Gonzales v. Raich

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2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding cannabis

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2005 United States Supreme Court case

Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that, under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution , Congress may criminalize the production and use of homegrown cannabis even if state law allows its use for medicinal purposes .[1]

Background

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California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the use of medical cannabis .[2] [3] The Federal government of the United States has regulated the use of cannabis since the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was enacted.

Respondents Angel Raich and Diane Monson used homegrown medical cannabis, 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 destroyed all six of California resident Diane Monson's cannabis plants, facing light resistance.[_clarification needed
_] The cannabis plants were illegal Schedule I drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which is Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 .[4]

Monson and Raich sued, claiming that enforcing federal law against them would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment , the Ninth Amendment , the Tenth Amendment in excess of the Commerce Clause , and the doctrine of medical necessity .[1] [5] [6] Raich's physician stated that without cannabis, Raich is threatened by excruciating pain. California was one of 14 states at the time (36 as of 2021)[7] that allowed medicinal use of cannabis. California's Compassionate Use Act allows limited use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Raich and Monson's case

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Raich, of Oakland, California ; 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 cannabis claiming that the Controlled Substances Act was unconstitutional as applied to their conduct. Raich and Monson were represented by Randy Barnett .[8]

Raich claimed she used cannabis to keep herself alive. She and her doctor also claimed to have tried dozens of prescription drugs for her numerous medical conditions and that she was allergic to most of them. Her doctor declared under oath [9] that Raich's life was at stake if she could not continue to use cannabis.

Monson suffered from chronic pain from a car accident a decade before the case. She used cannabis to relieve the pain and muscle spasms around her spine.

Government's case

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The Controlled Substances Act does not recognize the medical use of cannabis. Agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration were assigned to break up California's medical cannabis co-ops and to seize their assets. That was the result of the fact that federal law pre-empted, under the Supremacy Clause , the law of California. The government argued that if a single exception were made to the Controlled Substances Act, it would become unenforceable in practice. The government also contended that consuming one's locally grown cannabis for medical purposes affects the interstate market of cannabis and the federal government may thus regulate and prohibit such consumption.

That argument stems from the landmark New Deal case _Wickard v. Filburn _, which held that the government may regulate personal cultivation and consumption of crops because of the aggregate effect of individual consumption on the government's legitimate statutory framework governing the interstate wheat market.

Litigation

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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: "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

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Partnership for a Drug-Free America , several other antidrug organizations,[10] and an alliance of seven Representatives , including Mark Souder and Katherine Harris , all filed amicus briefs for the side of federal government.[11] An environmentalist group, Community Rights Council , also filed a brief for the government for fear that limitation of federal power would undermine its agenda.[12]

The Cato Institute ,[13] Institute for Justice ,[14] many libertarian organizations, and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws , 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 antidrug states from the conservative [South](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United

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