GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al. v. RAICH et al.

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CASES ADJUDGED
IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
AT
OCTOBER TERM, 2004
GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al. v. RAICH
et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 03–1454. Argued November 29, 2004—Decided June 6, 2005
California’s Compassionate Use Act authorizes limited marijuana use for
medicinal purposes. Respondents Raich and Monson are California
residents who both use doctor-recommended marijuana for serious
medical conditions. After federal Drug Enforcement Administration
agents seized and destroyed all six of Monson’s cannabis plants, respond
ents brought this action seeking injunctive and declaratory relief pro
hibiting the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA)
to the extent it prevents them from possessing, obtaining, or manufac
turing cannabis for their personal medical use. Respondents claim that
enforcing the CSA against them would violate the Commerce Clause
and other constitutional provisions. The District Court denied re
spondents’ motion for a preliminary injunction, but the Ninth Circuit
reversed, finding that they had demonstrated a strong likelihood of suc
cess on the claim that the CSA is an unconstitutional exercise of Con
gress’ Commerce Clause authority as applied to the intrastate, noncom
mercial cultivation and possession of cannabis for personal medical
purposes as recommended by a patient’s physician pursuant to valid
California state law. The court relied heavily on United States v.
Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, and United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, to
hold that this separate class of purely local activities was beyond the
reach of federal power.
1

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2 GONZALES v. RAICH
Syllabus
Held: Congress’ Commerce Clause authority includes the power to pro
hibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with Cali
fornia law. Pp. 10–33.
(a) For the purposes of consolidating various drug laws into a com
prehensive statute, providing meaningful regulation over legitimate
sources of drugs to prevent diversion into illegal channels, and strength
ening law enforcement tools against international and interstate drug
trafficking, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Preven
tion and Control Act of 1970, Title II of which is the CSA. To effectuate
the statutory goals, Congress devised a closed regulatory system mak
ing it unlawful to manufacture, distribute, dispense, or possess any
controlled substance except as authorized by the CSA. 21 U. S. C.
§§ 841(a)(1), 844(a). All controlled substances are classified into five
schedules, § 812, based on their accepted medical uses, their potential
for abuse, and their psychological and physical effects on the body,
§§ 811, 812. Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance, § 812(c),
based on its high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and no
accepted safety for use in medically supervised treatment, § 812(b)(1).
This classification renders the manufacture, distribution, or possession
of marijuana a criminal offense. §§ 841(a)(1), 844(a). Pp. 10–15.
(b) Congress’ power to regulate purely local activities that are part
of an economic “class of activities” that have a substantial effect on
interstate commerce is firmly established. See, e. g., Perez v. United
States, 402 U. S. 146, 151. If Congress decides that the “ ‘total inci
dence’ ” of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate
the entire class. See, e. g., id., at 154–155. Of particular relevance
here is Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 127–128, where, in rejecting
the appellee farmer’s contention that Congress’ admitted power to regu
late the production of wheat for commerce did not authorize federal
regulation of wheat production intended wholly for the appellee’s own
consumption, the Court established that Congress can regulate purely
intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” i. e., not produced for
sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would
undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.
The similarities between this case and Wickard are striking. In both
cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress’ commerce power be
cause production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it
wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in
the national market for that commodity. In assessing the scope of Con
gress’ Commerce Clause authority, the Court need not determine
whether respondents’ activities, taken in the aggregate, substantially
affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a “rational basis”
exists for so concluding. E. g., Lopez, 514 U. S., at 557. Given the en

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3 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Syllabus
forcement difficulties that attend distinguishing between marijuana cul
tivated locally and marijuana grown elsewhere, 21 U. S. C. § 801(5), and
concerns about diversion into illicit channels, the Court has no difficulty
concluding that Congress had a rational basis for believing that failure
to regulate the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana
would leave a gaping hole in the CSA. Pp. 15–22.
(c) Respondents’ heavy reliance on Lopez and Morrison overlooks the
larger context of modern-era Commerce Clause jurisprudence pre
served by those cases, while also reading those cases far too broadly.
The statutory challenges at issue there were markedly different from
the challenge here. Respondents ask the Court to excise individual ap
plications of a concededly valid comprehensive statutory scheme. In
contrast, in both Lopez and Morrison, the parties asserted that a partic
ular statute or provision fell outside Congress’ commerce power in its
entirety. This distinction is pivotal for the Court has often reiterated
that “[w]here the class of activities is regulated and that class is within
the reach of federal power, the courts have no power ‘to excise, as triv
ial, individual instances’ of the class.” Perez, 402 U. S., at 154. More
over, the Court emphasized that the laws at issue in Lopez and Mor
rison had nothing to do with “commerce” or any sort of economic
enterprise. See Lopez, 514 U. S., at 561; Morrison, 529 U. S., at 610.
In contrast, the CSA regulates quintessentially economic activities: the
production, distribution, and consumption of commodities for which
there is an established, and lucrative, interstate market. Prohibiting
the intrastate possession or manufacture of an article of commerce is a
rational means of regulating commerce in that product. The Ninth Cir
cuit cast doubt on the CSA’s constitutionality by isolating a distinct class
of activities that it held to be beyond the reach of federal power: the
intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana
for personal medical purposes on the advice of a physician and in accord
ance with state law. However, Congress clearly acted rationally in de
termining that this subdivided class of activities is an essential part of
the larger regulatory scheme. The case comes down to the claim that
a locally cultivated product that is used domestically rather than sold on
the open market is not subject to federal regulation. Given the CSA’s
findings and the undisputed magnitude of the commercial market for
marijuana, Wickard and its progeny foreclose that claim. Pp. 23–33.
352 F. 3d 1222, vacated and remanded.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy,
Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion
concurring in the judgment, post, p. 33. O’Connor, J., filed a dissenting

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4 GONZALES v. RAICH
Syllabus
opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined as to all but
Part III, post, p. 42. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 57.
Acting Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for
petitioners. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attor
ney General Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler,
Lisa S. Blatt, Mark B. Stern, Alisa B. Klein, and Mark
T. Quinlivan.
Randy E. Barnett argued the cause for respondents.
With him on the brief were Robert A. Long, Jr., Heidi
C. Doerhoff, Robert A. Raich, and David M. Michael.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Community
Rights Counsel by Timothy J. Dowling; for the Drug Free America Foun
dation, Inc., et al. by David G. Evans; for Robert L. DuPont, M. D., et al.
by John R. Bartels, Jr.; and for U. S. Representative Mark E. Souder et al.
by Nicholas P. Coleman.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of
Alabama et al. by Troy King, Attorney General of Alabama, Kevin C.
Newsom, Solicitor General, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Attorney General of Loui
siana, and Jim Hood, Attorney General of Mississippi; for the State of
California et al. by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Richard
M. Frank, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State
Solicitor, Taylor S. Carey, Special Assistant Attorney General, J. Joseph
Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, and Christine O. Gregoire,
Attorney General of Washington; for the California Nurses Association
et al. by Julia M. Carpenter; for the Cato Institute by Douglas W. Kmiec,
Timothy Lynch, and Robert A. Levy; for Constitutional Law Scholars by
Ernest A. Young, Matthew D. Schnall, Charles Fried, and David L. Sha
piro; for the Institute for Justice by William H. Mellor, Dana Berliner,
and Richard A. Epstein; for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society et al. by
David T. Goldberg, Sean H. Donahue, and Daniel N. Abrahamson; for the
Lymphoma Foundation of America et al. by Stephen C. Willey; for the
Marijuana Policy Project et al. by Cheryl Flax-Davidson; and for the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws et al. by John
Wesley Hall, Jr., Joshua L. Dratel, and Sheryl Gordon McCloud.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Pacific Legal Foundation by M.
Reed Hopper, Sharon L. Browne, and Deborah J. La Fetra; and for the
Reason Foundation by Manuel S. Klausner.

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5 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.
California is one of at least nine States that authorize the
use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.1 The question pre
sented in this case is whether the power vested in Congress
by Article I, § 8, of the Constitution “[t]o make all Laws
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execu
tion” its authority to “regulate Commerce with foreign Na
tions, and among the several States” includes the power to
prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compli
ance with California law.
I
California has been a pioneer in the regulation of mari
juana. In 1913, California was one of the first States to pro
hibit the sale and possession of marijuana,2 and at the end of
the century, California became the first State to authorize
limited use of the drug for medicinal purposes. In 1996,
California voters passed Proposition 215, now codified as the
Compassionate Use Act of 1996.3 The proposition was de
1 See Alaska Stat. §§ 11.71.090, 17.37.010–17.37.080 (Lexis 2004); Colo.
Const., Art. XVIII, § 14, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18–18–406.3 (Lexis 2004); Haw.
Rev. Stat. §§ 329–121 to 329–128 (2004 Cum. Supp.); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann.,
Tit. 22, § 2383–B(5) (West 2004); Nev. Const., Art. 4, § 38, Nev. Rev. Stat.
§§ 453A.010–453A.810 (2003); Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 475.300–475.346 (2003);
Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §§ 4472–4474d (Supp. 2004); Wash. Rev. Code
§§ 69.51.010–69.51.080 (2004); see also Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13–3412.01
(West Supp. 2004) (voter initiative permitting physicians to prescribe
Schedule I substances for medical purposes that was purportedly repealed
in 1997, but the repeal was rejected by voters in 1998). In November
2004, Montana voters approved Initiative 148, adding to the number of
States authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
2 1913 Cal. Stats. ch. 342, § 8a; see also Gieringer, The Origins of Canna
bis Prohibition in California 21–23 (rev. Mar. 2005), available at http://
www.canorml.org/ background/caloriginsmjproh.pdf (all Internet materials
as visited June 2, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
3 Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 11362.5 (West Supp. 2005). The Cal
ifornia Legislature recently enacted additional legislation supplementing
the Compassionate Use Act. §§ 11362.7–11362.9.

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6 GONZALES v. RAICH
Opinion of the Court
signed to ensure that “seriously ill” residents of the State
have access to marijuana for medical purposes, and to en
courage Federal and State Governments to take steps to
ward ensuring the safe and affordable distribution of the
drug to patients in need.4 The Act creates an exemption
from criminal prosecution for physicians,5 as well as for pa
tients and primary caregivers who possess or cultivate mari
juana for medicinal purposes with the recommendation or
approval of a physician.6 A “primary caregiver” is a person
who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing,
health, or safety of the patient.7
Respondents Angel Raich and Diane Monson are Califor
nia residents who suffer from a variety of serious medical
conditions and have sought to avail themselves of medical
marijuana pursuant to the terms of the Compassionate Use
4 “The people of the State of California hereby find and declare that the
purposes of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 are as follows:
“(A) To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain
and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed
appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has deter
mined that the person’s health would benefit from the use of marijuana in
the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glau
coma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana pro
vides relief.
“(B) To ensure that patients and their primary caregivers who obtain
and use marijuana for medical purposes upon the recommendation of a
physician are not subject to criminal prosecution or sanction.
“(C) To encourage the federal and state governments to implement a
plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all
patients in medical need of marijuana.” § 11362.5(b)(1).
5 “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no physician in this state
shall be punished, or denied any right or privilege, for having recom
mended marijuana to a patient for medical purposes.” § 11362.5(c).
6 “Section 11357, relating to the possession of marijuana, and Section
11358, relating to the cultivation of marijuana, shall not apply to a patient,
or to a patient’s primary caregiver, who possesses or cultivates marijuana
for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral
recommendation or approval of a physician.” § 11362.5(d).
7 § 11362.5(e).

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Opinion of the Court
Act. They are being treated by licensed, board-certified
family practitioners, who have concluded, after prescribing
a host of conventional medicines to treat respondents’ con
ditions and to alleviate their associated symptoms, that
marijuana is the only drug available that provides effective
treatment. Both women have been using marijuana as a
medication for several years pursuant to their doctors’ rec
ommendation, and both rely heavily on cannabis to function
on a daily basis. Indeed, Raich’s physician believes that
forgoing cannabis treatments would certainly cause Raich
excruciating pain and could very well prove fatal.
Respondent Monson cultivates her own marijuana, and in
gests the drug in a variety of ways including smoking and
using a vaporizer. Respondent Raich, by contrast, is unable
to cultivate her own, and thus relies on two caregivers,
litigating as “John Does,” to provide her with locally grown
marijuana at no charge. These caregivers also process the
cannabis into hashish or keif, and Raich herself processes
some of the marijuana into oils, balms, and foods for
consumption.
On August 15, 2002, county deputy sheriffs and agents
from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
came to Monson’s home. After a thorough investigation, the
county officials concluded that her use of marijuana was en
tirely lawful as a matter of California law. Nevertheless,
after a 3-hour standoff, the federal agents seized and de
stroyed all six of her cannabis plants.
Respondents thereafter brought this action against the
Attorney General of the United States and the head of the
DEA seeking injunctive and declaratory relief prohibiting
the enforcement of the federal Controlled Substances Act
(CSA), 84 Stat. 1242, 21 U. S. C. § 801 et seq., to the extent it
prevents them from possessing, obtaining, or manufacturing
cannabis for their personal medical use. In their complaint
and supporting affidavits, Raich and Monson described the
severity of their afflictions, their repeatedly futile attempts

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Opinion of the Court
to obtain relief with conventional medications, and the opin
ions of their doctors concerning their need to use marijuana.
Respondents claimed that enforcing the CSA against them
would violate the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause
of the Fifth Amendment, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments
of the Constitution, and the doctrine of medical necessity.
The District Court denied respondents’ motion for a pre
liminary injunction. Raich v. Ashcroft, 248 F. Supp. 2d 918
(ND Cal. 2003). Although the court found that the federal
enforcement interests “wane[d]” when compared to the harm
that California residents would suffer if denied access to
medically necessary marijuana, it concluded that respond
ents could not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the
merits of their legal claims. Id., at 931.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir
cuit reversed and ordered the District Court to enter a pre
liminary injunction.8 Raich v. Ashcroft, 352 F. 3d 1222
(2003). The court found that respondents had “demon
strated a strong likelihood of success on their claim that, as
applied to them, the CSA is an unconstitutional exercise of
Congress’ Commerce Clause authority.” Id., at 1227. The
Court of Appeals distinguished prior Circuit cases upholding
the CSA in the face of Commerce Clause challenges by focus
ing on what it deemed to be the “separate and distinct class
of activities” at issue in this case: “the intrastate, noncom
mercial cultivation and possession of cannabis for personal
medical purposes as recommended by a patient’s physician
pursuant to valid California state law.” Id., at 1228. The
8 On remand, the District Court entered a preliminary injunction enjoin
ing petitioners “ ‘from arresting or prosecuting Plaintiffs Angel McClary
Raich and Diane Monson, seizing their medical cannabis, forfeiting their
property, or seeking civil or administrative sanctions against them with
respect to the intrastate, non-commercial cultivation, possession, use, and
obtaining without charge of cannabis for personal medical purposes on the
advice of a physician and in accordance with state law, and which is not
used for distribution, sale, or exchange.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 9.

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Opinion of the Court
court found the latter class of activities “different in kind
from drug trafficking” because interposing a physician’s rec
ommendation raises different health and safety concerns, and
because “this limited use is clearly distinct from the broader
illicit drug market—as well as any broader commercial mar
ket for medicinal marijuana—insofar as the medicinal mari
juana at issue in this case is not intended for, nor does it
enter, the stream of commerce.” Ibid.
The majority placed heavy reliance on our decisions in
United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549 (1995), and United
States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598 (2000), as interpreted by
recent Circuit precedent, to hold that this separate class of
purely local activities was beyond the reach of federal power.
In contrast, the dissenting judge concluded that the CSA, as
applied to respondents, was clearly valid under Lopez and
Morrison; moreover, he thought it “simply impossible to dis
tinguish the relevant conduct surrounding the cultivation
and use of the marijuana crop at issue in this case from the
cultivation and use of the wheat crop that affected interstate
commerce in Wickard v. Filburn.” 352 F. 3d, at 1235 (opin
ion of Beam, J.).
The obvious importance of the case prompted our grant of
certiorari. 542 U. S. 936 (2004). The case is made difficult
by respondents’ strong arguments that they will suffer irrep
arable harm because, despite a congressional finding to the
contrary, marijuana does have valid therapeutic purposes.
The question before us, however, is not whether it is wise
to enforce the statute in these circumstances; rather, it is
whether Congress’ power to regulate interstate markets for
medicinal substances encompasses the portions of those mar
kets that are supplied with drugs produced and consumed
locally. Well-settled law controls our answer. The CSA is
a valid exercise of federal power, even as applied to the trou
bling facts of this case. We accordingly vacate the judg
ment of the Court of Appeals.

