Last year around this time I posted a piece about the medical marijuana law in California. My constitutional law students should be familiar with the case the concepts discussed as we covered both in class:
One of the more important recently decided Commerce Clause cases dealt with whether the federal government could enforce federal anti-drugs in California after voters there decided to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. (see Raich v. Gonzalez) The answer given by the U.S. Supreme Court was yes, the Feds can arrest people for using marijuana even if users are doing so pursuant to California state law. The question many students must have is: so is it still legal to purchase marijuana in California, under state law, for medicinal purposes? The quick answer is under state law YES, but people who use the drug still run the risk of being arrested by federal agents under federal law. But it gets even more confusing. The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper recently reported that San Diego County is suing the State of California to repeal the medical marijuana laws. Lawyers for San Diego and San Bernardino counties will argue that the state cannot force counties to issue identification cards to qualified medical marijuana patients because the drug is illegal under federal law.
A few months later a California appeals court ruled that the federal law did not preempt the state law and ordered the two counties to issue medical marijuana licenses under the state law. The counties, of course, appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court (remember, because the federal law is at issue, the U.S. Supreme Court can have the final say). The Court declined to hear the case, letting the lower court ruling stand. As the L.A. Times
reminds us:
Four years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress and the federal government had the constitutional authority to regulate the sale and use of marijuana under its power over interstate commerce. The 6-3 decision, in the case of Gonzales vs. Raich, rejected the claim that personal use of homegrown marijuana was off-limits to federal authority. But the court did not rule on whether a state's law allowing medical use of marijuana was void because it conflicted with the federal law.
By rejecting the case, the Supreme Court is not saying that no conflict exists. It is simply saying that it does not want to review the California appeals court case. Thus, the issue is "settled" until the U.S. Supreme decides to revisit the issue via another case, if it ever does decide to do this.
