The one thing I’d like to see under my Christmas tree is a Chippendale’s dancer, partially unwrapped, of course. The second thing is world peace. A slightly more realistic option might be wishing for no hypocrisy from our nine funeral-clad dark angels whose job it is to protect the Constitution. Sandra Day O’Connor is no sugarplum fairy, but if she has a little ideological consistency in her body, I might be getting something sweet in my stocking after all.
Angel McClary Raich, one of the plaintiffs in Ashcroft v. Raich (which hit the Supreme Court’s gladiatorial arena Monday), is hardly the stereotypical scary, tattooed drug dealer. She suffers from a gauntlet of wasting diseases, including fibromyalgia, endometriosis, scoliosis, uterine fibroid tumors, paralysis, asthma, rotator cuff syndrome, seizures and an inoperable brain tumor.
Thirty-five alternative medicines failed to dull the pain, so she turned to an act of Californian compassion that legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Unfortunately, the federal government robbed her of her home-grown plants under the auspices
of the Federal Controlled Substances Act, because when our ports are
unprotected, our firefighters are
underfunded and our education system is an international travesty, the best possible use of the federal budget is to shove handcuffed grannies to the concrete floors of their own basements for the crime of seeking a little relief. Republicans yet again show that they believe in states’ rights, as long as the states don’t do anything they object to.
The Supreme Court can stop this heresy right here and now, and it must, if it’s to show respect for legal precedent. Liberal policies with similarly sympathetic victims have been hacked down with the sword of federalism (the concept that the federal government is limited in the scope of what it can do, short of specific constitutional mandates) and now Chief Justice Rehnquist needs to enjoy some of his own bitter medicine and sign on to a broadly worded majority decision that admits drug policy, in this case, does not belong under federal controls.
After all, Rehnquist and the four other right-wing election-stealers threw out a congressional ban on guns on school grounds because such encroachments by the U.S. government would lead to “police power” ending in tyranny. They also ravaged a federal remedy for gender-based violence because, while admitting rape is heinous, it certainly doesn’t fall under the commerce clause. The feds can regulate the flow of money but not the flow of illicit semen!
If Rehnquist and the rest truly believe the federal government has no power in either of these cases, one can only hope Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement’s contentions that medical marijuana is a national issue because patient use may tangentially affect interstate commerce will also be set aflame — violence and rape have much more impact on our economy than a little legal dope. For this reason, the Supreme Court should do what it has rarely done: affirm the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that marijuana grown for limited local use cannot be regulated by the federal government, only by the states.
Of course, intellectual hypocrisy
is seldom limited to conservatives. Suddenly, liberals of the high court have praised stricter interpretation
of congressional powers. Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out, “Nobody’s buying anything.
Nobody’s selling anything.” Who knows, maybe Rehnquist’s jolt of chemo will give him insight into people’s pain and create a new, softer chief justice who lurches leftwards and begins a new fantastic five of leftist hippie justice.
Please, Santa, please! Maybe then we can all sit back and enjoy our “special” fruitcakes without fear of the feds.

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