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10 GONZALES v. RAICH
Opinion of the Court
II
Shortly after taking office in 1969, President Nixon de
clared a national “war on drugs.” 9 As the first campaign of
that war, Congress set out to enact legislation that would
consolidate various drug laws on the books into a comprehen
sive statute, provide meaningful regulation over legitimate
sources of drugs to prevent diversion into illegal channels,
and strengthen law enforcement tools against the traffic in
illicit drugs.10 That effort culminated in the passage of the
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of
1970, 84 Stat. 1236.
This was not, however, Congress’ first attempt to regulate
the national market in drugs. Rather, as early as 1906 Con
gress enacted federal legislation imposing labeling regula
tions on medications and prohibiting the manufacture or
shipment of any adulterated or misbranded drug traveling
in interstate commerce.11 Aside from these labeling restric
tions, most domestic drug regulations prior to 1970 generally
came in the guise of revenue laws, with the Department of
the Treasury serving as the Federal Government’s primary
enforcer.12 For example, the primary drug control law, be
fore being repealed by the passage of the CSA, was the Har
rison Narcotics Act of 1914, 38 Stat. 785 (repealed 1970).
The Harrison Act sought to exert control over the possession
and sale of narcotics, specifically cocaine and opiates, by re
quiring producers, distributors, and purchasers to register
with the Federal Government, by assessing taxes against
9 See D. Musto & P. Korsmeyer, The Quest for Drug Control 60 (2002)
(hereinafter Musto & Korsmeyer).
10 H. R. Rep. No. 91–1444, pt. 2, p. 22 (1970) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.);
26 Congressional Quarterly Almanac 531 (1970) (hereinafter Almanac);
Musto & Korsmeyer 56–57.
11 Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, ch. 3915, 34 Stat. 768, repealed by
Act of June 25, 1938, ch. 675, § 902(a), 52 Stat. 1059.
12 See United States v. Doremus, 249 U. S. 86 (1919); Leary v. United
States, 395 U. S. 6, 14–16 (1969).

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Opinion of the Court
parties so registered, and by regulating the issuance of
prescriptions.13
Marijuana itself was not significantly regulated by the
Federal Government until 1937 when accounts of marijuana’s
addictive qualities and physiological effects, paired with dis
satisfaction with enforcement efforts at state and local levels,
prompted Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act, 50 Stat.
551 (repealed 1970).14 Like the Harrison Act, the Marihuana
Tax Act did not outlaw the possession or sale of marijuana
outright. Rather, it imposed registration and reporting re
quirements for all individuals importing, producing, selling,
or dealing in marijuana, and required the payment of an
nual taxes in addition to transfer taxes whenever the drug
changed hands.15 Moreover, doctors wishing to prescribe
marijuana for medical purposes were required to comply
with rather burdensome administrative requirements.16
Noncompliance exposed traffickers to severe federal penal
ties, whereas compliance would often subject them to prose
cution under state law.17 Thus, while the Marihuana Tax
Act did not declare the drug illegal per se, the onerous
administrative requirements, the prohibitively expensive
taxes, and the risks attendant on compliance practically cur
tailed the marijuana trade.
Then in 1970, after declaration of the national “war on
drugs,” federal drug policy underwent a significant trans
formation. A number of noteworthy events precipitated
13 See Doremus, 249 U. S., at 90–93.
14 R. Bonnie & C. Whitebread, The Marijuana Conviction 154–174 (1999);
L. Grinspoon & J. Bakalar, Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine 7–8 (rev.
ed. 1997) (hereinafter Grinspoon & Bakalar). Although this was the Fed
eral Government’s first attempt to regulate the marijuana trade, by this
time all States had in place some form of legislation regulating the sale,
use, or possession of marijuana. R. Isralowitz, Drug Use, Policy, and
Management 134 (2d ed. 2002).
15 Leary, 395 U. S., at 14–16.
16 Grinspoon & Bakalar 8.
17 Leary, 395 U. S., at 16–18.

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Opinion of the Court
this policy shift. First, in Leary v. United States, 395 U. S.
6 (1969), this Court held certain provisions of the Marihuana
Tax Act and other narcotics legislation unconstitutional.
Second, at the end of his term, President Johnson fundamen
tally reorganized the federal drug control agencies. The
Bureau of Narcotics, then housed in the Department of the
Treasury, merged with the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control,
then housed in the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare (HEW), to create the Bureau of Narcotics and Dan
gerous Drugs, currently housed in the Department of Jus
tice.18 Finally, prompted by a perceived need to consolidate
the growing number of piecemeal drug laws and to en
hance federal drug enforcement powers, Congress enacted
the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control
Act.19
Title II of that Act, the CSA, repealed most of the earlier
antidrug laws in favor of a comprehensive regime to combat
the international and interstate traffic in illicit drugs. The
main objectives of the CSA were to conquer drug abuse and
to control the legitimate and illegitimate traffic in controlled
substances.20 Congress was particularly concerned with the
18 Musto & Korsmeyer 32–35; 26 Almanac 533. In 1973, the Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs became the DEA. See Reorg. Plan
No. 2 of 1973, § 1, 28 CFR § 0.100 (1973).
19 The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970
consists of three titles. Title I relates to the prevention and treatment of
narcotic addicts through HEW (now the Department of Health and Human
Services). 84 Stat. 1238. Title II, as discussed in more detail above, ad
dresses drug control and enforcement as administered by the Attorney
General and the DEA. Id., at 1242. Title III concerns the import and
export of controlled substances. Id., at 1285.
20 In particular, Congress made the following findings:
“(1) Many of the drugs included within this subchapter have a useful
and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health
and general welfare of the American people.

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Opinion of the Court
need to prevent the diversion of drugs from legitimate to
illicit channels.21
To effectuate these goals, Congress devised a closed reg
ulatory system making it unlawful to manufacture, distrib
ute, dispense, or possess any controlled substance except in
a manner authorized by the CSA. 21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a)(1),
844(a). The CSA categorizes all controlled substances into
five schedules. § 812. The drugs are grouped together
based on their accepted medical uses, the potential for abuse,
and their psychological and physical effects on the body.
“(2) The illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession
and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and det
rimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American
people.
“(3) A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through
interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not
an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture,
local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and di
rect effect upon interstate commerce because—
“(A) after manufacture, many controlled substances are transported in
interstate commerce,
“(B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been trans
ported in interstate commerce immediately before their distribution, and
“(C) controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate
commerce immediately prior to such possession.
“(4) Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contrib
ute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances.
“(5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate
cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and
distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of
controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed
interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed
intrastate.
“(6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled
substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents
of such traffic.” 21 U. S. C. §§ 801(1)–(6).
21 See United States v. Moore, 423 U. S. 122, 135 (1975); see also H. R.
Rep., at 22.

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14 GONZALES v. RAICH
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§§ 811, 812. Each schedule is associated with a distinct set
of controls regarding the manufacture, distribution, and use
of the substances listed therein. §§ 821–830. The CSA and
its implementing regulations set forth strict requirements
regarding registration, labeling and packaging, production
quotas, drug security, and recordkeeping. Ibid.; 21 CFR
§ 1301 et seq. (2004).
In enacting the CSA, Congress classified marijuana as
a Schedule I drug. 21 U. S. C. § 812(c). This preliminary
classification was based, in part, on the recommendation of
the Assistant Secretary of HEW “that marihuana be re
tained within schedule I at least until the completion of
certain studies now underway.” 22 Schedule I drugs are cat
egorized as such because of their high potential for abuse,
lack of any accepted medical use, and absence of any ac
cepted safety for use in medically supervised treatment.
§ 812(b)(1). These three factors, in varying gradations, are
also used to categorize drugs in the other four schedules.
For example, Schedule II substances also have a high poten
tial for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or
physical dependence, but unlike Schedule I drugs, they have
a currently accepted medical use. § 812(b)(2). By classify
ing marijuana as a Schedule I drug, as opposed to listing it
on a lesser schedule, the manufacture, distribution, or pos
session of marijuana became a criminal offense, with the
sole exception being use of the drug as part of a Food and
Drug Administration preapproved research study. §§ 823(f),
841(a)(1), 844(a); see also United States v. Oakland Cannabis
Buyers’ Cooperative, 532 U. S. 483, 490 (2001).
The CSA provides for the periodic updating of schedules
and delegates authority to the Attorney General, after con
sultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services,
to add, remove, or transfer substances to, from, or between
22 Id., at 61 (quoting letter from Roger O. Egeberg, M. D., to Hon. Harley
O. Staggers (Aug. 14, 1970)).

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schedules. § 811. Despite considerable efforts to resched
ule marijuana, it remains a Schedule I drug.23
III
Respondents in this case do not dispute that passage of
the CSA, as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Preven
tion and Control Act, was well within Congress’ commerce
power. Brief for Respondents 22, 38. Nor do they contend
that any provision or section of the CSA amounts to an un
constitutional exercise of congressional authority. Rather,
respondents’ challenge is actually quite limited; they argue
that the CSA’s categorical prohibition of the manufacture
and possession of marijuana as applied to the intrastate man
ufacture and possession of marijuana for medical purposes
pursuant to California law exceeds Congress’ authority
under the Commerce Clause.
In assessing the validity of congressional regulation, none
of our Commerce Clause cases can be viewed in isolation.
As charted in considerable detail in United States v. Lopez,
our understanding of the reach of the Commerce Clause, as
well as Congress’ assertion of authority thereunder, has
23 Starting in 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Mari
juana Laws began its campaign to reclassify marijuana. Grinspoon &
Bakalar 13–17. After some fleeting success in 1988 when an Administra
tive Law Judge (ALJ) declared that the DEA would be acting in an “un
reasonable, arbitrary, and capricious” manner if it continued to deny mari
juana access to seriously ill patients, and concluded that it should be
reclassified as a Schedule III substance, Grinspoon v. DEA, 828 F. 2d 881,
883–884 (CA1 1987), the campaign has proved unsuccessful. The DEA
Administrator did not endorse the ALJ’s findings, 54 Fed. Reg. 53767
(1989), and since that time has routinely denied petitions to reschedule the
drug, most recently in 2001. 66 Fed. Reg. 20038 (2001). The Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has reviewed the petition to
reschedule marijuana on five separate occasions over the course of 30
years, ultimately upholding the Administrator’s final order. See Alliance
for Cannabis Therapeutics v. DEA, 15 F. 3d 1131, 1133 (1994).

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16 GONZALES v. RAICH
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evolved over time.24 The Commerce Clause emerged as the
Framers’ response to the central problem giving rise to the
Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce
power under the Articles of Confederation.25 For the first
century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to
preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had
once been permissible.26 Then, in response to rapid indus
trial development and an increasingly interdependent na
tional economy, Congress “ushered in a new era of federal
regulation under the commerce power,” beginning with the
enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, 24 Stat.
379, and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, 26 Stat. 209, as
amended, 15 U. S. C. § 2 et seq.27
Cases decided during that “new era,” which now spans
more than a century, have identified three general cate
gories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to en
gage under its commerce power. First, Congress can regu
late the channels of interstate commerce. Perez v. United
States, 402 U. S. 146, 150 (1971). Second, Congress has
authority to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of
interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate
24 United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 552–558 (1995); id., at 568–574
(Kennedy, J., concurring); id., at 604–607 (Souter, J., dissenting).
25 See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 224 (1824) (opinion of Johnson, J.);
Stern, That Commerce Which Concerns More States Than One, 47 Harv.
L. Rev. 1335, 1337, 1340–1341 (1934); G. Gunther, Constitutional Law 127
(9th ed. 1975).
26 See Lopez, 514 U. S., at 553–554; id., at 568–569 (Kennedy, J., concur
ring); see also Granholm v. Heald, 544 U. S. 460, 472–473 (2005).
27 Lopez, 514 U. S., at 554; see also Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111,
121 (1942) (“It was not until 1887, with the enactment of the Interstate
Commerce Act, that the interstate commerce power began to exert posi
tive influence in American law and life. This first important federal re
sort to the commerce power was followed in 1890 by the Sherman Anti-
Trust Act and, thereafter, mainly after 1903, by many others. These
statutes ushered in new phases of adjudication, which required the Court
to approach the interpretation of the Commerce Clause in the light of an
actual exercise by Congress of its power thereunder” (footnotes omitted)).

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commerce. Ibid. Third, Congress has the power to regu
late activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.
Ibid.; NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1,
37 (1937). Only the third category is implicated in the case
at hand.
Our case law firmly establishes Congress’ power to regu
late purely local activities that are part of an economic “class
of activities” that have a substantial effect on interstate com
merce. See, e. g., Perez, 402 U. S., at 151; Wickard v. Fil
burn, 317 U. S. 111, 128–129 (1942). As we stated in Wick
ard, “even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may
not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its
nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial
economic effect on interstate commerce.” Id., at 125. We
have never required Congress to legislate with scientific
exactitude. When Congress decides that the “ ‘total inci
dence’ ” of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it
may regulate the entire class. See Perez, 402 U. S., at 154–
155 (“ ‘[W]hen it is necessary in order to prevent an evil to
make the law embrace more than the precise thing to be
prevented it may do so’ ” (quoting Westfall v. United States,
274 U. S. 256, 259 (1927))). In this vein, we have reiterated
that when “ ‘a general regulatory statute bears a substantial
relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual
instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.’ ”
E. g., Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558 (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz,
392 U. S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968); emphasis deleted).
Our decision in Wickard, 317 U. S. 111, is of particular rele
vance. In Wickard, we upheld the application of regulations
promulgated under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938,
52 Stat. 31, which were designed to control the volume of
wheat moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to
avoid surpluses and consequent abnormally low prices. The
regulations established an allotment of 11.1 acres for Fil
burn’s 1941 wheat crop, but he sowed 23 acres, intending to
use the excess by consuming it on his own farm. Filburn

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18 GONZALES v. RAICH
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argued that even though we had sustained Congress’ power
to regulate the production of goods for commerce, that power
did not authorize “federal regulation [of] production not in
tended in any part for commerce but wholly for consumption
on the farm.” Wickard, 317 U. S., at 118. Justice Jackson’s
opinion for a unanimous Court rejected this submission.
He wrote:
“The effect of the statute before us is to restrict the
amount which may be produced for market and the ex
tent as well to which one may forestall resort to the
market by producing to meet his own needs. That ap
pellee’s own contribution to the demand for wheat may
be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the
scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribu
tion, taken together with that of many others similarly
situated, is far from trivial.” Id., at 127–128.
Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely
intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” in that it
is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regu
late that class of activity would undercut the regulation of
the interstate market in that commodity.
The similarities between this case and Wickard are strik
ing. Like the farmer in Wickard, respondents are cultivat
ing, for home consumption, a fungible commodity for which
there is an established, albeit illegal, interstate market.28
Just as the Agricultural Adjustment Act was designed “to
28 Even respondents acknowledge the existence of an illicit market in
marijuana; indeed, Raich has personally participated in that market, and
Monson expresses a willingness to do so in the future. App. 59, 74, 87.
See also Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S. 767,
770, 774, n. 12, and 780, n. 17 (1994) (discussing the “market value” of
marijuana); id., at 790 (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting); id., at 792 (O’Con
nor, J., dissenting); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 591 (1977) (addressing
prescription drugs “for which there is both a lawful and an unlawful mar
ket”); Turner v. United States, 396 U. S. 398, 417, n. 33 (1970) (referring
to the purchase of drugs on the “retail market”).

