"The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) began raids in 2001 against patients using the drug and their caregivers in California, one of 11 states that legalized the use of marijuana for patients under a doctor's care. Among those arrested was Angel Raich, who has brain cancer, and Diane Monson, who grew cannabis in her garden to help alleviate chronic back pain.
A federal appeals court concluded use of medical marijuana was non-commercial, and therefore not subject to congressional oversight of "economic enterprise."
But lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department argued to the Supreme Court that homegrown marijuana represented interstate commerce, because the garden patch weed would affect "overall production" of the weed, much of it imported across American borders by well-financed, often violent drug gangs."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/06/sc...ana/index.html
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