would prohibit the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in as far as it acted to prevent them from possessing, obtaining, or manufacturing marijuana for their personal and legitimate medical use. Among the constitutional provisions that they argued would violated was the Commerce Clause. In any case, following the 1996 Compassionate Use Act, California residents could cultivate, possess, and use marijuana to treat serious illnesses following recommendation from licensed physicians.

But in 2002, California deputy sheriffs and DEA agents entered the home of Diane Monson who, pursuant to Prop 215 was authorized to use medical marijuana to help cope with severe back pain and muscle spasms and accordingly owned six cannabis plants. Despite this legal status, the officers destroyed her plants, themselves also legally correct as they were acting in pursuance of federal marijuana laws. Angel Raich, on her part, was confined to a wheelchair thanks to several debilitating illnesses and she, too, used marijuana medically as she qualified for protection under Proposition 215. The two brought legal action seeking protection under Prop 215 while claiming that the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) exceeded congressional authority under the Constitution’s commerce clause, in addition to violating the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. The government’s position, on the other hand, was that the Controlled Substance Act applied to the use of medical marijuana, which would make the Prop 215 of the state of California invalid.

Raich and Monson based their arguments on four Supreme Court cases namely the Wickard v. Filburn of 1942, Perez v. U.S. of 1971, U.S. v. Lopez of 1995, and U.S. v. Morrison of 2000. All of these cases made pivotal rulings on the extent to which the federal government could regulate commerce. The intrastate activities that the federal government could regulate had to fall under certain conditions, the first of which is that they had to be of an economic nature. The said regulated activities must then have been found to affect interstate commerce, while thirdly, they needed to have been determined by a court that they substantially affected interstate commerce. Finally, the federal statute used needed to limit its reach to a specific set of cases. While the District Court found against Raich in 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003 found that the CSA had failed to meet these four circumstances and could not, therefore, apply to California’s medical marijuana trade. This court consequently reversed the District Court’s earlier decision.

In making its decision, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that in the case of medical marijuana, the class of activities involved was different from that of drug trafficking because the former pursued and adhered to the principles of health and safety as per licensed physicians. Again, the market for medical marijuana was far smaller in the state than was the market for illicit substances even as it was non-commercial and purely intrastate. But by the virtue of belonging to a different class of activities other than drug trafficking, the Ninth Circuit Court did find that medical marijuana could not be subjected to federal regulation under the commerce clause.

At the Supreme Court, the government argued that if in the Wickard case Congress could regulate a home-grown commodity meant for personal use under the jurisdiction of the commerce clause, it could also do the same in the Raich case. Second, the government had the commerce power to create a comprehensive system that could regulate controlled substances such as marijuana because they often flow through interstate and foreign channels of commerce. Third, it argued that the medical marijuana in California fell under the class of activities that comprised of controlled substances which affected interstate commerce. Naturally, controlled substances were in a class of activities that was subject to federal regulation. Lastly, the government argued that the medical nature of marijuana was irrelevant to the case because it fell under the class of controlled subjects and was, indeed, a product for which a developed interstate market already existed.

Raich and Monson, on their part, made arguments that theirs was not an economic activity because they did not pay for this product. Second, there were no congressional findings that supported any link between intrastate cultivation and use of marijuana and interstate commerce, though there were findings that supported a link between controlled substances and interstate commerce. Third, Raich and Monson contended that medical marijuana was not a part of the class of activities that constituted drug trafficking, but that of a different class of activities that did not affect interstate commerce. Fourth, it was their contention that the CSA did not limit its reach to a discrete number of cases, and finally, they claimed that a tradition existed where there was federal deference to state law. The state of California had, after all, in 1996 passed Compassionate Use Act which legalized the use of medical marijuana in those patients that had legitimate medical reasons.

The Supreme Court, however, used the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn case as a basis for finding that Congress has the power to regulate purely local activities that belong to an economic class of activities that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Here, the court saw Raich’s home grown marijuana that was meant for personal and legitimate use as having a substantial effect of interstate commerce for the very reason that there was already an established interstate market for the substance, though it might have been legal in her state. When Raich added her homegrown marijuana to the national market, however legal it was, her action, taken in aggregate with those of others, could be seen to have a significant effect on the ability of Congress to eradicate the illicit marijuana market. This key finding informed the Court’s decision to hold the CSA as a valid exercise of the Commerce Clause power of Congress since Congress had acted rationally in determining that growing cannabis was an economic activity that had continued to have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

What’s more, the concurring Supreme Justices indicated that Congress derived its power to regulate activities that had a substantial effect on interstate commerce from the Commerce Clause as well as the Necessary and Proper Clause. Indeed, the Necessary and Proper Clause gave Congress the authority to do whatever it deemed necessary to achieve its regulatory objectives, and it could even regulate those intrastate activities that had little or no substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority argued that the Supreme Court’s precedent had already firmly established that Congress’ Commerce Clause power could regulate purely local activities that were part of a class of activities that had a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Such a class of activities included the national marijuana market, which meant that Congress could ban local marijuana use as it affected the supply and demand in the national market. The regulation of such local use could, then, be critical to the regulation of the drug’s national market and use.

In making a distinction between this case and those of Lopez and Morrison, the majority made it clear that in those two cases, the statutes involved regulated non-economic activity and, therefore, fell well without Congress’ commerce power. In the case of Raich and Monson, however, the justices found that the Court was being asked to strike down a specific application of a valid statutory scheme.

Still, the dissenting opinion as given by the minority Supreme Court Justices raised the issue that the action of growing marijuana for home use could not be properly categorized as commerce. The drug in question had not, after all, been bought or sold, crossed state lines, or even shown any demonstrable effect on the marijuana market at the national level. As such, even when the Commerce Clause was amplified by the Necessary and Proper Clause, it still had its limits where its power was concerned. And since Congress had failed to show how regulation of medical marijuana was a necessity in the combating of interstate drug trade, its actions were in violation of the Tenth Amendment. Indeed, further opinion was that the majority Justices had undermined the states’ rights and made for federalism concerns. With such a decision, there was a risk that Congress could improperly regulate intrastate activity that it deemed essential to interstate commerce.

Despite these dissenting opinions, however, Gonzales v. Raich succeeded in establishing Congressional power in the regulation of home-grown medical marijuana in a state where medical marijuana had been made legal under state statutes.

Conclusion:

The Supreme Court, in reversing the lower court’s decision, upheld the law that Congress may regulate intrastate activity in cases where a behavior, in the aggregate, could impact interstate commerce. The court does not require substantial impact, only a plausible story need to be told, such as how the federal government cannot rightly differentiate marijuana grown in somebody’s home and that which is sold in interstate commerce, so as to uphold Congressional action pursuant to the commerce clause. If Congress is to regulate marijuana sold in interstate commerce, it follows, then, that it must be able to regulate that which is grown in one’s own home.

References

Baird, R.S. (2011). An in depth look at Gonzales v. Raich: The history of medical marijuana and the Commerce Clause. CMC Senior Theses, Paper 125. Retrieved from http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/125

Gonzales v. Raich. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved April 2, 2018, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/03-1454

FindLaw. (2018). Gonzales v. Raich [03-1454]. Retrieved from http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/545/1.html

Legal Dictionary. (n.d.). Gonzales v. Raich. Retrieved from https://legaldictionary.net/gonzales-v-raich/