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control the volume [of wheat] moving in interstate and for
eign commerce in order to avoid surpluses . . . ” and con
sequently control the market price, id., at 115, a primary
purpose of the CSA is to control the supply and demand
of controlled substances in both lawful and unlawful drug
markets. See nn. 20–21, supra. In Wickard, we had no
difficulty concluding that Congress had a rational basis for
believing that, when viewed in the aggregate, leaving home
consumed wheat outside the regulatory scheme would have
a substantial influence on price and market conditions.
Here too, Congress had a rational basis for concluding that
leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control
would similarly affect price and market conditions.
More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat
grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising
market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate
market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317
U. S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to
include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA
is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate mar
ket will draw such marijuana into that market. While the
diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the fed
eral interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume
of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the di
version of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the fed
eral interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the
interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regu
lation is squarely within Congress’ commerce power because
production of the commodity meant for home consumption,
be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply
and demand in the national market for that commodity.29
29 To be sure, the wheat market is a lawful market that Congress sought
to protect and stabilize, whereas the marijuana market is an unlawful mar
ket that Congress sought to eradicate. This difference, however, is of no
constitutional import. It has long been settled that Congress’ power to
regulate commerce includes the power to prohibit commerce in a particu

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20 GONZALES v. RAICH
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Nonetheless, respondents suggest that Wickard differs
from this case in three respects: (1) the Agricultural Adjust
ment Act, unlike the CSA, exempted small farming opera
tions; (2) Wickard involved a “quintessential economic activ
ity”—a commercial farm—whereas respondents do not sell
marijuana; and (3) the Wickard record made it clear that
the aggregate production of wheat for use on farms had
a significant impact on market prices. Those differences,
though factually accurate, do not diminish the precedential
force of this Court’s reasoning.
The fact that Filburn’s own impact on the market was
“trivial by itself ” was not a sufficient reason for removing
him from the scope of federal regulation. 317 U. S., at 127.
That the Secretary of Agriculture elected to exempt even
smaller farms from regulation does not speak to his power
to regulate all those whose aggregated production was sig
nificant, nor did that fact play any role in the Court’s analy
sis. Moreover, even though Filburn was indeed a commer
cial farmer, the activity he was engaged in—the cultivation
of wheat for home consumption—was not treated by the
Court as part of his commercial farming operation.30 And
while it is true that the record in the Wickard case itself
established the causal connection between the production for
local use and the national market, we have before us findings
by Congress to the same effect.
Findings in the introductory sections of the CSA explain
why Congress deemed it appropriate to encompass local ac
tivities within the scope of the CSA. See n. 20, supra. The
lar commodity. Lopez, 514 U. S., at 571 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (“In
the Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321 (1903), the Court rejected the argument
that Congress lacked [the] power to prohibit the interstate movement of
lottery tickets because it had power only to regulate, not to prohibit”); see
also Wickard, 317 U. S., at 128 (“The stimulation of commerce is a use of
the regulatory function quite as definitely as prohibitions or restrictions
thereon”).
30 See id., at 125 (recognizing that Filburn’s activity “may not be re
garded as commerce”).

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submissions of the parties and the numerous amici all seem
to agree that the national, and international, market for mar
ijuana has dimensions that are fully comparable to those
defining the class of activities regulated by the Secretary
pursuant to the 1938 statute.31 Respondents nonetheless in
sist that the CSA cannot be constitutionally applied to their
activities because Congress did not make a specific finding
that the intrastate cultivation and possession of marijuana
for medical purposes based on the recommendation of a phy
sician would substantially affect the larger interstate mari
juana market. Be that as it may, we have never required
Congress to make particularized findings in order to leg
islate, see Lopez, 514 U. S., at 562; Perez, 402 U. S., at 156,
absent a special concern such as the protection of free
speech, see, e. g., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC,
512 U. S. 622, 664–668 (1994) (plurality opinion). While con
gressional findings are certainly helpful in reviewing the
substance of a congressional statutory scheme, particularly
when the connection to commerce is not self-evident, and
while we will consider congressional findings in our anal
ysis when they are available, the absence of particularized
findings does not call into question Congress’ authority to
legislate.32
31 The Executive Office of the President has estimated that in 2000
American users spent $10.5 billion on the purchase of marijuana. Office
of Nat. Drug Control Policy, Marijuana Fact Sheet 5 (Feb. 2004), http://
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/marijuana/index.html.
32 Moreover, as discussed in more detail above, Congress did make find
ings regarding the effects of intrastate drug activity on interstate com
merce. See n. 20, supra. Indeed, even the Court of Appeals found that
those findings “weigh[ed] in favor” of upholding the constitutionality of
the CSA. 352 F. 3d 1222, 1232 (CA9 2003) (case below). The dissenters,
however, would impose a new and heightened burden on Congress (unless
the litigants can garner evidence sufficient to cure Congress’ perceived
“inadequa[cies]”)—that legislation must contain detailed findings proving
that each activity regulated within a comprehensive statute is essential to
the statutory scheme. Post, at 53–55 (opinion of O’Connor, J.); post, at
64 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Such an exacting requirement is not only un

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22 GONZALES v. RAICH
Opinion of the Court
In assessing the scope of Congress’ authority under the
Commerce Clause, we stress that the task before us is a mod
est one. We need not determine whether respondents’ ac
tivities, taken in the aggregate, substantially affect inter
state commerce in fact, but only whether a “rational basis”
exists for so concluding. Lopez, 514 U. S., at 557; see also
Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn.,
Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276–280 (1981); Perez, 402 U. S., at 155–
156; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 299–301 (1964);
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241,
252–253 (1964). Given the enforcement difficulties that at
tend distinguishing between marijuana cultivated locally and
marijuana grown elsewhere, 21 U. S. C. § 801(5), and concerns
about diversion into illicit channels,33 we have no difficulty
concluding that Congress had a rational basis for believing
that failure to regulate the intrastate manufacture and pos
session of marijuana would leave a gaping hole in the CSA.
Thus, as in Wickard, when it enacted comprehensive legisla
tion to regulate the interstate market in a fungible commod
ity, Congress was acting well within its authority to “make
all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to “regulate
Commerce . . . among the several States.” U. S. Const.,
Art. I, § 8. That the regulation ensnares some purely intra
state activity is of no moment. As we have done many
times before, we refuse to excise individual components of
that larger scheme.
precedented, it is also impractical. Indeed, the principal dissent’s critique
of Congress for “not even” including “declarations” specific to marijuana is
particularly unpersuasive given that the CSA initially identified 80 other
substances subject to regulation as Schedule I drugs, not to mention those
categorized in Schedules II–V. Post, at 55 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).
Surely, Congress cannot be expected (and certainly should not be re
quired) to include specific findings on each and every substance contained
therein in order to satisfy the dissenters’ unfounded skepticism.
33 See n. 21, supra (citing sources that evince Congress’ particular con
cern with the diversion of drugs from legitimate to illicit channels).

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IV
To support their contrary submission, respondents rely
heavily on two of our more recent Commerce Clause cases.
In their myopic focus, they overlook the larger context of
modern-era Commerce Clause jurisprudence preserved by
those cases. Moreover, even in the narrow prism of re
spondents’ creation, they read those cases far too broadly.
Those two cases, of course, are Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, and
Morrison, 529 U. S. 598. As an initial matter, the statutory
challenges at issue in those cases were markedly different
from the challenge respondents pursue in the case at hand.
Here, respondents ask us to excise individual applications of
a concededly valid statutory scheme. In contrast, in both
Lopez and Morrison, the parties asserted that a particular
statute or provision fell outside Congress’ commerce power
in its entirety. This distinction is pivotal for we have often
reiterated that “[w]here the class of activities is regulated
and that class is within the reach of federal power, the courts
have no power ‘to excise, as trivial, individual instances’
of the class.” Perez, 402 U. S., at 154 (quoting Wirtz, 392
U. S., at 193 (emphasis deleted)); see also Hodel, 452 U. S.,
at 308.
At issue in Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, was the validity of the
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which was a brief,
single-subject statute making it a crime for an individual to
possess a gun in a school zone. 104 Stat. 4844–4845, 18
U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A). The Act did not regulate any eco
nomic activity and did not contain any requirement that the
possession of a gun have any connection to past interstate
activity or a predictable impact on future commercial activ
ity. Distinguishing our earlier cases holding that compre
hensive regulatory statutes may be validly applied to local
conduct that does not, when viewed in isolation, have a sig
nificant impact on interstate commerce, we held the statute
invalid. We explained:

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“Section 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms
has nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of eco
nomic enterprise, however broadly one might define
those terms. Section 922(q) is not an essential part of
a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the
regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intra
state activity were regulated. It cannot, therefore, be
sustained under our cases upholding regulations of ac
tivities that arise out of or are connected with a commer
cial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substan
tially affects interstate commerce.” 514 U. S., at 561.
The statutory scheme that the Government is defending
in this litigation is at the opposite end of the regulatory spec
trum. As explained above, the CSA, enacted in 1970 as part
of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control
Act, 84 Stat. 1242–1284, was a lengthy and detailed statute
creating a comprehensive framework for regulating the pro
duction, distribution, and possession of five classes of “con
trolled substances.” Most of those substances—those listed
in Schedules II through V—“have a useful and legitimate
medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health
and general welfare of the American people.” 21 U. S. C.
§ 801(1). The regulatory scheme is designed to foster the
beneficial use of those medications, to prevent their misuse,
and to prohibit entirely the possession or use of substances
listed in Schedule I, except as a part of a strictly controlled
research project.
While the statute provided for the periodic updating of the
five schedules, Congress itself made the initial classifications.
It identified 42 opiates, 22 opium derivatives, and 17 hallu
cinogenic substances as Schedule I drugs. 84 Stat. 1248.
Marijuana was listed as the 10th item in the 3d subcategory.
That classification, unlike the discrete prohibition established
by the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, was merely one
of many “essential part[s] of a larger regulation of economic
activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut

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unless the intrastate activity were regulated.” Lopez, 514
U. S., at 561.34 Our opinion in Lopez casts no doubt on the
validity of such a program.
Nor does this Court’s holding in Morrison, 529 U. S. 598.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 108 Stat. 1902,
created a federal civil remedy for the victims of gender
motivated crimes of violence. 42 U. S. C. § 13981. The rem
edy was enforceable in both state and federal courts, and
generally depended on proof of the violation of a state law.
Despite congressional findings that such crimes had an ad
verse impact on interstate commerce, we held the statute
unconstitutional because, like the statute in Lopez, it did not
regulate economic activity. We concluded that “the noneco
nomic, criminal nature of the conduct at issue was central to
our decision” in Lopez, and that our prior cases had identified
a clear pattern of analysis: “ ‘Where economic activity sub
stantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating
that activity will be sustained.’ ” 35 Morrison, 529 U. S.,
at 610.
Unlike those at issue in Lopez and Morrison, the activities
regulated by the CSA are quintessentially economic. “Eco
nomics” refers to “the production, distribution, and consump
tion of commodities.” Webster’s Third New International
34 The principal dissent asserts that by “[s]eizing upon our language in
Lopez,” post, at 46 (opinion of O’Connor, J.), i. e., giving effect to our
well-established case law, Congress will now have an incentive to legislate
broadly. Even putting aside the political checks that would generally
curb Congress’ power to enact a broad and comprehensive scheme for the
purpose of targeting purely local activity, there is no suggestion that the
CSA constitutes the type of “evasive” legislation the dissent fears, nor
could such an argument plausibly be made. Post, at 47 (O’Connor, J.,
dissenting).
35 Lopez, 514 U. S., at 560; see also id., at 573–574 (Kennedy, J., concur
ring) (stating that Lopez did not alter our “practical conception of commer
cial regulation” and that Congress may “regulate in the commercial sphere
on the assumption that we have a single market and a unified purpose to
build a stable national economy”).

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Dictionary 720 (1966). The CSA is a statute that regulates
the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities
for which there is an established, and lucrative, interstate
market. Prohibiting the intrastate possession or manufac
ture of an article of commerce is a rational (and commonly
utilized) means of regulating commerce in that product.36
Such prohibitions include specific decisions requiring that a
drug be withdrawn from the market as a result of the failure
to comply with regulatory requirements as well as decisions
excluding Schedule I drugs entirely from the market. Be
cause the CSA is a statute that directly regulates economic,
commercial activity, our opinion in Morrison casts no doubt
on its constitutionality.
The Court of Appeals was able to conclude otherwise only
by isolating a “separate and distinct” class of activities that
it held to be beyond the reach of federal power, defined as
“the intrastate, noncommercial cultivation, possession and
use of marijuana for personal medical purposes on the advice
of a physician and in accordance with state law.” 352 F. 3d,
at 1229. The court characterized this class as “different in
kind from drug trafficking.” Id., at 1228. The differences
between the members of a class so defined and the princi
pal traffickers in Schedule I substances might be sufficient
to justify a policy decision exempting the narrower class
from the coverage of the CSA. The question, however, is
whether Congress’ contrary policy judgment, i. e., its de
cision to include this narrower “class of activities” within
the larger regulatory scheme, was constitutionally deficient.
We have no difficulty concluding that Congress acted ration
ally in determining that none of the characteristics making
up the purported class, whether viewed individually or in
the aggregate, compelled an exemption from the CSA;
rather, the subdivided class of activities defined by the Court
36 See 16 U. S. C. § 668(a) (bald and golden eagles); 18 U. S. C. § 175(a)
(biological weapons); § 831(a) (nuclear material); § 842(n)(1) (certain plastic
explosives); § 2342(a) (contraband cigarettes).

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of Appeals was an essential part of the larger regulatory
scheme.
First, the fact that marijuana is used “for personal medical
purposes on the advice of a physician” cannot itself serve as
a distinguishing factor. Id., at 1229. The CSA designates
marijuana as contraband for any purpose; in fact, by charac
terizing marijuana as a Schedule I drug, Congress expressly
found that the drug has no acceptable medical uses. More
over, the CSA is a comprehensive regulatory regime specifi
cally designed to regulate which controlled substances can
be utilized for medicinal purposes, and in what manner. In
deed, most of the substances classified in the CSA “have a
useful and legitimate medical purpose.” 21 U. S. C. § 801(1).
Thus, even if respondents are correct that marijuana does
have accepted medical uses and thus should be redesignated
as a lesser schedule drug,37 the CSA would still impose con
trols beyond what is required by California law. The CSA
requires manufacturers, physicians, pharmacies, and other
handlers of controlled substances to comply with statutory
and regulatory provisions mandating registration with the
DEA, compliance with specific production quotas, secur
ity controls to guard against diversion, recordkeeping and
reporting obligations, and prescription requirements. See
37 We acknowledge that evidence proffered by respondents in this case
regarding the effective medical uses for marijuana, if found credible after
trial, would cast serious doubt on the accuracy of the findings that require
marijuana to be listed in Schedule I. See, e. g., Institute of Medicine, Mar
ijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base 179 (J. Joy, S. Watson, & J.
Benson eds. 1999) (recognizing that “[s]cientific data indicate the potential
therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs, primarily THC [Tetrahydrocan
nabinol] for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimu
lation”); see also Conant v. Walters, 309 F. 3d 629, 640–643 (CA9 2002)
(Kozinski, J., concurring) (chronicling medical studies recognizing valid
medical uses for marijuana and its derivatives). But the possibility that
the drug may be reclassified in the future has no relevance to the question
whether Congress now has the power to regulate its production and distri
bution. Respondents’ submission, if accepted, would place all homegrown
medical substances beyond the reach of Congress’ regulatory jurisdiction.

