Pot Is the New Wheat

As this year's Supreme Court term hits the home stretch, look for some big decisions to be handed down each Monday. Today's big name case was Gonzalez v. Raich, in which the Court upheld the federal government's ability to prohibit people from growing, possessing, or using medical marijuana. Not surprisingly, the Court applied that old law school chestnut of Wickard v. Filburn to hold that the aggregate effect of medicinal marijuana users/growers (in states that allow that kind of thing) would impact interstate commerce enough to allow Congress to regulate it. I think O'Connor's dissent pretty much calls "bullshit" on that, but it's hardly shocking. For way more discussion of this case than I could ever provide (not to mention the higher quality), head over to SCOTUSBlog, where there is some serious group blogging going on about Raich.