Medical Dope

mid-afternoon on Monday, the 29th of November 2004 by Chad

Excerpt from the Medicinal Marijuana debate before SCOTUS:

The case pits the federal drug law against a line of Supreme Court decisions that tilted the federal-state balance of power toward the states. The court ruled in 1995 that Congress couldn’t make it a federal crime to possess a gun in a school zone, and in 2000 the justices struck down a provision that let rape victims sue their attackers in federal court.
In those cases the court said Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce didn’t cover local, non-economic acts. In today’s case, the two California women say the same logic means Congress can’t override the state’s voter-approved law allowing doctor-recommended use of locally grown marijuana that doesn’t cross state lines.
…
Justice Antonin Scalia asked Barnett how his argument of a trivial economic effect from medical marijuana would apply to federal laws protecting endangered species. Those laws ban possession of ivory or eagle feathers without regard to whether a person obtained them through interstate commerce.
“Are those laws likewise unconstitutional?” Scalia asked.

Well, maybe they are unconstitutional. That is for the Supreme Court to decide, now isn’t it?
Unfortunately the response from the lawyer isn’t recorded in the article.