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28 GONZALES v. RAICH
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§§ 821–830; 21 CFR § 1301 et seq. (2004). Furthermore, the
dispensing of new drugs, even when doctors approve their
use, must await federal approval. United States v. Ruther
ford, 442 U. S. 544 (1979). Accordingly, the mere fact that
marijuana—like virtually every other controlled substance
regulated by the CSA—is used for medicinal purposes can
not possibly serve to distinguish it from the core activities
regulated by the CSA.
Nor can it serve as an “objective marke[r]” or “objective
facto[r]” to arbitrarily narrow the relevant class as the dis
senters suggest, post, at 47 (opinion of O’Connor, J.); post,
at 68 (opinion of Thomas, J.). More fundamentally, if, as the
principal dissent contends, the personal cultivation, posses
sion, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is beyond
the “ ‘outer limits’ of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority,”
post, at 42 (opinion of O’Connor, J.), it must also be true
that such personal use of marijuana (or any other homegrown
drug) for recreational purposes is also beyond those “ ‘outer
limits,’ ” whether or not a State elects to authorize or even
regulate such use. Justice Thomas’ separate dissent suf
fers from the same sweeping implications. That is, the dis
senters’ rationale logically extends to place any federal regu
lation (including quality, prescription, or quantity controls)
of any locally cultivated and possessed controlled substance
for any purpose beyond the “ ‘outer limits’ ” of Congress’
Commerce Clause authority. One need not have a degree in
economics to understand why a nationwide exemption for the
vast quantity of marijuana (or other drugs) locally cultivated
for personal use (which presumably would include use by
friends, neighbors, and family members) may have a substan
tial impact on the interstate market for this extraordinarily
popular substance. The congressional judgment that an ex
emption for such a significant segment of the total market
would undermine the orderly enforcement of the entire regu
latory scheme is entitled to a strong presumption of validity.
Indeed, that judgment is not only rational, but “visible to the

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29 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
naked eye,” Lopez, 514 U. S., at 563, under any commonsense
appraisal of the probable consequences of such an open
ended exemption.
Second, limiting the activity to marijuana possession and
cultivation “in accordance with state law” cannot serve to
place respondents’ activities beyond congressional reach.
The Supremacy Clause unambiguously provides that if there
is any conflict between federal and state law, federal law
shall prevail. It is beyond peradventure that federal power
over commerce is “ ‘superior to that of the States to provide
for the welfare or necessities of their inhabitants,’ ” however
legitimate or dire those necessities may be. Wirtz, 392 U. S.,
at 196 (quoting Sanitary Dist. of Chicago v. United States,
266 U. S. 405, 426 (1925)). See also 392 U. S., at 195–196;
Wickard, 317 U. S., at 124 (“ ‘[N]o form of state activity can
constitutionally thwart the regulatory power granted by the
commerce clause to Congress’ ”). Just as state acquiescence
to federal regulation cannot expand the bounds of the Com
merce Clause, see, e. g., Morrison, 529 U. S., at 661–662
(Breyer, J., dissenting) (noting that 38 States requested fed
eral intervention), so too state action cannot circumscribe
Congress’ plenary commerce power. See United States v.
Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 114 (1941) (“That power can neither be
enlarged nor diminished by the exercise or non-exercise of
state power”).38
38 That is so even if California’s current controls (enacted eight years
after the Compassionate Use Act was passed) are “effective,” as the dis
senters would have us blindly presume, post, at 53–54 (opinion of O’Con
nor, J.); post, at 63, 68 (opinion of Thomas, J.). California’s decision (made
34 years after the CSA was enacted) to impose “stric[t] controls” on the
“cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical purposes,” post, at 62
(Thomas, J., dissenting), cannot retroactively divest Congress of its au
thority under the Commerce Clause. Indeed, Justice Thomas’ urgings
to the contrary would turn the Supremacy Clause on its head, and would
resurrect limits on congressional power that have long since been re
jected. See post, at 41 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting Mc-
Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 424 (1819)) (“ ‘To impose on [Congress]

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30 GONZALES v. RAICH
Opinion of the Court
Respondents acknowledge this proposition, but nonethe
less contend that their activities were not “an essential part
of a larger regulatory scheme” because they had been “iso
lated by the State of California, and [are] policed by the State
of California,” and thus remain “entirely separated from the
market.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 27. The dissenters fall prey to
similar reasoning. See n. 38, supra, at 26 and this page.
The notion that California law has surgically excised a dis
crete activity that is hermetically sealed off from the larger
interstate marijuana market is a dubious proposition, and,
more importantly, one that Congress could have rationally
rejected.
Indeed, that the California exemptions will have a signi
ficant impact on both the supply and demand sides of the
market for marijuana is not just “plausible” as the principal
dissent concedes, post, at 56 (opinion of O’Connor, J.), it is
readily apparent. The exemption for physicians provides
them with an economic incentive to grant their patients per
mission to use the drug. In contrast to most prescriptions
for legal drugs, which limit the dosage and duration of
the usage, under California law the doctor’s permission to
the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another
government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious,
the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other
governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is
incompatible with the language of the constitution’ ”).
Moreover, in addition to casting aside more than a century of this
Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence, it is noteworthy that Justice
Thomas’ suggestion that States possess the power to dictate the extent
of Congress’ commerce power would have far-reaching implications be
yond the facts of this case. For example, under his reasoning, Congress
would be equally powerless to regulate, let alone prohibit, the intrastate
possession, cultivation, and use of marijuana for recreational purposes, an
activity which all States “strictly contro[l].” Indeed, his rationale seem
ingly would require Congress to cede its constitutional power to regulate
commerce whenever a State opts to exercise its “traditional police powers
to define the criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of
their citizens.” Post, at 66 (dissenting opinion).

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recommend marijuana use is open-ended. The authority to
grant permission whenever the doctor determines that a
patient is afflicted with “any other illness for which mari
juana provides relief,” Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann.
§ 11362.5(b)(1)(A) (West Supp. 2005), is broad enough to allow
even the most scrupulous doctor to conclude that some recre
ational uses would be therapeutic.39 And our cases have
taught us that there are some unscrupulous physicians who
overprescribe when it is sufficiently profitable to do so.40
The exemption for cultivation by patients and caregivers
can only increase the supply of marijuana in the Califor
nia market.41 The likelihood that all such production will
39 California’s Compassionate Use Act has since been amended, limiting
the catchall category to “[a]ny other chronic or persistent medical symp
tom that either: . . . [s]ubstantially limits the ability of the person to con
duct one or more major life activities as defined” in the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990, or “[i]f not alleviated, may cause serious harm to
the patient’s safety or physical or mental health.” Cal. Health & Safety
Code Ann. §§ 11362.7(h)(12)(A)–(B) (West Supp. 2005).
40 See, e. g., United States v. Moore, 423 U. S. 122 (1975); United States
v. Doremus, 249 U. S. 86 (1919).
41 The state policy allows patients to possess up to eight ounces of dried
marijuana, and to cultivate up to 6 mature or 12 immature plants. Cal.
Health & Safety Code Ann. § 11362.77(a) (West Supp. 2005). However,
the quantity limitations serve only as a floor. Based on a doctor’s recom
mendation, a patient can possess whatever quantity is necessary to satisfy
his medical needs, and cities and counties are given carte blanche to estab
lish more generous limits. Indeed, several cities and counties have done
just that. For example, patients residing in the cities of Oakland and
Santa Cruz and in the counties of Sonoma and Tehama are permitted to
possess up to 3 pounds of processed marijuana. Reply Brief for Petition
ers 18–19 (citing Proposition 215 Enforcement Guidelines). Putting that
quantity in perspective, 3 pounds of marijuana yields roughly 3,000 joints
or cigarettes. Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug
Control Policy, What America’s Users Spend on Illegal Drugs 24 (Dec.
2001), http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/american_
users_spend_2002.pdf. And the street price for that amount can range
anywhere from $900 to $24,000. DEA, Illegal Drug Price and Purity
Report (Apr. 2003) (DEA–02058).

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32 GONZALES v. RAICH
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promptly terminate when patients recover or will precisely
match the patients’ medical needs during their convalescence
seems remote; whereas the danger that excesses will satisfy
some of the admittedly enormous demand for recreational
use seems obvious.42 Moreover, that the national and inter
national narcotics trade has thrived in the face of vigorous
criminal enforcement efforts suggests that no small number
of unscrupulous people will make use of the California ex
emptions to serve their commercial ends whenever it is feasi
ble to do so.43 Taking into account the fact that California
is only one of at least nine States to have authorized the
medical use of marijuana, a fact Justice O’Connor’s dissent
conveniently disregards in arguing that the demonstrated ef
fect on commerce while admittedly “plausible” is ultimately
“unsubstantiated,” post, at 56, 55, Congress could have
rationally concluded that the aggregate impact on the na
tional market of all the transactions exempted from federal
supervision is unquestionably substantial.
So, from the “separate and distinct” class of activities iden
tified by the Court of Appeals (and adopted by the dissent
ers), we are left with “the intrastate, noncommercial cultiva
tion, possession and use of marijuana.” 352 F. 3d, at 1229.
Thus the case for the exemption comes down to the claim
that a locally cultivated product that is used domestically
42 For example, respondent Raich attests that she uses 2.5 ounces of
cannabis a week. App. 82. Yet as a resident of Oakland, she is entitled
to possess up to 3 pounds of processed marijuana at any given time, nearly
20 times more than she uses on a weekly basis.
43 See, e. g., People ex rel. Lungren v. Peron, 59 Cal. App. 4th 1383, 1386–
1387, 70 Cal. Rptr. 2d 20, 23 (1997) (recounting how a Cannabis Buyers’
Club engaged in an “indiscriminate and uncontrolled pattern of sale to
thousands of persons among the general public, including persons who had
not demonstrated any recommendation or approval of a physician and, in
fact, some of whom were not under the care of a physician, such as un
dercover officers,” and noting that “some persons who had purchased
marijuana on respondents’ premises were reselling it unlawfully on the
street”).

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rather than sold on the open market is not subject to federal
regulation. Given the findings in the CSA and the undis
puted magnitude of the commercial market for marijuana,
our decisions in Wickard v. Filburn and the later cases en
dorsing its reasoning foreclose that claim.
V
Respondents also raise a substantive due process claim
and seek to avail themselves of the medical necessity de
fense. These theories of relief were set forth in their com
plaint but were not reached by the Court of Appeals. We
therefore do not address the question whether judicial relief
is available to respondents on these alternative bases. We
do note, however, the presence of another avenue of relief.
As the Solicitor General confirmed during oral argument,
the statute authorizes procedures for the reclassification of
Schedule I drugs. But perhaps even more important than
these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the
voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day
be heard in the halls of Congress. Under the present state
of the law, however, the judgment of the Court of Appeals
must be vacated. The case is remanded for further proceed
ings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court’s holding that the Controlled Sub
stances Act (CSA) may validly be applied to respondents’
cultivation, distribution, and possession of marijuana for per
sonal, medicinal use. I write separately because my under
standing of the doctrinal foundation on which that holding
rests is, if not inconsistent with that of the Court, at least
more nuanced.
Since Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146 (1971), our cases
have mechanically recited that the Commerce Clause per
mits congressional regulation of three categories: (1) the

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34 GONZALES v. RAICH
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channels of interstate commerce; (2) the instrumentalities of
interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate
commerce; and (3) activities that “substantially affect” inter
state commerce. Id., at 150; see United States v. Morrison,
529 U. S. 598, 608–609 (2000); United States v. Lopez, 514
U. S. 549, 558–559 (1995); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Min
ing & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276–277 (1981).
The first two categories are self-evident, since they are the
ingredients of interstate commerce itself. See Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 189–190 (1824). The third category, how
ever, is different in kind, and its recitation without explana
tion is misleading and incomplete.
It is misleading because, unlike the channels, instrumen
talities, and agents of interstate commerce, activities that
substantially affect interstate commerce are not themselves
part of interstate commerce, and thus the power to regu
late them cannot come from the Commerce Clause alone.
Rather, as this Court has acknowledged since at least United
States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72 (1838), Congress’s regulatory
authority over intrastate activities that are not themselves
part of interstate commerce (including activities that have a
substantial effect on interstate commerce) derives from the
Necessary and Proper Clause. Id., at 78; Katzenbach v. Mc-
Clung, 379 U. S. 294, 301–302 (1964); United States v.
Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S. 110, 119 (1942); Shreveport
Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342, 353 (1914); United States v. E. C.
Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, 39–40 (1895) (Harlan, J., dissenting).1
And the category of “activities that substantially affect in
terstate commerce,” Lopez, supra, at 559, is incomplete be
cause the authority to enact laws necessary and proper for
the regulation of interstate commerce is not limited to laws
1 See also Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469
U. S. 528, 584–585 (1985) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (explaining that it
is through the Necessary and Proper Clause that “an intrastate activity
‘affecting’ interstate commerce can be reached through the commerce
power”).

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35 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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governing intrastate activities that substantially affect inter
state commerce. Where necessary to make a regulation of
interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even
those intrastate activities that do not themselves substan
tially affect interstate commerce.
I
Our cases show that the regulation of intrastate activities
may be necessary to and proper for the regulation of inter
state commerce in two general circumstances. Most di
rectly, the commerce power permits Congress not only to
devise rules for the governance of commerce between States
but also to facilitate interstate commerce by eliminating po
tential obstructions, and to restrict it by eliminating poten
tial stimulants. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.,
301 U. S. 1, 36–37 (1937). That is why the Court has repeat
edly sustained congressional legislation on the ground that
the regulated activities had a substantial effect on interstate
commerce. See, e. g., Hodel, supra, at 281 (surface coal min
ing); Katzenbach, supra, at 300 (discrimination by restau
rants); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379
U. S. 241, 258 (1964) (discrimination by hotels); Mandeville
Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S.
219, 237 (1948) (intrastate price fixing); Board of Trade of
Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U. S. 1, 40 (1923) (activities of a local
grain exchange); Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U. S. 495, 517, 524–
525 (1922) (intrastate transactions at stockyard). Lopez and
Morrison recognized the expansive scope of Congress’s au
thority in this regard: “[T]he pattern is clear. Where eco
nomic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, leg
islation regulating that activity will be sustained.” Lopez,
supra, at 560; Morrison, supra, at 610 (same).
This principle is not without limitation. In Lopez and
Morrison, the Court—conscious of the potential of the “sub
stantially affects” test to “ ‘obliterate the distinction between
what is national and what is local,’ ” Lopez, supra, at 566–567

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36 GONZALES v. RAICH
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
(quoting A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States,
295 U. S. 495, 554 (1935)); see also Morrison, supra, at 615–
616—rejected the argument that Congress may regulate
noneconomic activity based solely on the effect that it may
have on interstate commerce through a remote chain of infer
ences. Lopez, supra, at 564–566; Morrison, supra, at 617–
618. “[I]f we were to accept [such] arguments,” the Court
reasoned in Lopez, “we are hard pressed to posit any activity
by an individual that Congress is without power to regu
late.” 514 U. S., at 564; see also Morrison, supra, at 615–
616. Thus, although Congress’s authority to regulate intra
state activity that substantially affects interstate commerce
is broad, it does not permit the Court to “pile inference upon
inference,” Lopez, supra, at 567, in order to establish that
noneconomic activity has a substantial effect on interstate
commerce.
As we implicitly acknowledged in Lopez, however, Con
gress’s authority to enact laws necessary and proper for the
regulation of interstate commerce is not limited to laws di
rected against economic activities that have a substantial ef
fect on interstate commerce. Though the conduct in Lopez
was not economic, the Court nevertheless recognized that it
could be regulated as “an essential part of a larger regulation
of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could
be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.”
514 U. S., at 561. This statement referred to those cases
permitting the regulation of intrastate activities “which in a
substantial way interfere with or obstruct the exercise of the
granted power.” Wrightwood Dairy Co., supra, at 119; see
also United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 118–119 (1941);
Shreveport Rate Cases, supra, at 353. As the Court put it
in Wrightwood Dairy, where Congress has the authority to
enact a regulation of interstate commerce, “it possesses
every power needed to make that regulation effective.” 315
U. S., at 118–119.

