Is Marijuana Legal



Is Marijuana legal? Some think it depends on whom you ask. If you ask a federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent if smoking a joint is legal, he might tell you it is not. If you ask a cancer patient who is in pain, and who purchases medical marijuana, at a store authorized by the state to dispense marijuana to persons who have a prescription, he'll tell you that it is legal. Marijuana, pot, reefer: whether it is legal or not boils down to a few questions, not the least of which is states rights versus the rights of the federal government. This is a constitutional question and one that has been addressed in various ways by the US Supreme Court, and Congress, although Congress has recently passed some laws that have served to help abate the controversy.



Although possession or sale of marijuana has been illegal in the US for decades under the Controlled Substances Act, Congress rather recently reversed course on this issues, making some exceptions. At the same time, the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution, (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), the federal government has a right to regulate interstate commerce. However, many people, in particular conservatives, feel that the Supreme Court made a mistake when it made that ruling. Many pieces of congressional legislation championed during President Roosevelt's New Deal were overturned at the Supreme Court. Threats by Roosevelt to stack the court with more justices were followed by two justices switching sides to support much broader legislative powers of Congress in controlling activities formerly delegated to the states. The court at that time began considering that Congress's interpretation of the commerce clause could be interpreted as a "will of the people elected to Congress," and not one necessarily interpreted by the courts.