In 2005, medical marijuana users saw their dreams go up in smoke when the United States Supreme Court announced its ruling in Gonzales v. Reich. In 1970, Congress enacted the Federal Controlled Substances Act, which bans the cultivation and use of marijuana. Twenty-six years later, in 1996, California passed a law that allowed its citizens to cultivate and use marijuana for medical purposes. Angel Reich and Diane Monson were California residents who both used doctor-prescribed marijuana to treat severe medical problems. California law enforcement agents investigating Reich and Monson found that the marijuana they possessed conformed to state law.
But federal agents seized and destroyed their marijuana plants under the Federal Controlled Substances Act. In an effort to legitimize their medical marijuana use at the federal level, Reich and Monson sued Alberto Gonzalez Attorney General of the United States, to challenge the Controlled Substances Act and enjoin its enforcement against them. Reich and Monson lost in the district court.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and held that the Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional when applied to intrastate medical marijuana use, which means use occurring wholly within a state's borders. The question for the United States Supreme Court was whether Congress's authority to regulate commerce extends to the regulation of the in-state use and production of marijuana for medical purposes. The court held that the Controlled Substances Act is constitutional because Congress has the power to regulate purely local activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Justice Stevens, writing for the 6-3 majority, relied on the previous Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn to reach this conclusion.
In Wickard, the court held that Congress may regulate the amount of wheat that a farmer could produce for home consumption because the farmer's wheat production, taken in the aggregate, had a substantial effect on interstate wheat prices. Any addition of homegrown wheat to the overall market frustrated Congress's attempt to regulate the entire market. This relationship made the regulation in Wickard a proper exercise of Congress's Commerce Clause authority.
This case, Stevens reasoned, was similar because the Controlled Substances Act also attempts to control the supply of a commodity. When viewed in the aggregate, home-consumed marijuana, just like home-consumed wheat, has a substantial effect on the interstate supply of marijuana. The court also noted that because there is such a high demand for marijuana on the interstate market, the medical marijuana grown and used in-state will inevitably end up crossing state lines.
This frustrates Congress's attempt to eradicate the interstate trafficking of marijuana. Therefore, the court found that Congress had acted rationally in determining that in-state medical marijuana has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Therefore, the court held the Controlled Substances Act to be a valid exercise of Congress's Commerce Clause authority.
The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld the constitutionality of the act. Justice Scalia concurred in judgment, agreeing with the outcome of the case, but not with the majority's reasoning. Scalia argued that that under the Necessary and Proper Clause, Congress may regulate even those in-state activities that don't substantially affect interstate commerce. Here, Congress adopted a comprehensive statute that prohibits the use of marijuana. It's therefore necessary and proper for Congress to reach into purely local activities and prohibit them, even if the activity doesn't substantially affect interstate commerce.
Justice Thomas wrote a dissent arguing that Congress overstepped its authority with the Controlled Substances Act because Reich and Monson's cultivation and consumption of marijuana plants weren't properly defined as commerce. He argued that their marijuana was never bought or sold and never crossed state lines. According to Thomas, Congress didn't demonstrate the regulation of locally grown and consumed medical marijuana is necessary to combat the interstate drug trade.
Justice O'Connor, a well-known states'rights proponent, argued in another dissent that the majority's decision infringed on states'rights. O'Connor believed the decision gave Congress the power to improperly regulate any in-state activity it deems essential to the regulation of interstate commerce. Gonzales v. Reich protected the federal government's ability to seize and destroy marijuana in all 50 states, including in those states that have legalized marijuana use under state law. The case also represents an expansion of Congress's Commerce Clause authority to regulate in-state activities, but none of that mattered to Angel Reich.
Despite the ruling, she announced that she'd continue to use medical marijuana to alleviate her suffering, no matter what the Supreme Court has to say about federalism.