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Although this power “to make . . . regulation effective”
commonly overlaps with the authority to regulate economic
activities that substantially affect interstate commerce,2 and
may in some cases have been confused with that authority,
the two are distinct. The regulation of an intrastate activ
ity may be essential to a comprehensive regulation of inter
state commerce even though the intrastate activity does not
itself “substantially affect” interstate commerce. Moreover,
as the passage from Lopez quoted above suggests, Congress
may regulate even noneconomic local activity if that regula
tion is a necessary part of a more general regulation of inter
state commerce. See Lopez, supra, at 561. The relevant
question is simply whether the means chosen are “reasonably
adapted” to the attainment of a legitimate end under the
commerce power. See Darby, supra, at 121.
In Darby, for instance, the Court explained that “Con
gress, having . . . adopted the policy of excluding from inter
state commerce all goods produced for the commerce which
do not conform to the specified labor standards,” 312 U. S.,
at 121, could not only require employers engaged in the pro
duction of goods for interstate commerce to conform to wage
and hour standards, id., at 119–121, but could also require
those employers to keep employment records in order to
demonstrate compliance with the regulatory scheme, id., at
125. While the Court sustained the former regulation on
the alternative ground that the activity it regulated could
have a “great effect” on interstate commerce, id., at 122–123,
it affirmed the latter on the sole ground that “[t]he require
2 Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), presented such a case. Be
cause the unregulated production of wheat for personal consumption di
minished demand in the regulated wheat market, the Court said, it carried
with it the potential to disrupt Congress’s price regulation by driving
down prices in the market. Id., at 127–129. This potential disruption
of Congress’s interstate regulation, and not only the effect that personal
consumption of wheat had on interstate commerce, justified Congress’s
regulation of that conduct. Id., at 128–129.

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38 GONZALES v. RAICH
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ment for records even of the intrastate transaction is an
appropriate means to the legitimate end,” id., at 125.
As the Court said in the Shreveport Rate Cases, the Nec
essary and Proper Clause does not give “Congress . . . the
authority to regulate the internal commerce of a State, as
such,” but it does allow Congress “to take all measures nec
essary or appropriate to” the effective regulation of the
interstate market, “although intrastate transactions . . . may
thereby be controlled.” 234 U. S., at 353; see also Jones
& Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S., at 38 (the logic of the
Shreveport Rate Cases is not limited to instrumentalities of
commerce).
II
Today’s principal dissent objects that, by permitting Con
gress to regulate activities necessary to effective interstate
regulation, the Court reduces Lopez and Morrison to little
“more than a drafting guide.” Post, at 46 (opinion of O’Con
nor, J.). I think that criticism unjustified. Unlike the
power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect
on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling
effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be ex
ercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an
interstate market, and it extends only to those measures
necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As
Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress
may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where
the failure to do so “could . . . undercut” its regulation of
interstate commerce. See Lopez, supra, at 561; ante, at 18,
24–25. This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the
line between “what is truly national and what is truly local.”
Lopez, supra, at 567–568.
Lopez and Morrison affirm that Congress may not regu
late certain “purely local” activity within the States based
solely on the attenuated effect that such activity may have
in the interstate market. But those decisions do not declare
noneconomic intrastate activities to be categorically beyond

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39 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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the reach of the Federal Government. Neither case in
volved the power of Congress to exert control over intra
state activities in connection with a more comprehensive
scheme of regulation; Lopez expressly disclaimed that it was
such a case, 514 U. S., at 561, and Morrison did not even
discuss the possibility that it was. (The Court of Appeals
in Morrison made clear that it was not. See Brzonkala v.
Virginia Polytechnic Inst., 169 F. 3d 820, 834–835 (CA4
1999) (en banc).) To dismiss this distinction as “superficial
and formalistic,” see post, at 47 (O’Connor, J., dissenting), is
to misunderstand the nature of the Necessary and Proper
Clause, which empowers Congress to enact laws in effectua
tion of its enumerated powers that are not within its author
ity to enact in isolation. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4
Wheat. 316, 421–422 (1819).
And there are other restraints upon the Necessary and
Proper Clause authority. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote
in McCulloch v. Maryland, even when the end is constitu
tional and legitimate, the means must be “appropriate” and
“plainly adapted” to that end. Id., at 421. Moreover, they
may not be otherwise “prohibited” and must be “consistent
with the letter and spirit of the constitution.” Ibid. These
phrases are not merely hortatory. For example, cases such
as Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898 (1997), and New
York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992), affirm that a law
is not “ ‘proper for carrying into Execution the Commerce
Clause’ ” “[w]hen [it] violates [a constitutional] principle of
state sovereignty.” Printz, supra, at 923–924; see also New
York, supra, at 166.
III
The application of these principles to the case before us is
straightforward. In the CSA, Congress has undertaken to
extinguish the interstate market in Schedule I controlled
substances, including marijuana. The Commerce Clause un
questionably permits this. The power to regulate interstate
commerce “extends not only to those regulations which aid,

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40 GONZALES v. RAICH
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foster and protect the commerce, but embraces those which
prohibit it.” Darby, 312 U. S., at 113. See also Hipolite
Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U. S. 45, 58 (1911); Lottery
Case, 188 U. S. 321, 354 (1903). To effectuate its objective,
Congress has prohibited almost all intrastate activities re
lated to Schedule I substances—both economic activities
(manufacture, distribution, possession with the intent to dis
tribute) and noneconomic activities (simple possession). See
21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a), 844(a). That simple possession is a non
economic activity is immaterial to whether it can be prohib
ited as a necessary part of a larger regulation. Rather,
Congress’s authority to enact all of these prohibitions of
intrastate controlled-substance activities depends only upon
whether they are appropriate means of achieving the legiti
mate end of eradicating Schedule I substances from inter
state commerce.
By this measure, I think the regulation must be sustained.
Not only is it impossible to distinguish “controlled substances
manufactured and distributed intrastate” from “controlled
substances manufactured and distributed interstate,” but it
hardly makes sense to speak in such terms. Drugs like mar
ijuana are fungible commodities. As the Court explains,
marijuana that is grown at home and possessed for personal
use is never more than an instant from the interstate mar
ket—and this is so whether or not the possession is for me
dicinal use or lawful use under the laws of a particular State.3
3 The principal dissent claims that, if this is sufficient to sustain the
regulation at issue in this case, then it should also have been sufficient to
sustain the regulation at issue in United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549
(1995). See post, at 52 (arguing that “we could have surmised in Lopez
that guns in school zones are ‘never more than an instant from the inter
state market’ in guns already subject to extensive federal regulation, re
cast Lopez as a Necessary and Proper Clause case, and thereby upheld the
Gun-Free School Zones Act” (citation omitted)). This claim founders upon
the shoals of Lopez itself, which made clear that the statute there at issue
was “not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity.”
Lopez, supra, at 561 (emphasis added). On the dissent’s view of things,

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41 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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See ante, at 25–33. Congress need not accept on faith that
state law will be effective in maintaining a strict division
between a lawful market for “medical” marijuana and the
more general marijuana market. See ante, at 30, and n. 38.
“To impose on [Congress] the necessity of resorting to means
which it cannot control, which another government may fur
nish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the re
sult of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on
other governments, which might disappoint its most impor
tant designs, and is incompatible with the language of the
constitution.” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 424.
Finally, neither respondents nor the dissenters suggest
any violation of state sovereignty of the sort that would ren
der this regulation “inappropriate,” id., at 421—except to
argue that the CSA regulates an area typically left to state
regulation. See post, at 48, 51 (opinion of O’Connor, J.);
post, at 66 (opinion of Thomas, J.); Brief for Respondents
39–42. That is not enough to render federal regulation an
inappropriate means. The Court has repeatedly recognized
that, if authorized by the commerce power, Congress may
regulate private endeavors “even when [that regulation] may
pre-empt express state-law determinations contrary to the
result which has commended itself to the collective wisdom
of Congress.” National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S.
833, 840 (1976); see Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14,
19 (1946); McCulloch, supra, at 424. At bottom, respond
that statement is inexplicable. Of course it is in addition difficult to imag
ine what intelligible scheme of regulation of the interstate market in guns
could have as an appropriate means of effectuation the prohibition of guns
within 1,000 feet of schools (and nowhere else). The dissent points to a
federal law, 18 U. S. C. § 922(b)(1), barring licensed dealers from selling
guns to minors, see post, at 52–53, but the relationship between the regu
latory scheme of which § 922(b)(1) is a part (requiring all dealers in fire
arms that have traveled in interstate commerce to be licensed, see § 922(a))
and the statute at issue in Lopez approaches the nonexistent—which is
doubtless why the Government did not attempt to justify the statute on
the basis of that relationship.

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42 GONZALES v. RAICH
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ents’ state-sovereignty argument reduces to the contention
that federal regulation of the activities permitted by Califor
nia’s Compassionate Use Act is not sufficiently necessary to
be “necessary and proper” to Congress’s regulation of the
interstate market. For the reasons given above and in the
Court’s opinion, I cannot agree.
* * *
I thus agree with the Court that, however the class of
regulated activities is subdivided, Congress could reasonably
conclude that its objective of prohibiting marijuana from the
interstate market “could be undercut” if those activities
were excepted from its general scheme of regulation. See
Lopez, 514 U. S., at 561. That is sufficient to authorize the
application of the CSA to respondents.
Justice O’Connor, with whom The Chief Justice and
Justice Thomas join as to all but Part III, dissenting.
We enforce the “outer limits” of Congress’ Commerce
Clause authority not for their own sake, but to protect his
toric spheres of state sovereignty from excessive federal
encroachment and thereby to maintain the distribution of
power fundamental to our federalist system of government.
United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 557 (1995); NLRB v.
Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937). One
of federalism’s chief virtues, of course, is that it promotes
innovation by allowing for the possibility that “a single cou
rageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a labora
tory; and try novel social and economic experiments without
risk to the rest of the country.” New State Ice Co. v. Lieb
mann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
This case exemplifies the role of States as laboratories.
The States’ core police powers have always included au
thority to define criminal law and to protect the health,
safety, and welfare of their citizens. Brecht v. Abrahamson,
507 U. S. 619, 635 (1993); Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 603,

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43 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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n. 30 (1977). Exercising those powers, California (by ballot
initiative and then by legislative codification) has come to its
own conclusion about the difficult and sensitive question of
whether marijuana should be available to relieve severe pain
and suffering. Today the Court sanctions an application of
the federal Controlled Substances Act that extinguishes that
experiment, without any proof that the personal cultivation,
possession, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, if
economic activity in the first place, has a substantial effect
on interstate commerce and is therefore an appropriate sub
ject of federal regulation. In so doing, the Court announces
a rule that gives Congress a perverse incentive to legislate
broadly pursuant to the Commerce Clause—nestling ques
tionable assertions of its authority into comprehensive regu
latory schemes—rather than with precision. That rule and
the result it produces in this case are irreconcilable with our
decisions in Lopez, supra, and United States v. Morrison,
529 U. S. 598 (2000). Accordingly I dissent.
I
In Lopez, we considered the constitutionality of the Gun-
Free School Zones Act of 1990, which made it a federal of
fense “for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm . . .
at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause
to believe, is a school zone,” 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(2)(A). We
explained that “Congress’ commerce authority includes the
power to regulate those activities having a substantial rela
tion to interstate commerce, i. e., those activities that sub
stantially affect interstate commerce.” 514 U. S., at 558–559
(citation omitted). This power derives from the conjunc
tion of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper
Clause. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit
Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 585–586 (1985) (O’Connor, J., dis
senting) (explaining that United States v. Darby, 312 U. S.
100 (1941), United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S.
110 (1942), and Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942),

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44 GONZALES v. RAICH
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based their expansion of the commerce power on the Neces
sary and Proper Clause, and that “the reasoning of these
cases underlies every recent decision concerning the reach
of Congress to activities affecting interstate commerce”);
ante, at 34 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). We held
in Lopez that the Gun-Free School Zones Act could not be
sustained as an exercise of that power.
Our decision about whether gun possession in school zones
substantially affected interstate commerce turned on four
considerations. Lopez, supra, at 559–567; see also Mor
rison, supra, at 609–613. First, we observed that our “sub
stantial effects” cases generally have upheld federal regula
tion of economic activity that affected interstate commerce,
but that § 922(q) was a criminal statute having “nothing to
do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of economic enterprise.”
Lopez, 514 U. S., at 561. In this regard, we also noted that
“[s]ection 922(q) is not an essential part of a larger regulation
of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could
be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.
It cannot, therefore, be sustained under our cases upholding
regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected
with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the ag
gregate, substantially affects interstate commerce.” Ibid.
Second, we noted that the statute contained no express juris
dictional requirement establishing its connection to inter
state commerce. Ibid.
Third, we found telling the absence of legislative findings
about the regulated conduct’s impact on interstate com
merce. We explained that while express legislative findings
are neither required nor, when provided, dispositive, findings
“enable us to evaluate the legislative judgment that the ac
tivity in question substantially affect[s] interstate commerce,
even though no such substantial effect [is] visible to the
naked eye.” Id., at 563. Finally, we rejected as too atten
uated the Government’s argument that firearm possession in
school zones could result in violent crime which in turn could

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45 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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adversely affect the national economy. Id., at 563–567.
The Constitution, we said, does not tolerate reasoning that
would “convert congressional authority under the Commerce
Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the
States.” Id., at 567. Later in Morrison, supra, we relied
on the same four considerations to hold that § 40302 of
the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 108 Stat. 1941,
42 U. S. C. § 13981, exceeded Congress’ authority under the
Commerce Clause.
In my view, the case before us is materially indistinguish
able from Lopez and Morrison when the same considerations
are taken into account.
II
A
What is the relevant conduct subject to Commerce Clause
analysis in this case? The Court takes its cues from Con
gress, applying the above considerations to the activity regu
lated by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in general.
The Court’s decision rests on two facts about the CSA:
(1) Congress chose to enact a single statute providing a com
prehensive prohibition on the production, distribution, and
possession of all controlled substances, and (2) Congress did
not distinguish between various forms of intrastate noncom
mercial cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana. See
21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a)(1), 844(a). Today’s decision suggests
that the federal regulation of local activity is immune to
Commerce Clause challenge because Congress chose to act
with an ambitious, all-encompassing statute, rather than
piecemeal. In my view, allowing Congress to set the terms
of the constitutional debate in this way, i. e., by packaging
regulation of local activity in broader schemes, is tantamount
to removing meaningful limits on the Commerce Clause.
The Court’s principal means of distinguishing Lopez from
this case is to observe that the Gun-Free School Zones Act
of 1990 was a “brief, single-subject statute,” ante, at 23,

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46 GONZALES v. RAICH
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whereas the CSA is “a lengthy and detailed statute creating
a comprehensive framework for regulating the production,
distribution, and possession of five classes of ‘controlled sub
stances,’ ” ante, at 24. Thus, according to the Court, it was
possible in Lopez to evaluate in isolation the constitutionality
of criminalizing local activity (there gun possession in school
zones), whereas the local activity that the CSA targets (in
this case cultivation and possession of marijuana for personal
medicinal use) cannot be separated from the general drug
control scheme of which it is a part.
Today’s decision allows Congress to regulate intrastate ac
tivity without check, so long as there is some implication by
legislative design that regulating intrastate activity is essen
tial (and the Court appears to equate “essential” with “neces
sary”) to the interstate regulatory scheme. Seizing upon
our language in Lopez that the statute prohibiting gun pos
session in school zones was “not an essential part of a larger
regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory
scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were
regulated,” 514 U. S., at 561, the Court appears to reason
that the placement of local activity in a comprehensive
scheme confirms that it is essential to that scheme. Ante,
at 24–25. If the Court is right, then Lopez stands for noth
ing more than a drafting guide: Congress should have de
scribed the relevant crime as “transfer or possession of a
firearm anywhere in the nation”—thus including commercial
and noncommercial activity, and clearly encompassing some
activity with assuredly substantial effect on interstate com
merce. Had it done so, the majority hints, we would have
sustained its authority to regulate possession of firearms in
school zones. Furthermore, today’s decision suggests we
would readily sustain a congressional decision to attach the
regulation of intrastate activity to a pre-existing comprehen
sive (or even not-so-comprehensive) scheme. If so, the
Court invites increased federal regulation of local activity
even if, as it suggests, Congress would not enact a new inter

