Having reviewed the opinions of the Court, as I said, the majority opinion is political and the 3 dissenters -- including Roberts -- are not opposing states rights or the Constitution. The case has to do with compliance with the federal CSA.
Perhaps the CSA should be found un-Constitutional.
The situation comes down to an unsavory combination of unethical physicians and irresponsible individuals. The dissenters are correct.
They can still hang on to CSA. Interstate commerce clause...
I would expect them to tell Congress they have to define better the ideas of Legitimate medical use.
The CSA was fine, it just came down to Ashcroft not having the power to make that interpretation of it. I'm sure the fact that he didn't consult the Secretary of Health and Human Services as required by law didn't help. As a senator, he was behind a failed attempt to change it to cover assisted suicide, so this was an issue of one person trying to use law to push his personal beliefs.
The stated purpose of the law was to stop illicit trade in controlled drugs, to keep prescribed drugs out of the illegal drug trade. It also says that states have an interest and say in regulating their own medical practices. Ashcroft ignored the role the states play, in fact opposed a state's power to regulate its medical practice, and tried to extend the law into where it wasn't intended.
“No provision of this subchapter shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which that provision operates . . . to the exclusion of any State law on the same subjectmatter which would otherwise be within the authority of the State, unless there is a positive conflict between that provision . . . and that State law so that the two cannot consistently stand together.” §903.Since the law is about illicit trade and recreational use, there is no conflict. The only conflict is in Ashcroft's extended interpretation of the law.
The dissenters were wrong.