[DOWNLOAD] "Why is Congress Still Regulating Noncommercial Activity?" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Why is Congress Still Regulating Noncommercial Activity?
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2004
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 332 KB
Description
INTRODUCTION In popular news media, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is regularly characterized as left of the mainstream. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly once went so far as to say that "many of the federal judges sitting on that bench will not enforce the drug laws because they want legalization of narcotics." (1) The claim might strike some as extravagant rhetoric or the product of an overactive imagination, (2) but it's possible that O'Reilly was actually referencing a real opinion by the Ninth Circuit. In Raich v. Ashcroft, (3) the Ninth Circuit granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the federal government from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act ("CSA") (4) against two medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. Raich, however, is a far cry from the liberal judicial activism Bill O'Reilly made it out to be. In fact, the decision was based on the decidedly conservative Commerce Clause cases United States v. Lopez (5) and United States v. Morrison. (6) The Raich court held that enforcement of the CSA would be unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs because they were engaged in purely intrastate, noneconomic activity outside the scope of Congress's Commerce Clause power. (7) The plaintiffs, who manufactured and possessed marijuana but did not engage in its sale, had sued the federal government for a preliminary injunction on Commerce Clause grounds. (8)