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47 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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state scheme exclusively for the sake of reaching intrastate
activity, see ante, at 25, n. 34; ante, at 38–39 (Scalia, J.,
concurring in judgment).
I cannot agree that our decision in Lopez contemplated
such evasive or overbroad legislative strategies with ap
proval. Until today, such arguments have been made only
in dissent. See Morrison, 529 U. S., at 657 (Breyer, J., dis
senting) (given that Congress can regulate “ ‘an essential
part of a larger regulation of economic activity,’ ” “can Con
gress save the present law by including it, or much of it, in
a broader ‘Safe Transport’ or ‘Worker Safety’ act?”). Lopez
and Morrison did not indicate that the constitutionality of
federal regulation depends on superficial and formalistic dis
tinctions. Likewise I did not understand our discussion of
the role of courts in enforcing outer limits of the Commerce
Clause for the sake of maintaining the federalist balance our
Constitution requires, see Lopez, 514 U. S., at 557; id., at 578
(Kennedy, J., concurring), as a signal to Congress to enact
legislation that is more extensive and more intrusive into
the domain of state power. If the Court always defers to
Congress as it does today, little may be left to the notion of
enumerated powers.
The hard work for courts, then, is to identify objective
markers for confining the analysis in Commerce Clause
cases. Here, respondents challenge the constitutionality of
the CSA as applied to them and those similarly situated.
I agree with the Court that we must look beyond respond
ents’ own activities. Otherwise, individual litigants could
always exempt themselves from Commerce Clause regula
tion merely by pointing to the obvious—that their personal
activities do not have a substantial effect on interstate com
merce. See Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 193 (1968);
Wickard, 317 U. S., at 127–128. The task is to identify a
mode of analysis that allows Congress to regulate more than
nothing (by declining to reduce each case to its litigants) and
less than everything (by declining to let Congress set the

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48 GONZALES v. RAICH
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terms of analysis). The analysis may not be the same in
every case, for it depends on the regulatory scheme at issue
and the federalism concerns implicated. See generally
Lopez, 514 U. S., at 567; id., at 579 (Kennedy, J., concurring).
A number of objective markers are available to confine the
scope of constitutional review here. Both federal and state
legislation—including the CSA itself, the California Compas
sionate Use Act, and other state medical marijuana legisla
tion—recognize that medical and nonmedical (i. e., recre
ational) uses of drugs are realistically distinct and can be
segregated, and regulate them differently. See 21 U. S. C.
§ 812; Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 11362.5 (West Supp.
2005); ante, at 5 (opinion of the Court). Respondents chal
lenge only the application of the CSA to medicinal use of
marijuana. Cf. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 20–22
(1960) (describing our preference for as-applied rather than
facial challenges). Moreover, because fundamental struc
tural concerns about dual sovereignty animate our Com
merce Clause cases, it is relevant that this case involves the
interplay of federal and state regulation in areas of criminal
law and social policy, where “States lay claim by right of
history and expertise.” Lopez, supra, at 583 (Kennedy, J.,
concurring); see also Morrison, supra, at 617–619; Lopez,
supra, at 580 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (“The statute before
us upsets the federal balance to a degree that renders it an
unconstitutional assertion of the commerce power, and our
intervention is required”); cf. Garcia, 469 U. S., at 586
(O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“[S]tate autonomy is a relevant
factor in assessing the means by which Congress exercises
its powers” under the Commerce Clause). California, like
other States, has drawn on its reserved powers to distin
guish the regulation of medicinal marijuana. To ascertain
whether Congress’ encroachment is constitutionally justified
in this case, then, I would focus here on the personal cultiva
tion, possession, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

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B
Having thus defined the relevant conduct, we must deter
mine whether, under our precedents, the conduct is economic
and, in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate com
merce. Even if intrastate cultivation and possession of mar
ijuana for one’s own medicinal use can properly be character
ized as economic, and I question whether it can, it has not
been shown that such activity substantially affects interstate
commerce. Similarly, it is neither self-evident nor dem
onstrated that regulating such activity is necessary to the
interstate drug control scheme.
The Court’s definition of economic activity is breathtaking.
It defines as economic any activity involving the production,
distribution, and consumption of commodities. And it ap
pears to reason that when an interstate market for a com
modity exists, regulating the intrastate manufacture or pos
session of that commodity is constitutional either because
that intrastate activity is itself economic, or because regulat
ing it is a rational part of regulating its market. Putting to
one side the problem endemic to the Court’s opinion—the
shift in focus from the activity at issue in this case to the
entirety of what the CSA regulates, see Lopez, supra, at 565
(“depending on the level of generality, any activity can be
looked upon as commercial”)—the Court’s definition of eco
nomic activity for purposes of Commerce Clause jurispru
dence threatens to sweep all of productive human activity
into federal regulatory reach.
The Court uses a dictionary definition of economics to skirt
the real problem of drawing a meaningful line between
“what is national and what is local,” Jones & Laughlin Steel,
301 U. S., at 37. It will not do to say that Congress may
regulate noncommercial activity simply because it may have
an effect on the demand for commercial goods, or because
the noncommercial endeavor can, in some sense, substitute
for commercial activity. Most commercial goods or services
have some sort of privately producible analogue. Home care

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50 GONZALES v. RAICH
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substitutes for daycare. Charades games substitute for
movie tickets. Backyard or windowsill gardening substi
tutes for going to the supermarket. To draw the line wher
ever private activity affects the demand for market goods is
to draw no line at all, and to declare everything economic.
We have already rejected the result that would follow—a
federal police power. Lopez, supra, at 564.
In Lopez and Morrison, we suggested that economic activ
ity usually relates directly to commercial activity. See Mor
rison, 529 U. S., at 611, n. 4 (intrastate activities that have
been within Congress’ power to regulate have been “of an
apparent commercial character”); Lopez, 514 U. S., at 561
(distinguishing the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 from
“activities that arise out of or are connected with a commer
cial transaction”). The homegrown cultivation and personal
possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has
no apparent commercial character. Everyone agrees that
the marijuana at issue in this case was never in the stream
of commerce, and neither were the supplies for growing it.
(Marijuana is highly unusual among the substances subject
to the CSA in that it can be cultivated without any materials
that have traveled in interstate commerce.) Lopez makes
clear that possession is not itself commercial activity. Ibid.
And respondents have not come into possession by means of
any commercial transaction; they have simply grown, in their
own homes, marijuana for their own use, without acquiring,
buying, selling, or bartering a thing of value. Cf. id., at 583
(Kennedy, J., concurring) (“The statute now before us fore
closes the States from experimenting . . . and it does so by
regulating an activity beyond the realm of commerce in the
ordinary and usual sense of that term”).
The Court suggests that Wickard, which we have identi
fied as “perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce
Clause authority over intrastate activity,” Lopez, supra, at
560, established federal regulatory power over any home
consumption of a commodity for which a national market ex

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ists. I disagree. Wickard involved a challenge to the Ag
ricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (AAA), which directed the
Secretary of Agriculture to set national quotas on wheat pro
duction, and penalties for excess production. 317 U. S., at
115–116. The AAA itself confirmed that Congress made an
explicit choice not to reach—and thus the Court could not
possibly have approved of federal control over—small-scale,
noncommercial wheat farming. In contrast to the CSA’s
limitless assertion of power, Congress provided an exemp
tion within the AAA for small producers. When Filburn
planted the wheat at issue in Wickard, the statute exempted
plantings less than 200 bushels (about six tons), and when he
harvested his wheat it exempted plantings less than six
acres. Id., at 130, n. 30. Wickard, then, did not extend
Commerce Clause authority to something as modest as the
home cook’s herb garden. This is not to say that Congress
may never regulate small quantities of commodities pos
sessed or produced for personal use, or to deny that it some
times needs to enact a zero tolerance regime for such com
modities. It is merely to say that Wickard did not hold or
imply that small-scale production of commodities is always
economic, and automatically within Congress’ reach.
Even assuming that economic activity is at issue in this
case, the Government has made no showing in fact that the
possession and use of homegrown marijuana for medical pur
poses, in California or elsewhere, has a substantial effect on
interstate commerce. Similarly, the Government has not
shown that regulating such activity is necessary to an inter
state regulatory scheme. Whatever the specific theory of
“substantial effects” at issue (i. e., whether the activity sub
stantially affects interstate commerce, whether its regula
tion is necessary to an interstate regulatory scheme, or
both), a concern for dual sovereignty requires that Congress’
excursion into the traditional domain of States be justified.
That is why characterizing this as a case about the Neces
sary and Proper Clause does not change the analysis signifi

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cantly. Congress must exercise its authority under the Nec
essary and Proper Clause in a manner consistent with basic
constitutional principles. Garcia, 469 U. S., at 585 (O’Con
nor, J., dissenting) (“It is not enough that the ‘end be legiti
mate’; the means to that end chosen by Congress must not
contravene the spirit of the Constitution”). As Justice
Scalia recognizes, see ante, at 39 (opinion concurring in
judgment), Congress cannot use its authority under the
Clause to contravene the principle of state sovereignty em
bodied in the Tenth Amendment. Likewise, that authority
must be used in a manner consistent with the notion of enu
merated powers—a structural principle that is as much part
of the Constitution as the Tenth Amendment’s explicit tex
tual command. Accordingly, something more than mere as
sertion is required when Congress purports to have power
over local activity whose connection to an interstate market
is not self-evident. Otherwise, the Necessary and Proper
Clause will always be a back door for unconstitutional fed
eral regulation. Cf. Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898,
923 (1997) (the Necessary and Proper Clause is “the last,
best hope of those who defend ultra vires congressional ac
tion”). Indeed, if it were enough in “substantial effects”
cases for the Court to supply conceivable justifications for
intrastate regulation related to an interstate market, then
we could have surmised in Lopez that guns in school zones
are “never more than an instant from the interstate market”
in guns already subject to extensive federal regulation, ante,
at 40 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), recast Lopez as a
Necessary and Proper Clause case, and thereby upheld the
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. (According to the
Court’s and the concurrence’s logic, for example, the Lopez
Court should have reasoned that the prohibition on gun pos
session in school zones could be an appropriate means of ef
fectuating a related prohibition on “sell[ing]” or “deliver
[ing]” firearms or ammunition to “any individual who the
licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than

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53 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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eighteen years of age.” 18 U. S. C. § 922(b)(1) (1988 ed.,
Supp. II).)
There is simply no evidence that homegrown medicinal
marijuana users constitute, in the aggregate, a sizable
enough class to have a discernable, let alone substantial, im
pact on the national illicit drug market—or otherwise to
threaten the CSA regime. Explicit evidence is helpful when
substantial effect is not “visible to the naked eye.” See
Lopez, 514 U. S., at 563. And here, in part because common
sense suggests that medical marijuana users may be limited
in number and that California’s Compassionate Use Act and
similar state legislation may well isolate activities relating
to medicinal marijuana from the illicit market, the effect
of those activities on interstate drug traffic is not self
evidently substantial.
In this regard, again, this case is readily distinguishable
from Wickard. To decide whether the Secretary could reg
ulate local wheat farming, the Court looked to “the actual
effects of the activity in question upon interstate commerce.”
317 U. S., at 120. Critically, the Court was able to consider
“actual effects” because the parties had “stipulated a sum
mary of the economics of the wheat industry.” Id., at 125.
After reviewing in detail the picture of the industry pro
vided in that summary, the Court explained that consump
tion of homegrown wheat was the most variable factor in the
size of the national wheat crop, and that on-site consumption
could have the effect of varying the amount of wheat sent to
market by as much as 20 percent. Id., at 127. With real
numbers at hand, the Wickard Court could easily conclude
that “a factor of such volume and variability as home
consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price
and market conditions” nationwide. Id., at 128; see also id.,
at 128–129 (“This record leaves us in no doubt” about sub
stantial effects).
The Court recognizes that “the record in the Wickard case
itself established the causal connection between the produc

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54 GONZALES v. RAICH
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tion for local use and the national market” and argues that
“we have before us findings by Congress to the same effect.”
Ante, at 20 (emphasis added). The Court refers to a series
of declarations in the introduction to the CSA saying that
(1) local distribution and possession of controlled substances
causes “swelling” in interstate traffic; (2) local production
and distribution cannot be distinguished from interstate pro
duction and distribution; (3) federal control over intrastate
incidents “is essential to the effective control” over inter
state drug trafficking. 21 U. S. C. §§ 801(1)–(6). These bare
declarations cannot be compared to the record before the
Court in Wickard.
They amount to nothing more than a legislative insistence
that the regulation of controlled substances must be abso
lute. They are asserted without any supporting evidence—
descriptive, statistical, or otherwise. “[S]imply because
Congress may conclude that a particular activity substan
tially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make
it so.” Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation
Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 311 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., concur
ring in judgment). Indeed, if declarations like these suffice
to justify federal regulation, and if the Court today is right
about what passes rationality review before us, then our de
cision in Morrison should have come out the other way. In
that case, Congress had supplied numerous findings regard
ing the impact gender-motivated violence had on the national
economy. 529 U. S., at 614; id., at 628–636 (Souter, J.,
dissenting) (chronicling findings). But, recognizing that
“ ‘ “[w]hether particular operations affect interstate com
merce sufficiently to come under the constitutional power of
Congress to regulate them is ultimately a judicial rather
than a legislative question,” ’ ” we found Congress’ detailed
findings inadequate. Id., at 614 (quoting Lopez, supra, at
557, n. 2, in turn quoting Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v.
United States, 379 U. S. 241, 273 (1964) (Black, J., concur
ring)). If, as the Court claims, today’s decision does not

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55 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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break with precedent, how can it be that voluminous find
ings, documenting extensive hearings about the specific topic
of violence against women, did not pass constitutional muster
in Morrison, while the CSA’s abstract, unsubstantiated, gen
eralized findings about controlled substances do?
In particular, the CSA’s introductory declarations are too
vague and unspecific to demonstrate that the federal statu
tory scheme will be undermined if Congress cannot exert
power over individuals like respondents. The declarations
are not even specific to marijuana. (Facts about substantial
effects may be developed in litigation to compensate for the
inadequacy of Congress’ findings; in part because this case
comes to us from the grant of a preliminary injunction, there
has been no such development.) Because here California,
like other States, has carved out a limited class of activity
for distinct regulation, the inadequacy of the CSA’s findings
is especially glaring. The California Compassionate Use
Act exempts from other state drug laws patients and their
caregivers “who posses[s] or cultivat[e] marijuana for the
personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written
or oral recommendation or approval of a physician” to treat
a list of serious medical conditions. Cal. Health & Safety
Code Ann. §§ 11362.5(d), 11362.7(h) (West Supp. 2005) (em
phasis added). Compare ibid. with, e. g., § 11357(b) (West
1991) (criminalizing marijuana possession in excess of 28.5
grams); § 11358 (criminalizing marijuana cultivation). The
Act specifies that it should not be construed to supersede
legislation prohibiting persons from engaging in acts danger
ous to others, or to condone the diversion of marijuana for
nonmedical purposes. § 11362.5(b)(2) (West Supp. 2005).
To promote the Act’s operation and to facilitate law enforce
ment, California recently enacted an identification card sys
tem for qualified patients. §§ 11362.7–11362.83. We gener
ally assume States enforce their laws, see Riley v. National
Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781, 795 (1988),
and have no reason to think otherwise here.

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The Government has not overcome empirical doubt that
the number of Californians engaged in personal cultivation,
possession, and use of medical marijuana, or the amount of
marijuana they produce, is enough to threaten the federal
regime. Nor has it shown that Compassionate Use Act mar
ijuana users have been or are realistically likely to be respon
sible for the drug’s seeping into the market in a significant
way. The Government does cite one estimate that there
were over 100,000 Compassionate Use Act users in Califor
nia in 2004, Reply Brief for Petitioners 16, but does not ex
plain, in terms of proportions, what their presence means
for the national illicit drug market. See generally Wirtz,
392 U. S., at 196, n. 27 (Congress cannot use “a relatively
trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general
regulation of state or private activities”); cf. General Ac
counting Office, Marijuana: Early Experiences with Four
States’ Laws That Allow Use for Medical Purposes 21–23
(Rep. No. 03–189, Nov. 2002), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/
d03189.pdf (as visited June 3, 2005, and available in Clerk
of Court’s case file) (in four California counties before the
identification card system was enacted, voluntarily regis
tered medical marijuana patients were less than 0.5 percent
of the population; in Alaska, Hawaii, and Oregon, statewide
medical marijuana registrants represented less than 0.05
percent of the States’ populations). It also provides anec
dotal evidence about the CSA’s enforcement. See Reply
Brief for Petitioners 17–18. The Court also offers some ar
guments about the effect of the Compassionate Use Act on
the national market. It says that the California statute
might be vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous physi
cians, that Compassionate Use Act patients may overpro
duce, and that the history of the narcotics trade shows the
difficulty of cordoning off any drug use from the rest of the
market. These arguments are plausible; if borne out in fact
they could justify prosecuting Compassionate Use Act pa
tients under the federal CSA. But, without substantiation,

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57 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Thomas, J., dissenting
they add little to the CSA’s conclusory statements about di
version, essentiality, and market effect. Piling assertion
upon assertion does not, in my view, satisfy the substantial
ity test of Lopez and Morrison.
III
We would do well to recall how James Madison, the father
of the Constitution, described our system of joint sover
eignty to the people of New York: “The powers delegated by
the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few
and defined. Those which are to remain in the State gov
ernments are numerous and indefinite. . . . The powers re
served to the several States will extend to all the objects
which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives,
liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order,
improvement, and prosperity of the State.” The Federalist
No. 45, pp. 292–293 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).
Relying on Congress’ abstract assertions, the Court has
endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts
of marijuana in one’s own home for one’s own medicinal use.
This overreaching stifles an express choice by some States,
concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regu
late medical marijuana differently. If I were a California
citizen, I would not have voted for the medical marijuana
ballot initiative; if I were a California legislator I would
not have supported the Compassionate Use Act. But what
ever the wisdom of California’s experiment with medical
marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our
Commerce Clause cases require that room for experiment be
protected in this case. For these reasons I dissent.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use mari
juana that has never been bought or sold, that has never
crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect
on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can reg

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58 GONZALES v. RAICH
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ulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate
virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no
longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
I
Respondents’ local cultivation and consumption of mari
juana is not “Commerce . . . among the several States.”
U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. By holding that Congress may
regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce
under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons
any attempt to enforce the Constitution’s limits on federal
power. The majority supports this conclusion by invoking,
without explanation, the Necessary and Proper Clause.
Regulating respondents’ conduct, however, is not “necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution” Congress’ restric
tions on the interstate drug trade. Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. Thus,
neither the Commerce Clause nor the Necessary and Proper
Clause grants Congress the power to regulate respondents’
conduct.
A
As I explained at length in United States v. Lopez, 514
U. S. 549 (1995), the Commerce Clause empowers Congress
to regulate the buying and selling of goods and services traf
ficked across state lines. Id., at 586–589 (concurring opin
ion). The Clause’s text, structure, and history all indicate
that, at the time of the founding, the term “ ‘commerce’ con
sisted of selling, buying, and bartering, as well as transport
ing for these purposes.” Id., at 585 (Thomas, J., concur
ring). Commerce, or trade, stood in contrast to productive
activities like manufacturing and agriculture. Id., at 586–
587 (Thomas, J., concurring). Throughout founding-era dic
tionaries, Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Conven
tion, The Federalist Papers, and the ratification debates, the
term “commerce” is consistently used to mean trade or ex
change—not all economic or gainful activity that has some
attenuated connection to trade or exchange. Ibid. (Thomas,

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59 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Thomas, J., dissenting
J., concurring); Barnett, The Original Meaning of the Com
merce Clause, 68 U. Chi. L. Rev. 101, 112–125 (2001). The
term “commerce” commonly meant trade or exchange (and
shipping for these purposes) not simply to those involved in
the drafting and ratification processes, but also to the gen
eral public. Barnett, New Evidence of the Original Mean
ing of the Commerce Clause, 55 Ark. L. Rev. 847, 857–862
(2003).
Even the majority does not argue that respondents’ con
duct is itself “Commerce among the several States,” Art. I,
§ 8, cl. 3. Ante, at 22. Monson and Raich neither buy nor
sell the marijuana that they consume. They cultivate their
cannabis entirely in the State of California—it never crosses
state lines, much less as part of a commercial transaction.
Certainly no evidence from the founding suggests that “com
merce” included the mere possession of a good or some
purely personal activity that did not involve trade or ex
change for value. In the early days of the Republic, it would
have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local
cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.
On this traditional understanding of “commerce,” the Con
trolled Substances Act (CSA), 21 U. S. C. § 801 et seq., regu
lates a great deal of marijuana trafficking that is interstate
and commercial in character. The CSA does not, however,
criminalize only the interstate buying and selling of mari
juana. Instead, it bans the entire market—intrastate or in
terstate, noncommercial or commercial—for marijuana. Re
spondents are correct that the CSA exceeds Congress’
commerce power as applied to their conduct, which is purely
intrastate and noncommercial.
B
More difficult, however, is whether the CSA is a valid ex
ercise of Congress’ power to enact laws that are “necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution” its power to regu
late interstate commerce. Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. The Necessary

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60 GONZALES v. RAICH
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and Proper Clause is not a warrant to Congress to enact any
law that bears some conceivable connection to the exercise
of an enumerated power.1 Nor is it, however, a command to
Congress to enact only laws that are absolutely indispensable
to the exercise of an enumerated power.2
In McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), this
Court, speaking through Chief Justice Marshall, set forth a
test for determining when an Act of Congress is permissible
under the Necessary and Proper Clause:
“Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of
the constitution, and all means which are appropriate,
which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not
prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the
constitution, are constitutional.” Id., at 421.
To act under the Necessary and Proper Clause, then, Con
gress must select a means that is “appropriate” and “plainly
adapted” to executing an enumerated power; the means can
not be otherwise “prohibited” by the Constitution; and the
means cannot be inconsistent with “the letter and spirit of
the [C]onstitution.” Ibid.; D. Currie, The Constitution in
the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years 1789–1888,
pp. 163–164 (1985). The CSA, as applied to respondents’
conduct, is not a valid exercise of Congress’ power under the
Necessary and Proper Clause.
1
Congress has exercised its power over interstate com
merce to criminalize trafficking in marijuana across state
1 McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 419–421 (1819); Madison, The
Bank Bill, House of Representatives (Feb. 2, 1791), in 3 The Founders’
Constitution 244 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987) (requiring “direct”
rather than “remote” means-end fit); Hamilton, Opinion on the Constitu
tionality of the Bank (Feb. 23, 1791), in id., at 248, 250 (requiring “obvious”
means-end fit, where the end was “clearly comprehended within any of
the specified powers” of Congress).
2 McCulloch, supra, at 413–415; D. Currie, The Constitution in the Su
preme Court: The First Hundred Years 1789–1888, p. 162 (1985).

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lines. The Government contends that banning Monson and
Raich’s intrastate drug activity is “necessary and proper
for carrying into Execution” its regulation of interstate drug
trafficking. Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. See 21 U. S. C. § 801(6).
However, in order to be “necessary,” the intrastate ban must
be more than “a reasonable means [of] effectuat[ing] the reg
ulation of interstate commerce.” Brief for Petitioners 14;
see ante, at 22 (majority opinion) (employing rational-basis
review). It must be “plainly adapted” to regulating inter
state marijuana trafficking—in other words, there must be
an “obvious, simple, and direct relation” between the intra
state ban and the regulation of interstate commerce. Sabri
v. United States, 541 U. S. 600, 613 (2004) (Thomas, J., con
curring in judgment); see also United States v. Dewitt, 9
Wall. 41, 44 (1870) (finding ban on intrastate sale of lighting
oils not “appropriate and plainly adapted means for carrying
into execution” Congress’ taxing power).
On its face, a ban on the intrastate cultivation, possession,
and distribution of marijuana may be plainly adapted to stop
ping the interstate flow of marijuana. Unregulated local
growers and users could swell both the supply and the de
mand sides of the interstate marijuana market, making the
market more difficult to regulate. Ante, at 12–13, 22 (major
ity opinion). But respondents do not challenge the CSA on
its face. Instead, they challenge it as applied to their
conduct. The question is thus whether the intrastate ban
is “necessary and proper” as applied to medical marijuana
users like respondents.3
Respondents are not regulable simply because they belong
to a large class (local growers and users of marijuana) that
3 Because respondents do not challenge on its face the CSA’s ban on
marijuana, 21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a)(1), 844(a), our adjudication of their as
applied challenge casts no doubt on this Court’s practice in United States
v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549 (1995), and United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598
(2000). In those cases, we held that Congress, in enacting the statutes at
issue, had exceeded its Article I powers.

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Congress might need to reach, if they also belong to a dis
tinct and separable subclass (local growers and users of
state-authorized, medical marijuana) that does not under
mine the CSA’s interstate ban. Ante, at 47–48 (O’Connor,
J., dissenting). The Court of Appeals found that respond
ents’ “limited use is clearly distinct from the broader illicit
drug market,” because “th[eir] medicinal marijuana . . . is not
intended for, nor does it enter, the stream of commerce.”
Raich v. Ashcroft, 352 F. 3d 1222, 1228 (CA9 2003). If that
is generally true of individuals who grow and use marijuana
for medical purposes under state law, then even assuming
Congress has “obvious” and “plain” reasons why regulating
intrastate cultivation and possession is necessary to regulat
ing the interstate drug trade, none of those reasons applies
to medical marijuana patients like Monson and Raich.
California’s Compassionate Use Act sets respondents’
conduct apart from other intrastate producers and users of
marijuana. The Act channels marijuana use to “seriously
ill Californians, ” Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann.
§ 11362.5(b)(1)(A) (West Supp. 2005), and prohibits “the
diversion of marijuana for nonmedical purposes, ”
§ 11362.5(b)(2).4 California strictly controls the cultivation
and possession of marijuana for medical purposes. To be
eligible for its program, California requires that a patient
have an illness that cannabis can relieve, such as cancer,
AIDS, or arthritis, § 11362.5(b)(1)(A), and that he obtain a
physician’s recommendation or approval, § 11362.5(d). Qual
ified patients must provide personal and medical informa
tion to obtain medical identification cards, and there is a
statewide registry of cardholders. §§ 11362.715–11362.76.
Moreover, the Medical Board of California has issued guide
lines for physicians’ cannabis recommendations, and it sanc
tions physicians who do not comply with the guidelines.
4 Other States likewise prohibit diversion of marijuana for nonmedical
purposes. See, e. g., Colo. Const., Art. XVIII, § 14(2)(d); Nev. Rev. Stat.
§§ 453A.300(1)(e)–(f) (2003); Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 475.316(1)(c)–(d) (2003).

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See, e. g., People v. Spark, 121 Cal. App. 4th 259, 263, 16 Cal.
Rptr. 3d 840, 843 (2004).
This class of intrastate users is therefore distinguishable
from others. We normally presume that States enforce
their own laws, Riley v. National Federation of Blind of
N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781, 795 (1988), and there is no reason
to depart from that presumption here: Nothing suggests that
California’s controls are ineffective. The scant evidence
that exists suggests that few people—the vast majority of
whom are aged 40 or older—register to use medical mari
juana. General Accounting Office, Marijuana: Early Experi
ences with Four States’ Laws That Allow Use for Medical
Purposes 22–23 (Rep. No. 03–189, Nov. 2002), http://www.
gao.gov/new.items/d03189.pdf (all Internet materials as vis
ited June 3, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
In part because of the low incidence of medical marijuana
use, many law enforcement officials report that the intro
duction of medical marijuana laws has not affected their law
enforcement efforts. Id., at 32.
These controls belie the Government’s assertion that plac
ing medical marijuana outside the CSA’s reach “would pre
vent effective enforcement of the interstate ban on drug traf
ficking.” Brief for Petitioners 33. Enforcement of the CSA
can continue as it did prior to the Compassionate Use Act.
Only now, a qualified patient could avoid arrest or prosecu
tion by presenting his identification card to law enforcement
officers. In the event that a qualified patient is arrested for
possession or his cannabis is seized, he could seek to prove
as an affirmative defense that, in conformity with state law,
he possessed or cultivated small quantities of marijuana in
trastate solely for personal medical use. People v. Mower,
28 Cal. 4th 457, 469–470, 49 P. 3d 1067, 1073–1075 (2002);
People v. Trippet, 56 Cal. App. 4th 1532, 1549, 66 Cal. Rptr.
2d 559, 560 (1997). Moreover, under the CSA, certain drugs
that present a high risk of abuse and addiction but that nev
ertheless have an accepted medical use—drugs like mor

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64 GONZALES v. RAICH
Thomas, J., dissenting
phine and amphetamines—are available by prescription. 21
U. S. C. §§ 812(b)(2)(A)–(B); 21 CFR § 1308.12 (2004). No one
argues that permitting use of these drugs under medical su
pervision has undermined the CSA’s restrictions.
But even assuming that States’ controls allow some seep
age of medical marijuana into the illicit drug market, there
is a multibillion-dollar interstate market for marijuana. Ex
ecutive Office of the President, Office of Nat. Drug Control
Policy, Marijuana Fact Sheet 5 (Feb. 2004), http://www.
whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/marijuana/
index.html. It is difficult to see how this vast market could
be affected by diverted medical cannabis, let alone in a way
that makes regulating intrastate medical marijuana obvi
ously essential to controlling the interstate drug market.
To be sure, Congress declared that state policy would dis
rupt federal law enforcement. It believed the across-the
board ban essential to policing interstate drug trafficking.
21 U. S. C. § 801(6). But as Justice O’Connor points out,
Congress presented no evidence in support of its conclusions,
which are not so much findings of fact as assertions of power.
Ante, at 53–55 (dissenting opinion). Congress cannot define
the scope of its own power merely by declaring the necessity
of its enactments.
In sum, neither in enacting the CSA nor in defending its
application to respondents has the Government offered any
obvious reason why banning medical marijuana use is neces
sary to stem the tide of interstate drug trafficking. Con
gress’ goal of curtailing the interstate drug trade would not
plainly be thwarted if it could not apply the CSA to patients
like Monson and Raich. That is, unless Congress’ aim is
really to exercise police power of the sort reserved to the
States in order to eliminate even the intrastate possession
and use of marijuana.
2
Even assuming the CSA’s ban on locally cultivated and
consumed marijuana is “necessary,” that does not mean it is

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65 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
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also “proper.” The means selected by Congress to regulate
interstate commerce cannot be “prohibited” by, or inconsist
ent with the “letter and spirit” of, the Constitution. McCul
loch, 4 Wheat., at 421.
In Lopez, I argued that allowing Congress to regulate
intrastate, noncommercial activity under the Commerce
Clause would confer on Congress a general “police power”
over the Nation. 514 U. S., at 584, 600 (concurring opinion).
This is no less the case if Congress ties its power to the
Necessary and Proper Clause rather than the Commerce
Clause. When agents from the Drug Enforcement Admin
istration raided Monson’s home, they seized six cannabis
plants. If the Federal Government can regulate growing a
half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not be
cause it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably
bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress’ Arti
cle I powers—as expanded by the Necessary and Proper
Clause—have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress
aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other
items, it may continue to “appropriat[e] state police powers
under the guise of regulating commerce.” United States v.
Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, 627 (2000) (Thomas, J., concurring).
Even if Congress may regulate purely intrastate activity
when essential to exercising some enumerated power, see
Dewitt, 9 Wall., at 44; but see Barnett, The Original Meaning
of the Necessary and Proper Clause, 6 U. Pa. J. Const. L.
183, 186 (2003) (detailing statements by Founders that the
Necessary and Proper Clause was not intended to expand
the scope of Congress’ enumerated powers), Congress may
not use its incidental authority to subvert basic principles of
federalism and dual sovereignty. Printz v. United States,
521 U. S. 898, 923–924 (1997); Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706,
732–733 (1999); Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit
Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 585 (1985) (O’Connor, J., dissent
ing); The Federalist No. 33, pp. 204–205 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)
(A. Hamilton) (hereinafter The Federalist).

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Here, Congress has encroached on States’ traditional po
lice powers to define the criminal law and to protect the
health, safety, and welfare of their citizens.5 Brecht v. Abra
hamson, 507 U. S. 619, 635 (1993); Hillsborough County v.
Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 719
(1985). Further, the Government’s rationale—that it may
regulate the production or possession of any commodity for
which there is an interstate market—threatens to remove
the remaining vestiges of States’ traditional police powers.
See Brief for Petitioners 21–22; cf. Ehrlich, The Increasing
Federalization of Crime, 32 Ariz. St. L. J. 825, 826, 841 (2000)
(describing both the relative recency of a large percentage
of federal crimes and the lack of a relationship between some
of these crimes and interstate commerce). This would con
vert the Necessary and Proper Clause into precisely what
Chief Justice Marshall did not envision, a “pretext . . . for the
accomplishment of objects not intrusted to the government.”
McCulloch, supra, at 423.
5 In fact, the Anti-Federalists objected that the Necessary and Proper
Clause would allow Congress, inter alia, to “constitute new Crimes, . . .
and extend [its] Power as far as [it] shall think proper; so that the State
Legislatures have no Security for the Powers now presumed to remain to
them; or the People for their Rights.” Mason, Objections to the Constitu
tion Formed by the Convention (1787), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist
11, 12–13 (H. Storing ed. 1981) (emphasis added). Hamilton responded
that these objections were gross “misrepresentation[s].” The Federalist
No. 33, at 204. He termed the Clause “perfectly harmless,” for it merely
confirmed Congress’ implied authority to enact laws in exercising its enu
merated powers. Id., at 205; see also Lopez, 514 U. S., at 597, n. 6
(Thomas, J., concurring) (discussing Congress’ limited ability to establish
nationwide criminal prohibitions); Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 426–
428 (1821) (finding it “clear, that Congress cannot punish felonies gener
ally,” except in areas over which it possesses plenary power). According
to Hamilton, the Clause was needed only “to guard against cavilling re
finements” by those seeking to cripple federal power. The Federalist
No. 33, at 205; id., No. 44, at 303–304 (J. Madison).

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II
The majority advances three reasons why the CSA is a
legitimate exercise of Congress’ authority under the Com
merce Clause: First, respondents’ conduct, taken in the ag
gregate, may substantially affect interstate commerce, ante,
at 22; second, regulation of respondents’ conduct is essential
to regulating the interstate marijuana market, ante, at
24–25; and, third, regulation of respondents’ conduct is inci
dental to regulating the interstate marijuana market, ante,
at 22. Justice O’Connor explains why the majority’s rea
sons cannot be reconciled with our recent Commerce Clause
jurisprudence. The majority’s justifications, however, suffer
from even more fundamental flaws.
A
The majority holds that Congress may regulate intrastate
cultivation and possession of medical marijuana under the
Commerce Clause, because such conduct arguably has a
substantial effect on interstate commerce. The majority’s
decision is further proof that the “substantial effects” test is
a “rootless and malleable standard” at odds with the con
stitutional design. Morrison, supra, at 627 (Thomas, J.,
concurring).
The majority’s treatment of the substantial effects test is
rootless, because it is not tethered to either the Commerce
Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. Under the
Commerce Clause, Congress may regulate interstate com
merce, not activities that substantially affect interstate com
merce, any more than activities that do not fall within, but
that affect, the subjects of its other Article I powers.
Lopez, 514 U. S., at 589 (Thomas, J., concurring). Whatever
additional latitude the Necessary and Proper Clause affords,
supra, at 65–66, the question is whether Congress’ legisla
tion is essential to the regulation of interstate commerce it
self—not whether the legislation extends only to economic

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activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.
Supra, at 60–61; ante, at 37 (Scalia, J., concurring in
judgment).
The majority’s treatment of the substantial effects test is
malleable, because the majority expands the relevant con
duct. By defining the class at a high level of generality (as
the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana), the
majority overlooks that individuals authorized by state law
to manufacture and possess medical marijuana exert no de
monstrable effect on the interstate drug market. Supra, at
64. The majority ignores that whether a particular ac
tivity substantially affects interstate commerce—and thus
comes within Congress’ reach on the majority’s approach—
can turn on a number of objective factors, like state action
or features of the regulated activity itself. Ante, at 47–48
(O’Connor, J., dissenting). For instance, here, if California
and other States are effectively regulating medical mari
juana users, then these users have little effect on the inter
state drug trade.6
The substantial effects test is easily manipulated for an
other reason. This Court has never held that Congress can
6 Remarkably, the majority goes so far as to declare this question irrele
vant. It asserts that the CSA is constitutional even if California’s current
controls are effective, because state action can neither expand nor contract
Congress’ powers. Ante, at 29–30, n. 38. The majority’s assertion is mis
leading. Regardless of state action, Congress has the power to regulate
intrastate economic activities that substantially affect interstate com
merce (on the majority’s view) or activities that are necessary and proper
to effectuating its commerce power (on my view). But on either ap
proach, whether an intrastate activity falls within the scope of Congress’
powers turns on factors that the majority is unwilling to confront. The
majority apparently believes that even if States prevented any medical
marijuana from entering the illicit drug market, and thus even if there
were no need for the CSA to govern medical marijuana users, we should
uphold the CSA under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and
Proper Clause. Finally, to invoke the Supremacy Clause, as the majority
does, ante, at 29, n. 38, is to beg the question. The CSA displaces Califor
nia’s Compassionate Use Act if the CSA is constitutional as applied to
respondents’ conduct, but that is the very question at issue.

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regulate noneconomic activity that substantially affects in
terstate commerce. Morrison, 529 U. S., at 613 (“[T]hus far
in our Nation’s history our cases have upheld Commerce
Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where that
activity is economic in nature” (emphasis added)); Lopez,
supra, at 560. To evade even that modest restriction on fed
eral power, the majority defines economic activity in the
broadest possible terms as “ ‘the production, distribution,
and consumption of commodities.’ ” 7 Ante, at 25 (quoting
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 720 (1966)
(hereinafter Webster’s 3d)). This carves out a vast swath
of activities that are subject to federal regulation. See ante,
at 49–50 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). If the majority is to be
taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate
quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout
the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison’s assur
ance to the people of New York that the “powers delegated”
to the Federal Government are “few and defined,” while
those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.” The Fed
eralist No. 45, at 313.
Moreover, even a Court interested more in the modern
than the original understanding of the Constitution ought to
resolve cases based on the meaning of words that are actu
ally in the document. Congress is authorized to regulate
“Commerce,” and respondents’ conduct does not qualify
under any definition of that term.8 The majority’s opinion
7 Other dictionaries do not define the term “economic” as broadly as the
majority does. See, e. g., The American Heritage Dictionary of the Eng
lish Language 583 (3d ed. 1992) (defining “economic” as “[o]f or relating to
the production, development, and management of material wealth, as of a
country, household, or business enterprise” (emphasis added)). The ma
jority does not explain why it selects a remarkably expansive 40-year-old
definition.
8 See, e. g., id., at 380 (“[t]he buying and selling of goods, especially on a
large scale, as between cities or nations”); The Random House Dictionary
of the English Language 411 (2d ed. 1987) (“an interchange of goods or
commodities, esp. on a large scale between different countries . . . or be

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70 GONZALES v. RAICH
Thomas, J., dissenting
only illustrates the steady drift away from the text of the
Commerce Clause. There is an inexorable expansion from
“ ‘[c]ommerce,’ ” ante, at 5, to “commercial” and “economic”
activity, ante, at 23, and finally to all “production, distribu
tion, and consumption” of goods or services for which there is
an “established . . . interstate market,” ante, at 26. Federal
power expands, but never contracts, with each new locution.
The majority is not interpreting the Commerce Clause, but
rewriting it.
The majority’s rewriting of the Commerce Clause seems
to be rooted in the belief that, unless the Commerce Clause
covers the entire web of human activity, Congress will be
left powerless to regulate the national economy effectively.
Ante, at 18–19; Lopez, 514 U. S., at 573–574 (Kennedy, J.,
concurring). The interconnectedness of economic activity is
not a modern phenomenon unfamiliar to the Framers. Id.,
at 590–593 (Thomas, J., concurring); Letter from J. Madison
to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 3 The Founders’ Constitution
259–260 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). Moreover, the
Framers understood what the majority does not appear to
fully appreciate: There is a danger to concentrating too
much, as well as too little, power in the Federal Government.
This Court has carefully avoided stripping Congress of its
ability to regulate interstate commerce, but it has casually
allowed the Federal Government to strip States of their abil
ity to regulate intrastate commerce—not to mention a host
of local activities, like mere drug possession, that are not
commercial.
One searches the Court’s opinion in vain for any hint of
what aspect of American life is reserved to the States. Yet
this Court knows that “ ‘[t]he Constitution created a Federal
Government of limited powers.’ ” New York v. United
States, 505 U. S. 144, 155 (1992) (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft,
tween different parts of the same country”); Webster’s 3d 456 (“the ex
change or buying and selling of commodities esp. on a large scale and
involving transportation from place to place”).

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Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005) 71
Thomas, J., dissenting
501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991)). That is why today’s decision will
add no measure of stability to our Commerce Clause juris
prudence: This Court is willing neither to enforce limits on
federal power, nor to declare the Tenth Amendment a dead
letter. If stability is possible, it is only by discarding the
stand-alone substantial effects test and revisiting our defini
tion of “Commerce . . . among the several States.” Congress
may regulate interstate commerce—not things that affect it,
even when summed together, unless truly “necessary and
proper” to regulating interstate commerce.
B
The majority also inconsistently contends that regulating
respondents’ conduct is both incidental and essential to a
comprehensive legislative scheme. Ante, at 22, 24–25. I
have already explained why the CSA’s ban on local activity
is not essential. Supra, at 64. However, the majority fur
ther claims that, because the CSA covers a great deal of
interstate commerce, it “is of no moment” if it also “ensnares
some purely intrastate activity.” Ante, at 22. So long as
Congress casts its net broadly over an interstate market,
according to the majority, it is free to regulate interstate
and intrastate activity alike. This cannot be justified under
either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper
Clause. If the activity is purely intrastate, then it may not
be regulated under the Commerce Clause. And if the regu
lation of the intrastate activity is purely incidental, then
it may not be regulated under the Necessary and Proper
Clause.
Nevertheless, the majority terms this the “pivotal” dis
tinction between the present case and Lopez and Morrison.
Ante, at 23. In Lopez and Morrison, the parties asserted
facial challenges, claiming “that a particular statute or provi
sion fell outside Congress’ commerce power in its entirety.”
Ante, at 23. Here, by contrast, respondents claim only that
the CSA falls outside Congress’ commerce power as applied

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72 GONZALES v. RAICH
Thomas, J., dissenting
to their individual conduct. According to the majority,
while courts may set aside whole statutes or provisions, they
may not “excise individual applications of a concededly valid
statutory scheme.” Ibid.; see also Perez v. United States,
402 U. S. 146, 154 (1971); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183,
192–193 (1968).
It is true that if respondents’ conduct is part of a “class of
activities . . . and that class is within the reach of federal
power,” Perez, supra, at 154 (emphasis deleted), then re
spondents may not point to the de minimis effect of their
own personal conduct on the interstate drug market, Wirtz,
supra, at 196, n. 27. Ante, at 47 (O’Connor, J., dissenting).
But that begs the question at issue: whether respondents’
“class of activities” is “within the reach of federal power,”
which depends in turn on whether the class is defined at a
low or a high level of generality. Supra, at 61–62. If medi
cal marijuana patients like Monson and Raich largely stand
outside the interstate drug market, then courts must excise
them from the CSA’s coverage. Congress expressly pro
vided that if “a provision [of the CSA] is held invalid in one
or more of its applications, the provision shall remain in
effect in all its valid applications that are severable.” 21
U. S. C. § 901 (emphasis added); see also United States v.
Booker, 543 U. S. 220, 320–321, and n. 9 (2005) (Thomas, J.,
dissenting in part).
Even in the absence of an express severability provision,
it is implausible that this Court could set aside entire por
tions of the United States Code as outside Congress’ power
in Lopez and Morrison, but it cannot engage in the more
restrained practice of invalidating particular applications of
the CSA that are beyond Congress’ power. This Court has
regularly entertained as-applied challenges under constitu
tional provisions, see United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17,
20–21 (1960), including the Commerce Clause, see Katzen
bach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 295 (1964); Heart of Atlanta

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73 Cite as: 545 U. S. 1 (2005)
Thomas, J., dissenting
Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 249 (1964); Wick
ard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 113–114 (1942). There is no
reason why, when Congress exceeds the scope of its com
merce power, courts may not invalidate Congress’ overreach
ing on a case-by-case basis. The CSA undoubtedly regu
lates a great deal of interstate commerce, but that is no
license to regulate conduct that is neither interstate nor com
mercial, however minor or incidental.
If the majority is correct that Lopez and Morrison are
distinct because they were facial challenges to “particular
statute[s] or provision[s],” ante, at 23, then congressional
power turns on the manner in which Congress packages leg
islation. Under the majority’s reasoning, Congress could
not enact—either as a single-subject statute or as a separate
provision in the CSA—a prohibition on the intrastate posses
sion or cultivation of marijuana. Nor could it enact an intra
state ban simply to supplement existing drug regulations.
However, that same prohibition is perfectly constitutional
when integrated into a piece of legislation that reaches other
regulable conduct. Lopez, 514 U. S., at 600–601 (Thomas,
J., concurring).
Finally, the majority’s view—that because some of the
CSA’s applications are constitutional, they must all be con
stitutional—undermines its reliance on the substantial ef
fects test. The intrastate conduct swept within a general
regulatory scheme may or may not have a substantial effect
on the relevant interstate market. “[O]ne always can draw
the circle broadly enough to cover an activity that, when
taken in isolation, would not have substantial effects on com
merce.” Id., at 600 (Thomas, J., concurring). The breadth
of legislation that Congress enacts says nothing about
whether the intrastate activity substantially affects inter
state commerce, let alone whether it is necessary to the
scheme. Because medical marijuana users in California and
elsewhere are not placing substantial amounts of cannabis

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74 GONZALES v. RAICH
Thomas, J., dissenting
into the stream of interstate commerce, Congress may not
regulate them under the substantial effects test, no matter
how broadly it drafts the CSA.
* * *
The majority prevents States like California from devising
drug policies that they have concluded provide much-needed
respite to the seriously ill. It does so without any serious
inquiry into the necessity for federal regulation or the pro
priety of “displac[ing] state regulation in areas of traditional
state concern,” id., at 583 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The
majority’s rush to embrace federal power “is especially un
fortunate given the importance of showing respect for the
sovereign States that comprise our Federal Union.” United
States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, 532 U. S.
483, 502 (2001) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Our
federalist system, properly understood, allows California and
a growing number of other States to decide for themselves
how to safeguard the health and welfare of their citizens.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I respectfully dissent.